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Nestled up in the mountains of the Great Northwest sits the small town of Everett, Washington, population 97,000. It is home to blue collar workers, bears and a host of natural beauty. This tranquil locale also plays home to one of the oddest sporting events you will ever see - The Outdoorsmen Championship.
Invented 14 years ago by a group of high school buddies from Everett, the Outdoorsmen Championship is an event that allows men to be men and boys to be boys. In an effort to stay in touch with their competitive nature and enjoy the camaraderie of friendship, these men created a competition that combines physical challenges with beer, "the great equalizer." And lots of it. Consumed the only way it should be during strenuous athletic competition, fast. Very fast. The sacred ritual has long been a secret amongst these friends, one not shared with the outside world, but writer/director Scott Allen Perry followed them up into the woods for last year's competition to chronicle the event that must be seen to be believed. The result, his sometimes touching and completely hilarious documentary "The Outdoorsmen: Blood, Sweat & Beers."
And this Thursday you can have the good fortune of attending the premiere at the Alamo Drafthouse South, where the filmmaker will be in attendance. Get your tickets now, cause it's gonna sell out.
The director uses the first 20 minutes of the film to give some exposition regarding the characters and the history of the event - who these men are and what the event has come to mean to them. The back-story is informative but shies away from being sentimental or schlocky, even when discussing some rather sad details of a few of the men's lives. But he brings us into their lives, allows us to understand that these men need this weekend of physical competition and alcohol-fueled shenanigans. It is an escape from their somber daily existences of 9-5 jobs and child raising; a way to dodge the perceived blade of emasculation.
But once in the mountains, the "newbies" and "veterans" alike have one thing on the mind. Well, three actually. And they are not jobs, family and responsibilities. Beer. Competition. Friendship. That is all.
The men pair off at random into teams for the weekend's competition and spend the first evening pounding beers and telling stories around the fire pit. And as the morning comes and the "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies" serves as the soundtrack to their dreary wake from slumber, there is only one thing to do - drink more beer. The next 24 hours is filled with excruciating events such as the Beer to River Run, Dead Man's Carry (an especially brutal event that consists of racing with your teammate on your back, after chugging beers of course), the Log Carry and the Obstacle Course.
After each event, the winning team gets a chance to score an extra point by chugging a bonus beer. The bonus beer must be consumed in under eight seconds, a time that is shortened to seven seconds following lunch, which we can only assume was more beer.
We could not decide what we found to be the most compelling - the commitment to beer guzzling, the intense fire of competition or the brotherhood of the competitors. The film offers a rare look into those small acts of ritual that we generally keep to ourselves. It is an hysterical portrait of oversized boys looking to recapture, or maybe hold on to, their youth. Their knees slowly deteriorating, their backs bending with age, and their hairlines receding, these men remain intense competitors with strong wills and even stronger friendships, formed decades ago and buttressed one weekend every year in the beer-soaked and blood-stained hills of Washington. They are the Outdoorsmen.
We suggest you get a few of your close friends and head down to the Alamo South this Thursday for the premiere of the documentary that left Austin Film Festival attendees rolling in the aisles last Fall. Be ready to laugh and, by all means, be prepared to down a bucket - or four - of beer.
The Outdoorsmen: Blood, Sweat & Beers
Premiere (with filmmaker in attendance)
Thursday, February 9th
9:45pm
Alamo Drafthouse South LamarTICKETS
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I saw this movie at the film fest. It was hilarious. I reccomend it for anoyne who wants to have a good laugh and some former meatheaded hgih school football types do some crazy sh**.
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