Customer Reviews

Okie Noodling

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"I haven't seen anything as strange and compelling as Okie Noodling." --Chris Gore, Film Threat
Hey Chris Gore you sure must be leadin' a pretty sheltered life if this here is the strangest and most compelling thing you ever seen. But I'll agree it sure is pretty compelling and just a little strange. All these guys do is catch big ole catfish with their bare hands. It's a tradition and they call it "noodling". It looks like a lotta fun. I'm a documentary fan and love learning about people and culture. I'd recommend "Okie Noodling" to folks interested in seeing somethan they probably haven't, people that just enjoy a good documentary and those that like the outdoors, especially fishing.

This movie is AWESOME! I love watching the totally nuts things that humans will do. Loved it.

I knew little to nothing about noodling before haveing this movie. But now seeing how those guys go out and catch them 40-60 LB catfish, it is just so cool how they do it, and this DVD tells it all.

"Okie Noodling" is about men who enjoy wading into rivers and catching fish with their bare hands. A bit light, given the gravity of the subject, but fun nonetheless. There is nothing like the thrill of catching a huge catfish with your bare hands, and that's just what fishermen have been doing for thousands of years.
This is a documentary by Bradley Beesley, better known for his work on "The Flaming Lips," and whose music is featured here on the soundtrack of this too-short film.
The best part about this film is it is about noodling and real people and their pastime. Jerry Rider, David Baggett, Lee McFarlin, Red Baggett all share their noodling lives after initial reluctance to let Beesley film them at their favorite noodling spots. Whether for ridicule or for fear of giving away their locations is left unanswered, but the sincerity of these men and their sport bespeaks of the latter as the reason.
Which clearly demonstrates that noodling is a sport thrill beyond any other, and why it should be more popular.
Viewers learn that noodlers a) jump in a river where there are snakes, snapping turtles, and catfish, b) submerge in murky muddy water, c) reach into a male fish's hole where he is protecting his female's egg brood, d) get bitten by the fish, and then e) pull the fish out of the water.
Needless to say, it is the greatest thrill in the world, combining man against the unknown and under the deep Babylonian waters from which Ur and Abraham emerged. We reach back in to the womb and grab an alternate screaming reality from it. A monster.
This documentary does shows the good side of small-town, working-class white-male Americans - a group that receives little positive attention from the media and yet is time and again responsible for our safety and civilization and freedom that we enjoy.
There is little attempt to craft a dramatic narrative - most is the noodlers explaining why noodling is enjoyable, so this could have been edited better. The film's end is when Beesley sponsors the first-ever noodling competition and is tacked on and contrived. Beesley would have done better to explore noodling for profit in Cambodia (true!), the pirate noodlers in France's Tarn river (still sadly illegal), and noodling in the rest of the country whre it is practiced: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin.
In summary:
The Good Things: It is about noodling, Flaming Lips, authentic, accurate, respectful.
The Bad Things: too Oklahoma centered, not detailed enough, little historical context, too short.

I have read several reviews of this movie and they were all good. Since this type of movie, and subject, interests me, I was looking forward to it. Unfortunately, the movie was slow moving and quite boring. I've seen short clips on the catching of fish by hand that were more interesting than this. To me, the movie never had any momentum and was not that interesting. My recommendation would be to avoid it.