Film & TV Lunch Club: June 2024 - Camp Out
Captain Fantastic, Third Star, Happiness for Beginners
Happy Pride Month! However you identify, I hope you live proudly and celebrate the month in a way that makes you feel safe, accepted and loved.
It’s a bit of a tenuous link, and if I’m being honest it wasn’t intentional, but I love that this month’s theme of Camp Out kind of ties into Pride and the LGBTQ+ community. If any of this month’s camping-themed films cross into queer cinema territory, it will just be a welcome coincidence - National Camping Month and Pride Month might just be the crossover we didn’t know we needed! I wonder if Priscilla (the bus from The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert) is close enough to a camper van to consider? Answers on a postcard, please, and if you have any Campy Camp Out recommendations, please send them my way.
If you did fancy some Pride themed films, you can check out the Club Vault post from June 2020:
When I was first thinking about what might make it onto this month’s list, the films that came to mind were The Blair Witch Project, Nomadland and Wild - all very different films, as far as the camping element is concerned. Is camping a lifestyle, a type of holiday or a necessary evil?
Films like Wild and Into The Wild are all about testing one’s physical and mental stamina, and it forces the viewer to consider how long they would last in the wilderness. Other films use camping as a way to explore untouched landscapes just beyond civilisation, to adventure into the wild and spend time in nature as a remedy to all the nonsense of modern life. Leave No Trace and Captain Fantastic are two excellent films that explore this wonderfully, and the latter just happens to be one of my favourites, ever.
There is something special about ‘setting up camp’ - a temporary home and mini community with minimal access to gadgets and luxury, and (in an ideal fictional world) with the added comfort that you get to sleep next to your mates, swim in creeks, toast marshmallows, and sing by the fire...
That said, it’s not all innocent fun, and isolating yourself in the middle of nowhere without any resources also lends itself very well to terror and mishap so it’s no wonder the woods are often a setting of choice for horror. The wholesomeness had to stop somewhere. I hope you enjoy this month’s picks…
🎞 June Selection 🎞
Captain Fantastic (2016; Dir. Matt Ross)
In the forests of the Pacific Northwest, a father devoted to raising his six kids with a rigorous physical and intellectual education is forced to leave his paradise and enter the world, challenging his idea of what it means to be a parent.
Stream on the Sundance Now Prime channel or rent/buy through Apple, Amazon, Sky and other online stores.
Third Star (2010; Dir. Hattie Dalton)
James and his three closest lifelong friends go on an ill-advised trip to the stunning coastal area of Barafundle Bay in West Wales. What follows is a touching and comical adventure dealing with friendship, heroism and love.
Rent or buy on Apple TV.Happiness for Beginners (2023; Dir. Vicky Wight)
Helen signs up for a wilderness survival course, a year after getting divorced. She discovers through this experience that sometimes, you have to get really lost in order to find yourself.
Stream on Netflix.
🎬 The Long List: Optional Extras 🎬
Other notable films suggested for the theme:
Stand By Me - A writer recounts a childhood journey with his friends to find the body of a missing boy.
Brokeback Mountain - Ennis and Jack are two shepherds who develop a sexual and emotional relationship. Their relationship becomes complicated when both of them get married to their respective girlfriends.
The Blair Witch Project - Three film students vanish after traveling into a Maryland forest to film a documentary on the local Blair Witch legend, leaving only their footage behind.
Nomadland - A woman in her sixties, after losing everything in the Great Recession, embarks on a journey through the American West, living as a van-dwelling modern-day nomad.
Wild - A chronicle of one woman's 1,100-mile solo hike undertaken as a way to recover from a recent personal tragedy.
Into The Wild - After graduating from Emory University, top student and athlete Christopher McCandless abandons his possessions, gives his savings to charity and hitchhikes to Alaska to live in the wilderness.
The Great Outdoors - A Chicago man and his family go camping with his obnoxious brother-in-law.
Moonrise Kingdom - Two 12-year-olds, who live on an island, fall in love with each other and elope into the wilderness. While people set out on a search mission, a violent storm approaching them catches their attention.
Meatballs - Wacky hijinks of counselors and campers at a less-than-average summer camp.
Deliverance - Intent on seeing the Cahulawassee River before it's dammed and turned into a lake, outdoor fanatic Lewis Medlock takes his friends on a canoeing trip they'll never forget into the dangerous American back-country.
Where the Wild Things Are - Yearning for escape and adventure, a young boy runs away from home and sails to an island filled with creatures that take him in as their king.
Race For Your Life, Charlie Brown - The Peanuts gang goes to summer camp, and they participate in a river-raft race against some cheating bullies.
Without a Paddle - After their friend dies, three men decide to fulfill their childhood dream by going on a camping expedition for the lost D. B. Cooper bounty, with calamitous results.
Cub/Welp - Over-imaginative 12 year-old Sam heads off to the woods to summer scout camp with his pack convinced he will encounter a monster...and he does.
Carry On Camping - Farcical misadventures by guests in an English holiday centre.
Grizzly Man - A devastating and heart-rending take on grizzly bear activists Timothy Treadwell and Amie Huguenard, who were killed in October of 2003 while living among grizzly bears in Alaska.
Hunt for the Wilderpeople - A national manhunt is ordered for a rebellious kid and his foster uncle who go missing in the wild New Zealand bush.
Leave No Trace - A father and his seventeen-year-old daughter are living an ideal existence in a vast urban park in Portland, Oregon when a small mistake derails their lives forever.
🔜 Next Month 🔜
The theme for JULY will be LET THE GAMES BEGIN since the Summer Olympic Games (the Limpy Gs) start next month and will be hosted just across the Channel in Paris! Feel free to give me your thoughts about this post or the next one in the comments or on Insta! I’d love to know what you’ve been watching.