Ah, summercamp ... the place where parents send children to gain independence, commune with nature, engage in healthy outdoor activities, and make new friends. When you think about it, summer camp is really the perfect setting for a documentary: The socialization, the bullying, the friendships and alliances, the tug of freedom and beckoning adulthood against the hollow ache of homesickness. Toss it all in with some nasty-looking camp food, add some kids with engaging stories and diverse personalities, and you've got a brilliant recipe for a light-hearted but touching documentary film.

Summercamp! is a documentary about, well, kids at summercamp and what summer camp is like -- the good, the bad and the ugly. Last night Cinematical's Scott Weinberg and Netscape anchor (and our awesome video producer for the Toronto International Film Festival) Alexia Prichard headed over to the Summercamp! premiere party, where The Flaming Lips, who provided most of the music for the film, were performing. Scott managed to catch up with The Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne to talk to him about the music The Lips did for the film. Check it out, over on Netscape.

Summercamp! is a fun documentary—not dense with thought-provoking material, but the kind of movie where you just relax your brain and let the images and sounds wash over you. At times it feels like a feature-length Flaming Lips video, which is not at all a bad thing, except I kept wondering if Wayne Coyne would pop out from behind a tree and start somersaulting or building sandcastles. Co-director Bradley Beesley has directed several Flaming Lips videos, as well as the documentary about the band, Fearless Freaks.

Summercamp! follows a few kids and counselors around a summer nature camp in Wisconsin. A lot of the film's appeal is nostalgia: the campers sing the same songs and do the same things most of us did in summer camp, whether we were at a Scout camp or a Bible camp or a weight-loss camp. (Although none of the campers in this film had to suffer through a summer of leftover sun-melted Girl Scout cookies like I did when I was a camp counselor.) The gorgeously saturated colors throughout the film support that feeling of nostalgia.