Life After the Navigator (2020)

Movies & Sex

Moderators: AArdvark, Ice Cream Jonsey

User avatar
Flack
Posts: 8822
Joined: Tue Nov 18, 2008 3:02 pm
Location: Oklahoma
Contact:

Life After the Navigator (2020)

Post by Flack »

Maybe you remember Flight of the Navigator, the 1986 Disney movie where a young boy ("David") takes a ride aboard a UFO and disappears for eight years. Maybe you liked it enough to wonder, "what happened to the people who made that film?" Some of the actors went on to do other things, some didn't, but the real story here is the star of the film, Joey Cramer, who played David Freeman. When the documentary opens, Cramer is talking into the camera, hoping to make parole.

Joey Cramer grew up as an only child in a single family home with his mother. (Once, at the age of 20, Cramer contacted his father for some life advice. "Kill yourself" was the response.) By the time Cramer made Flight of the Navigator he was already stealing things and getting in trouble with the law. The documentary explores Cramer's time in and out of prison and his drug abuse, which started with smoking weed with his mom and ended as a heroin addict. After multiple failed attempts at rehab, Cramer decided to rob a bank -- not for the money, but just to go back to prison where he could sober up, have a warm bed, and get three meals a day.

Somewhere in there is a little about Flight of the Navigator. They talk about the design of the ship and how some of the special effects were done, but by and large it's Cramer's show -- the journey of the Navigator, so to speak. Some of the other actors get a minute or two of screen time and if you enjoyed the movie you'll get a kick out of the reunion, but mostly this is the story of a young boy who, both in a film and in real life, took an unbelievable journey.
"I failed a savings throw and now I am back."