Grizzly Man
Here's a review for a movie practically nobody will see so I'll at least try to make it interesting.
The movie is called Grizzly Man because it's about this dude who likes to hang out with grizzlies during the summer year after year. I expected the grizzly man to look like Grizzly Adams but instead he looked like Carson from Queer Eye which was surprising for some reason. He didn't seem grizzly at all with his blonde hair and non-tough guy look. Plus his voice didn't seem to match his surroundings either. It was weirdly affected. All pixie or something. But whatever. He brought a camera to film the bears, himself and other random nature stuff. He got some good shots and displayed some very watchable warped passion which was fun to see.
At first the the dude seemed to be there only because he loved bears and nature. He wanted to pet the bears. Name the bears. Understand the bears. Stand up to the bears. Stand up for the bears. And be as close to he could to the bears. He seemed genuine (although showboaty on video by touching bears on the nose and stuff). It was sort of cool to see someone so into bears. But you had to wonder if this guy was just prancing around with a happy face while deathwishing.
(Are you bored of reading this yet? What if I told you that after like a decade of hanging out with bears one bear finally gets pissed off and mauls the grizzly man and eats him up chomp? Would that make things more interesting?)
As the movie plays out we get to know who this grizzly guy is and how he got to the point of hanging out with bears in the middle of Alaska. We find out that he was a guy who dropped out of school after drinking too much. And he tried to be an LA actor auditioning for the part of Woody on Cheers and 'coming in 2nd'. Finally he got frustrated with everything and it dawned on him to run away/prove himself special/find himself by hanging with the bears.
At this point my mood about this guy started to sway from nice nature boy into something that seemed different. His motivation became weirdly insincere. Behind the scenes he was dragging some poor girl around with him but refused to put her on camera because his 'image' was to be alone in the woods. And he'd do stuff like declare to the camera on a tripod how hard it is to be all alone in the woods.... while she's standing just off camera. (Btw- the girl behind the camera got killed too which was much sadder than the bear dude dying because she wasn't so into bears. She was just one of the girls who went along with stuff. PS. it's not a spoiler. they give it up right off.)
Ok I'll wrap this up because this review is going long. Bottom line is this is actually a pretty coolio movie to watch. The grizzly guy is sometimes annoying because it seems like so much it is secretly is about 'him' and not so much nature and bears. But if your weirdness makes you outwardly love nature and want to protect animals- that's fine with me. Unfortunately, the main lesson grizzly man gives us is 'Don't get near the friggin bears! Just leave em alone!'..... which is a point the grizzly man simply can't argue.
Three Good Things About this Movie
- There's an interview with a coroner that's friggin bizarre-ass riveting.
- It was fun looking at bears while trying to analyze grizzly dude.
- It makes you wonder.
Three Bad Things About this Movie
- We find out that the final mauling was actually recorded on audio but we
only get teased with it. They never play it for us. (I understand why they
didn't. But sorry. I'm morbid and wanted to hear it.)
- There were too many bugs flying around.
- Nature is disturbing.
All in all, this is a good video rental for sure. Nature is nice. And watching this movie steered everything way clear of boring (although it went long). It was coolio to see something so different. And I respected grizzly man's passion and love for the bears because they're great. But the reality is I would feel way differently about this flick if the dude didn't get eaten by a bear. Without that, you kinda just have some jerky bear loving hotshot running around in the woods using nature as an excuse to film himself...