www.TheBumsWillAlwaysLose.com

So, what you'll find below are a random collection of "movie reviews". But more accurately speaking they are our rarely serious, perhaps comical, and always entertaining banter about movies you may be familiar with.

INTO THE WILD

Brien West is the Senior Writer for:

thebumswillalwayslose.com

Ah, the touching tale of a man who wandered off into the woods and died.  Again, I don’t mean to sound calloused, but Christopher McCandless was a bum, and he lost.  I understand he has a following, and I can almost get on board with his existential quest for living in the wild, but there are just a few issues that bother me greatly about this film.  I will begin with the fact that existentialism is limited without one’s existence, so he kind of nixed that philosophical aspect fairly quickly.  If you don’t exist, it’s a little difficult to explore the essence of existing.  I’ll rephrase:  you can’t discover the meaning of life by jumping off a figurative thousand-foot cliff.

Christopher McCandless made Timothy Treadwell look like a genius in comparison.  Hey, I’ve been to Healy, Alaska; you don’t need to go anywhere to get away from society if you live in Healy.  Yes, the 49^th State Brewery is a wonderful establishment, and I even got to ride a mechanical bear further up the road.  But I just looked up the 2010 Census population for Healy:  1,021 people.  As opposed to doing what McCandless did, he probably could have made a life in a remote area, camp on occasion in Denali, and ride a mechanical bear.

So what was annoying about this film, and how lucky did this kid get:

#1  You didn’t even have the right boots when you got dropped off before your adventure.  Some guy in a truck had to lend you a pair just so that you could even make it.  This is a sad start.

#2  You survived a stream that you weren’t supposed to survive.  That’s why you couldn’t get out; you couldn’t get across the stream again.  That’s why reportedly four hikers who strangely revered your trek have tried to copy you and died because they tried to cross that very same stream.  That’s why the state of Alaska had to reportedly send out helicopters to airlift the real bus out of there, because it was supposedly considered an attractive nuisance.  You were never supposed to make it across the stream in the first place.

#3  You would never have survived without an abandoned bus you found.  Which is kind of funny; you wanted to leave all of society behind, but it was society that actually constructed that bus that bailed your ass out when you we’re probably going to die in a few days without it.  20^th century technology and factory workers created a structure for you, and you’re probably worm food rather quickly if you hadn’t discovered that bus.  I guess this social and industrial world sucks.

#4  You finally killed an animal.  Yay!  Except you don’t know how to treat and store the meat.  You’ve gotten too many gifts at this point and now you’re being exposed.

#5  Good plant?  Bad plant?  Boom, outta here.

Despite my critique of McCandless himself, “Into the Wild” doesn’t necessarily qualify as a bad movie.  Sean Penn does a nice job of directing.  It was great to see Hal Holbrook again, since I don’t think I had personally seen him in a movie since “Fletch Lives.”  It was good to see Vince Vaughn back in a dramatic role, which he actually does very well (he was good in “Return To Paradise”).  Throw in Marcia Gay Harden, William Hurt, and Catherine Keener into the mix, and it becomes a pretty impressive ensemble.

Again, it’s the subject matter.  If you want to play with nature, you might get your ass whipped.  I think they used to have these people called “settlers” who came to North America once upon a time.  They figured out that the elements were harsh and built shelters, learned how to hunt and farm, or maybe even communicated with their neighbors to try to establish trade and cooperation amongst themselves (my history is a little fuzzy these days, but I’m 99% sure I’m right on this one).  I think survival was difficult as their life expectancy rates were extraordinarily low <cough, cough>, and as they shared their knowledge and perhaps even formed companionship with one another, they managed to extend their lives on Earth.  Progress in science and medicine emerged, and some modicum of civilization ensued.

So my condolences to the McCandless family.  To paraphrase Vincent Vega in “Pulp Fiction” to Jules when Jules decided he was going to go wander the Earth:  “ . . . so you’re going to become a bum.”  Look, I’m all for the hippie lifestyle.  If you want to go join a commune and abandon your possessions, you have my endorsement.  If you want to go on a trip to Walden Pond, be my guest; but have an exit strategy.  What I don’t encourage is flaking out and floating around the woods like a bum, since it could end poorly.

Oh, and don’t tell me I need to read the book.  This is a movie review, not a book review.  I’m sure the book is better.  The book is always better.  I’m not reading the freaking book.

GRIZZLY MAN

 Brien West is Senior Writer for:

thebumswillalwayslose.com

This is the perfect place to start with the theme of this website.  If you have a problem with my insensitivity, so be it.  But Timothy Treadwell was a bum, and he lost.  I feel bad for his girlfriend who died, but I don’t think a grown man should have been running around with grizzly bears and expect a different ending.  I'm not the only one with this opinion.

Here are some in-movie quotes to illustrate that I'm not alone with my assessment.

Helicopter pilot (Sam Egli):  “. . . He got what he was asking for, he got what he deserved, in my opinion . . . I think the only reason that Treadwell lasted as long in the game as he did was that the bears probably thought there was something wrong with him, like he was mentally retarded, or something . . .”

Museum Curator (Sven Haakanson, Ph. D., Alutiiq):  “. . . To me, it was the ultimate of, um, disrespecting the bear and what the bear represents . . . I think he did more damage to the bears than he did [trying to save them], because when you habituate them to humans, they think all humans are safe.”

It’s not just these two quotes that have me convinced.  It’s that he walked around L.A. faking an Australian accent for a while.  It’s the Prince Valiant hairstyle.  It’s the fact he thought he was saving bears from poachers on an already protected refuge, although there really hadn’t been any reports of poaching going on in the previous 20 years in that area before he arrived.

There are a couple of reasons why this is one of my favorite documentaries (no, I’m not some evil freak who delights in the demise of others).  First of all, Werner Herzog is an excellent documentarian.  "Cave of Forgotten Dreams" did little for me in terms of the subject matter, but it was well-made.  "My Best Fiend:  Klaus Kinski" is phenomenal, and if you haven’t seen it, run to your laptop and order it immediately.  However, the second reason why I love "Grizzly Man" is I get the sense that Werner Herzog had no idea what he was getting himself into.  In other words, within the first few minutes of the documentary, Timothy Treadwell does not come off as this rough-and-tumble outdoorsman, or even an environmentalist studying the bears scientifically.  Right away, you can tell Treadwell’s a fish out of water and doesn’t really know what he’s doing.  I think what happened is Werner Herzog heard about this story of a man who had been living with grizzly bears and trying to save them, and purchased the rights to the film already recorded by Timothy Treadwell:  “Sweet!  Half of my work has been done for me!  I’ll just do some editing and some interviews!”  Then Werner started watching the Treadwell film and said to himself, “Oh, crap!  This guy’s a kook!  Uh . . . well . . . I already bought the rights to this footage, so we might as well use it and try to spin it a little into a documentary.  That really backfired.”   I’ve never confirmed my suspicions about this theory, nor do I know if Herzog would ever come out and admit it publicly, but that is the overriding feeling I get when I watch "Grizzly Man."  It’s almost a version of accidental genius.

So my condolences to the Treadwell family (actually, I don’t think his family name was “Treadwell;” I think he changed his last name for some reason, so my condolences to his family and friends).  My sympathies go out to the woman who got talked into this expedition with Timothy Treadwell, only to get eaten by a bear.  And what exactly was the lesson we all learned from Mr. Treadwell?  I think it’s a lesson that 99% of us already knew:  if you hang around bears long enough, one of them will kill you and leave your carcass in a bush.  Oh, and that bear who ate Treadwell had to be “anesthetized” afterwards because they deemed it rogue and had tasted human flesh, so you indirectly got a bear killed in the process, Timothy.