Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Grizzly Man (2005)

This is topic Grizzly Man (2005) in forum Film Handlers' Movie Reviews at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Paul Gordon (Member # 3320) on 10-21-2005, 07:32 AM:

Grizzly Man

Theatre: Bytowne, Ottawa
Attendance: 200 +

Came in during the previews everything looked good, a trailer for Clonney's B&W film was playing. The projector switched to Grizzly Man but the sound seemed weak and tinny. Then the screen went black. Then the manager told us that they needed to fix the loop on the projector, telling us the loop had to much slack. The film came back on about 2 minutes later and everything was good.

This 100min doc is great! telling the true story of Timothy Treadwell and his obsession with Grizzly bears in a remote spot in Alaska. Every summer for 10 + years he would camp with the bears and observe them. The last 3 years he brought a couple DV cameras and filmed the goings on. The film director (Werner Herzog) took Treadwell's 100 + hours of footage a used it for this film, plus interviews, and aerials shot on 16mm. Even though the film is mostly DV blown up to 35mm it still looks pretty good. Of course things come to a tragic end Treadwell and his girl friend are attacked by a bear and eaten (this is not shown or captured on tape, though the audio was captured).

This film keeps you intrested till the very end, well put together and very engaging. 4.5 out of 5

-paul

Posted by Kurt Zupin (Member # 2751) on 02-04-2006, 08:54 AM:

I finally got a chance to rent this and watch it...Although it was good, it was not GREAT! Tredwell was very ecentric(sp?), and even his friends stated that he was not all right in the head. After viewing footage of him going off on two foxes that steal his hat...screaming that "That fucking hate is vital to this years trip..." and other wacked things like that. The hat was old and ragged looking, not sure the value it had to the expedition [Roll Eyes]

. I was really looking forward to watching it but after all was said and done I was not impressed. All the locals that were interviewed looked to be excited to be filmed, and really were not affected with this "tragedy"...the only people who seemed deeply affected were two woman who were "close" to him. Even his parents didn't really seem all that upset about it...saying that because he lost out to Woody Harelson for the part on Cheers he became a drug addict and boozer. Final score 2.5/5 for some of the beautiful shots that he filmed.