Change Your Image
warejohnm
Reviews
Grizzly (1976)
If you have 91 minutes to kill
The original New York Times review in 1976 and the Wikipedia page for Grizzly detail the many ways in which Grizzly replicates Jaws (1975). When not borrowing from Jaws, the film borders on incoherence. Character, action, and dialogue invoke the value of the national park system, greed at the expense of safety, science and myth, sex and the woods, and the good life. None of these ideas are developed; they're simply laced throughout a film whose only continuity is a bear that is running around and killing people whether they're in the grass, in a shed, in a tent, in a fire tower, or in a helicopter. It's fitting that the film ends by zooming out from the scene of Kelly the park ranger next to the dead body of the helicopter pilot which is next to the burning patch of grass marking the spot where the bear was killed by a rocket-propelled grenade. Bear dead ... end of story, such as it is.
All that having been said, it's interesting to note that Grizzly was made and was successful, which means that all these fragments found some resonance with a wide audience. If you're not worried about the film's quality, you can find plenty to consider, especially when put in relation to other films. Why does the bear victimize so many women? The film toys with male/female relationships, but never develops it. What is the appeal of the blend of authority that Jaws sets out and Grizzly follows so closely: the trio of legal authority, scientific authority, and hunting authority? What was the appeal to 1970's audiences of locating monstrous behavior in animals? You can wring something interesting out of Grizzly, but you might start to wonder if you're working harder than the anyone involved with the original film.
Orca (1977)
Wild Beasts of the 1970s
Orca is one of a spate of films in the mid-1970s in which human- animal interactions turn deadly (Jaws (1975), Grizzly (1976), Orca (1977), and Jaws 2 (1978)). While it's hard to imagine anyone seeking out Orca these days unless they have an interest in the history of the genres the film fits into, Orca offers a good example of the formula: anthropomorphizing animals, locating in nature an ethic against which to measure human action, and balancing experiential knowledge, scientific knowledge, and knowledge from indigenous people.
While the plot is thin, the film is mercifully short and punctuated with just enough thought in the script and just enough attention to camera-work and editing to keep it watchable. For example, Captain Nolan asks a priest, "Can you commit a sin against an animal?" and Umilak says at one point, "Even our gods dance to a new song." In other words, the film touches on an ethics of human/animal relations and avoids representing native people as frozen in time (though it's not without other stereotypes). In terms of editing and camera-work, you could easily use this film to demonstrate different shots, elements of lighting, and use of music.
Despite what you can find in it, the film always teeters and often slips into the ridiculous, particularly when it comes to violent images such as the fetus scene or the scenes of crew members getting eaten while dangling from parts of the boat like SeaWorld trainers.
The Atomic States of America (2012)
A Good Documentary for Understanding the Context of the Debate over Nuclear Power
This documentary works from a book, Kelly McMasters's Welcome to Shirley, in which the author investigates the reasons for the high cancer rates suffered by residents of the town that she grew up in. The film's scope moves beyond the town of Shirley to investigate the history of nuclear power in the United States, the relationship between federal government and the industry, and promulgation of nuclear power as "green" energy. While all of these chapters are useful, the most pressing message of the film seems to be the need for citizens to work together for the benefit or health of their community rather than entrusting their welfare to government. The extent to which this is decisive in the debate over nuclear power is unclear; however, the film is convincing in its effort to demonstrate that citizens cannot abdicate responsibility for their own welfare and that a well-informed citizenry is both possible and necessary.