Author: Joel Fisher

Ricky Ringer has been riding bulls since he was seventeen. Now as he’s approaching 40 it seems like the best years of his riding career are behind him and he has the injuries to prove it. Despite his mother’s disapproval, Ricky started riding at an early age and his passion drove him so much that he left him in order to follow his dreams.

However, it seems that although his mother is aware of her son’s passions, she still does not approve and it’s taking an emotional toll. Not to mention the prospect that Ricky Jr. is following in his dad’s footsteps and their close relationship may be influencing Ricky Jr. to do what his father could not by winning a championship.

Ride Till I Die is a documentary about a seasoned rider and the world of the rodeo that has been his entire life. Following Ricky and his family over three years, the filmmakers are by his side every step of the way as he talks about his life, his loved ones and the many dangers he has faced.

However, Ricky wouldn’t have it any other way and he says he wants to ride until he dies, although if he doesn’t make a decision soon on where his life goes, he may be right.

Ride Till I Die is clearly a documentary for the fans of the sport and maybe even fans of Ricky himself. So, although the documentary may have a niche audience, it portrays Ricky Sr. as a great sporting hero, up there with other sporting heroes in bigger sports like baseball and American football. It unflinching shows the dangers and the incredible feats the Ricky has to put his body through in order to ride. As Ricky says it’s like a dance and sometimes it seems almost balletic.

However, Ride Till I Die may not convince any people who don’t know anything about the sport and it won’t win anybody over who knows about the darker side. This is because this is a biopic documentary and whereas there are issues of animal cruelty, they are never raised in favour of slow-motion hero shots of Ricky as he rides.

Whatever side you fall on over rodeos and bull riding, it’s hard to deny how proud Ricky is of his life and his accomplishments and that’s hard to take away from anyone.

Alison Brownmoore is a creative director that has been BAFTA nominated for her work. Her son, Oscar was also diagnosed with autism and through her experiences, she learned about the way that people would normally react to her son’s diagnosis as something that is negative. However, through interactions with her son she learnt that being autistic isn’t a negative thing at all and that often the media portrays autism as something to be mourned rather than something to embrace.

As Oscar says, ‘people need to stop thinking about autism as a disability and start thinking of it as a new ability’. This inspired Alison to make her own, deeply personal and loving tribute to her son and to anybody else with autism who feel that they’re being singled out because they’re different.

The Amazing Adventures of Awesome is a short animation made by Alison Brownmoore that tells the story of a little girl who has autism and is seen as different. However, as her story unfolds it shows that being different can be awesome.

Hand drawn and without dialogue, Brownmoore’s story comes to life with simple and yet beautiful animation which shows an autistic girl overwhelmed with the world around her who is able to go into places of pure imagination. Something that perhaps we all wish in some way that we could do so easily.

However, this is thankfully not a film like Music, Sia’s much maligned feature directorial debut. Instead, it comes from a real place with a lot of love and understanding. That’s because the story is coming from a parent of an autistic child. Whereas in some cases the story may be about how the difficult it is for a parent to connect with their child who is seen as different, here Brownmoore shows that any autistic child should be accepted and loved such as any other.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyqXDq_wqe0

It feels like rather than being scared for the future of her son or how he will manage, Brownmoore is in awe of her son and loves that he has something so different that may very well change the world.

Perceptions of autism are slowly changing and more needs to be done to get the message across, but with The Amazing Adventures of Awesome and the people it may reach, then it’s a good start. 

Harris (Dermot Mulroney) is a CIA interrogator at an agency black site. After an interrogation goes wrong though, he finds himself the scapegoat for what happened and has a target put on his head as a team led by Kavinsky (Adan Canto) closes in on his location to take him in.

In Harris’ team are Bill (Jason Isaacs) and Visser (Annie Ilonzeh) who work under him and are good at what they do. However, soon the team start questioning their orders as Harris is talking to his superior, Olsen (Mel Gibson) which leads to conflicting results for both teams.

Agent Game is a CIA thriller directed by Grant S. Johnson and is his first action movie. Set in a world where nobody can really trust each other, Johnson sets up the players and lets them move about as they find their strings being pulled by the mysterious Olsen. Unfortunately, there does seem to be a certain kind of audience to which Agent Game is trying to appeal and the pull of names such as Mel Gibson and Jason Isaacs just may not cut it.

The movie feels like it’s something out of the early 2000’s where there were plenty of real-world political rivalries and suspicions thrown about left right and centre. Something which may not work all that well today, but for those looking for something trying to be Homeland or Jack Ryan then they may not completely switch off.

Also, although there are still terrorists in real life, the narrative of the CIA interrogating somebody for information only to find his superiors are playing a more sinister game, feels similarly played out and unoriginal.

Fans of Mel Gibson and Jason Isaacs may be in for a disappointment as well as neither really seem to be doing much and the latter isn’t of much use by the end of the movie. In fact, it wouldn’t be at all surprising if none of the rest of the cast even knew that Gibson was in the movie at all. This is evident as he mostly talks over the phone to other characters. Also, even the rare scenes that are shared with other actors could have easily been edited to look like they were both in the same room.

Agent Game is quite dull, generic and feels like it’s from a time gone by. There are a couple of twists, but they too seem predictable and a film that was made because it had been a while since the last one.

Abby Evans (Fatima Ptacek) is a bit of a rebel. She listens to rock music, gets her nose pierced because she thinks it looks cool and dyes her hair strange colours. Besides that, she does everything else that a typical teenage girl would do. She gets into fights with her friends, argues with her mother and does anything she can to find out who she really is in the world.

Then one day she meets Dave (Kane Richotte) and he has the potential to change her life forever. Dave is the singer in a band who find themselves stuck in Abby’s sleepy town. However, as soon as he sees her, Dave sees that Abby is so much more than a simple, but alternative teenage girl. This leaves Abby with a choice as to whether she should follow her heart or her head.

Coast is a teenage melodrama directed by Jessica Hester and Derek Schweickart in their feature debut and written by Cindy Kitagawa in her feature writing debut. However, although this teenage coming of age drama is something that often speaks to many teenagers all over the world, it may have an unintentionally wider appeal.

Being set in a small town, the audience may start to wonder where or even when Coast is set. That’s because besides a brief glimpse of a cellphone, wireless headphones and a very brief mention of Harry Styles, Coast could have easily been set in the Nineties.

Whereas this forgoes the cliches of social media, self-obsessed teenagers who are overwhelmed with body issues, it does unfortunately open it up to other cliches. So, where Abby is living her best life, there are moments such as random arguments and heavy-handed bits of teenage melodrama which could appeal as much to teenage girls now as it would to their mothers.

Abby’s characterisation is also a cliché all of her own where one minute she’s skateboarding and listening to music while wearing her cap backwards and the next she’s fawning over a lead singer in a band.

However, there’s also a different issue with the involvement of Melissa Leo because if it were another actress, it may be excused, but Leo’s involvement has very little to do with the rest of the film and could have been excluded entirely. It seems that Coast is trying to appeal to as many teenage girls as possible, but doing so by throwing everything in at once and sees what sticks.

Little (Zhaila Farmer) and her mother, Nikki (Celine Held) live in the underground tunnels of New York City. They get on the best they can and they have a close bond besides their unusual circumstances.

Little is only five years old, so she stays close to her mother and obeys her when she’s told never to go ‘topside’. However, one day when Little overhears something she shouldn’t, her mum takes her topside while she tries to get away from real danger.

Topside is a realistic drama written and directed by Logan George and Celine Held. Showing a side of New York which is rarely seen, Topside attempts to show how a homeless mother deals with raising her daughter in extraordinary situation.

A mixture of Good Time and Room, there’s a strong onscreen bond between mother and daughter which drives the emotions of the film. However, where Topside tries to show the gritty underbelly of The Big Apple, it seems more interested in showing how dark it can go.

As mother and daughter go on the run, they go to a man called Les (Jared Abrahamson), an old acquaintance of Nikki’s but it soon shows what kind of relationship they have and Nikki feels that her daughter should be somewhere better. Whilst attempting to show something real and authentic, it also seems that this is where perhaps the story stops and the egos of the directors take over.

For a relatively short film that barely reaches ninety minutes, it seems that an hour into the film, the writer/directors have said all they want to say and it leaves Held being the focus of the rest of the film. Giving her a chance to show her anguish and despair as her life crumbles around her.

Also, despite daring to show what it’s like to be homeless in New York, there never seems to be a deep enough insight which makes their experiences feel authentic. Farmer is very young, but gives a good performance and is shown to follow direction well and Held is also particularly good, showing the warmth that only a mother could. However, perhaps the message shouldn’t be ‘aren’t you glad this isn’t you?’