December 28, 2005

 

Da Bears

So I've now seen both Grizzly Man and Project Grizzly, which makes a great themed double feature. The theme, of course, being "kooks with grizzly fixations."

I've got more to say about them both, but it's still simmering; my muse just shoots me a withering glare and tells me to stay the hell out of the kitchen till it's done. But they're both really good flicks in their own way, and, in my head at least, actually mesh together really well, all poetical-like.

Nope, not done yet. Maybe in awhile.

posted by Gar @ 4:37 PM
Some of Troy's inventions, if indeed he did invent them himself, have obvious usefulness.

I'm still skeptical about the fire paste, and as far as the "angel light" goes, I've never actually seen that demonstrated in a way that convinces me that it actually works as advertised.
 
The urge to make a politically related analogy regarding Grizzly Man is irresistable.

I liken these two folks, loosely, to folks who are against the WOT. Somewhere inside their brain is the thought that they don't need to carefully consider the defense of America, since "they" don't really want to hurt us anyway and if they do, it must be our own fault. Whether you are for or against the WOT, the fact that some crazy people want to blow you up and shout "Allah Ackbar!" for ten minutes straight while dancing around your corpse http://www.compfused.com/directlink/391/ should give you a clue that you need to carefully consider what this war is about, who the combatants are, and which side(s) you are going to take. I'm quite certain that out of the 3000 some odd people that died in the WTC, some of them were anti-Israel, anti-military or anti-Bush. But that really didn't matter one iota to a bunch of madmen who had just hijacked a plane and were convinced they were on their way to heaven.

Of course, a bear is not a terrorist. Bears generally have good reasons for what they do. But I think the mentality that got Timothy Treadwell and Amie Huguenard killed is akin to the mentality of those who just don't understand that they are being threatened and their political position doesn't enter into it.

They are bears and you are soft, pink and defenseless.

But in reality, I'm sure Treadwell and Huguenard were fully aware of how dangerous the bears could be. If they weren't they were insane. But they let down their guard one time.

One time is all it took. There's a lesson there for everyone, I think.

I think a lot of people would benefit from seeing this film, then getting to listen to the recording of Treadwell's and Huguenard's last moments. A similar benefit relating to the WOT can be derived by going here:

http://www.rememberthe11th.com/100/

There. My assignment to "compare and contrast Grizzly Man with the War on Terror" is finished, and I got over the 300 word minimum.
 
To extend the cheerful idiocy of this analogy with further deep political commentary, Troy Hurtubise's Project Grizzly represents the alternate viewpoint that if one is not in favor of completely ignoring the global struggle against extremist bears, that therefore one accepts that constructing a giant and largely impractical suit of armor that will protect against bears so long as one does not intend to actually maintain the mobility necessary for credible projection of force is the only possible response, and, indeed, that criticising the Ursus Mark VI places one in suspicion of bear sympathizing.

The bearlovers, as personified in Treadwell, have a higher-octaved voice, a tendency to ramble around what should be points that should be easy enough to communicate simply, and is not really very respected, much less beloved, even on his side. On the other hand, you have in Hurtubise a folksy, fit, charming fellow who by and large people want to have a beer with, eh. Also, his approach generates more entertaining footage and newsbytes of the kind that talk radio can get firmly behind.
 
I guess I just want to hear that tape recording. Possibly I'm motivated by the same inner sadism that makes me do Google searches on "saddam torture shredding machine."

Look at the publicity "Grizzly Man" got, then compare and contrast it to the publicity for "Project Grizzly." It occurs to me that Troy could get a little more publicity for himself and his inventions if he were to, say, coat himself with the fire paste then light himself on fire ala "Jackass."

And we all know how that sort of thing ends up. Yep, it's just another instance of lowbrow humor akin to the Islamofascist hilarity that resulted from the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

"Now watch carefully, I can only do this once!"

-Red Siegfried
"Proving once again that nothing is so serious you can't laugh about it since 1972."
 
Incidentally, for those who haven't already noticed, my inner muse is more like some kind of meth-addled naked man who wanders into a public school screaming something about the CIA and ley lines. In other words, little capacity for self censorship, hence connections, relevant, correct or not, fly fast and free, and must be captured and analyzed for future generations, especially on other peoples' blogs. Booyah!
 
As John the Baptist once said to Jesus, "Hey, that's one hell of an act? Whaddya call it?" And Jesus spake, "The Elect!" (It sounds better in Aramaic.)

Project Grizzly could definitely have used better PR, but part of the reason Grizzly Man got wider rep is that it's a much better film. It's a film, while Project Grizzly is just a flick, if you can dig it. The one was made by this crazy impassioned lifelong director (Herzog, cool guy, "the harmony of nature is the harmony of mass murder." Dude knows the SKOR of the giant uglybeautiful carbon-cycling death-engine that is what nature is). It's just more polished.

I think he would've made a much more kickass Project Grizzly as well, actually, from what I know of his film history, dude has a fascination with obsessed subjects, his "favorite" actor in his non-docu films was completely batfuck insane, etc. When the revolution comes, I'll finance him doing Project Grizzly II. For that matter, I'll finance the Ursus Mark VIII suit, or Mark IX, whatever model's Troy's up to these days. (Last I've been able to google, he made the Mark VII, which still wasn't bear-tested with him in it inasmuch as the bear that looked at it initially was just freaked out and wanted nothing to do with it. Which in its own way is an even stronger armor than titanium-plastic-chainmail-kevlar-ballistic-rubber-laminates!
 
Post a Comment

<< Home

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?