"Grizzly Man" Delivers the Laughs
2006-03-01 23:43:49
Timothy Treadwell lived among grizzly bears for 13 summers, talked to them, even pet them on their noses. What kind of man would do such a thing? A raving lunatic, as it turns out.
Timothy Treadwell was a lunatic. He was a damaged, drunken nutjob who went to Alaska, saw grizzly bears, and decided he wanted to live with them. So he did. For 13 summers, he lived among these massive, deadly beasts, and provoked them daily until one of them finally ate him and a companion. For five of those summers he had a video camera, and I cannot adequately express my gratitude and delight that Treadwell had that camera, and that the tapes fell into the hands of demented Kraut Werner Herzog.
There is nothing here resembling a nature documentary. Treadwell uses his camera as a confessional booth, a diary, a bullhorn, and a platform for self-aggrandizement, but there isn't enough truth or cohesion to consider the tapes a biography either.
Treadwell exhibits some pretty strange behavior. He calls out to the bears "I love you", as if he were apologizing to a jilted lover. He seems to expect them to understand, and it seems as if he is waiting eagerly for the moment when they begin speaking to him. When he comes across the remains of a large female bear's excrement, he exclaims in a high-pitched voice "This came out of her butt!" and then, yes, he reaches down and picks up a hunk of the bear poop. While filming himself with his other hand. You can't tell me that's not fucking hilarious.
Timothy Treadwell isn't the only crazy person in this movie, either. Herzog interviews perhaps a dozen people from Treadwell's life, and each one is completely bonkers. The insanity peaks with the coroner who handled the mangled bodies, who is mad as a March hare. His eyes bug out and his arms flail as he describes the pair's last moments, which he reconstructs from a convenient audio recording of the mauling which is too gruesome to replay for the audience. Even the filmmaker bares his insanity for the record. In a particularly creepy scene, Herzog insists on listening to the recording through headphones, while filming himself from behind. He narrates the film with an eerie love of death.
This movie is a winner. Go see this movie. "Grizzly Man" is funny in a dark, teutonic way, but it's pure comic gold.
T O P S T O R I E S
In 2010 Dr. Cheng-Huai Ruan discovered a way to cause a patient with an abnormal heartbeat to get back into a normal rhythm by sticking a finger up the patient's ass. (More...)
WKRP in Cincinnati aired from 1978 through 1982. Howard Hesseman played Dr. Johnny Fever, a DJ from Los Angeles who was fired from his previous job for saying the word "booger" on the air. In the show Hesseman would do some dialogue, introduce a song, and start the song. You'd hear a few notes, but never the whole song. (More...)
SF Hippies Can't Get Their Act Together
The annual 420 Hippie Hill event in Golden Gate Park, where large crowds of hippies, wannabe hippies, and hippie poseurs drape themselves in tie dye t-shirts and gather on a hill on 4/20 to smoke weed, was cancelled this year because the organizers couldn't get their act together. (More...)
Mozart to be inducted into the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame
Joining such hard-rocking inductees as Abba, Chet Atkins, Nat King Cole, and Neil Diamond, the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame is proud to induct Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. (More...)
Gary Busey definitely involved in a hit and run accident
Gary Busey was definitely involved in a hit-and-run accident, but won't face any charges because he's rich and famous. (More...)
Gary Busey allegedly involved in Malibu hit-and-run
"Sir! You hit my car! I need your information!" the woman yelled at Gary Busey driving a battered Volvo station wagon before he sped off. (More...)
C L A S S I C P I G D O G
Spock Went, Spock Wrote, Spock Kicked Ass
Every Labor Day weekend a large portion of the PDJ staff joins 30,000 other freaks at one of the biggest and strangest art festivals in the world - Burning Man - somewhere on the edge of the Black Rock Desert. Our base of operations is always the ultra swank Spock Mountain Research Labs - the World Leaders in Beverage Science and Leisure Technology. This year, we hauled up our computers, printers and a massive digital duplicator, determined to become Black Rock City's third daily newspaper. Even Spock was surprised by our success - news will never be viewed the same on the playa. Read all seven issues of the 2002 Spock Science Monitor for yourself and see why. (More...)
Experimenter is a film released in 2015 starring Peter Sarsgaard. It tells the story of Dr. Stanley Milgram's life, including the infamous Milgram electric shock experiment, tests on crowds, and his work developing a theory on the mechanics of social networks. It currently streams on Netflix. (More...)
"Gee, I wish I was older."
"So do I." (More...)
Report from Spiritual Machines
Arkuat gives you the inside scoop on the "Spiritual Machines" panel and conclave. Wacky excitement ensues! (More...)
The Ancient and Correct Sake Ceremony
Many Americans have learned to appreciate the delicate, sophisticated flavors of Japanese food and drink, along with the beautifully refined rituals of Japanese dining. San Francisco, as a gateway between East and West, has especially benefited from the flowering of Eastern consciousness in America. It is hardly possible to walk down the street without stepping on somebody's sushi. (More...)
During a magnificent sunny day in a fast receding autumn, the Spock Science Monitor reporters once again blew the playa dust off of their computers and covered the 2002 Burning Man Decompression – held every year just east of Portola Hill in beautiful San Francisco. Both an afternoon and evening issues were released to the unsuspecting crowd of freaks attempting to in some small way experience the euphoria of the playa – if but for a brief afternoon far from the desolation of Northern Nevada. (More...)