Eastern Rises is old news. It wasn't Felt Soul Media's first film. I can't say if it was their best (I haven't seen them all). In the months that followed its release at last year's Telluride Mountain Film Festival, in May, it was all the rage. But it was released over a year ago, so why talk about it now?

For one thing, that rage was well deserved. Eastern Rises is a trip-diary of sorts, detailing the excursion of a group of fly fisherman as they travel across Russia to chase trout on the Kamchatka peninsula. Not only does the film offer up an amazing view of what are inarguably the world's best trout fishing rivers, it is simply a great film. The cinematography is excellent, the characters are interesting and often quite funny, and Ben Knight's witty narration never gets old. Showing someone who doesn't understand fanatical fly fishing Eastern Rises is so much more effective than stumbling while trying to find the words to describe our shared obsession.

So I find myself watching it. And watching it. And watching it.

My wife used to pull this sort of behavior with some crappy movie with Salma Hayek and the on-again off-again cocaine abuser from Friends, who's name eludes me at the moment. Every couple weeks or so, I'd come home and find her watching it, and say something like "seriously, you're watching this shit again?" Now that's me. It's kind of embarrassing, really.

Surprisingly enough, I keep running into fly fisherman that haven't seen Eastern Rises yet. That's why I'm bothering to write this. If you haven't seen it, you must. Make it your first order of business to order this film from Felt Soul Media's web site. Unfortunately, you can't get it from Netflix or the like (if anyone knows some place to get any of the Felt Soul films in a streaming capacity, please let me know, I keep neglecting to get online and order up their whole catalog), so you'll have to pony up and order a hard copy.

Check out the nice long trailer above. Great soundtrack, too.