Bears

Ebulliently emerging from their cavernous Winter's den, finding themselves scampering behind their ardent Mother, Sky, Scout and Amber, born atop an imposing majestic mountain, must quickly learn what it means to bear, to survive the threatening upcoming months, and ensure that they're fit for their next torpid slumber.

While trying to have a little fun along the way.

Imitating mom is well within their natural dexterities, but precisely duplicating her actions proves difficult, seeing how they may be having a better time revelling in their mischief, adorably exploring this and that, coming to terms with their brief bounding youth.

Sky does her best, nevertheless (Amber's more aware of the danger), teaching them the ancient ways of Alaskan grizzlykind, patient, observant, nurturing, ready to protect at all costs, doing everything she can, to stimulate their growth.

While food is scarce, tensions run high, and finding what would otherwise be a colossal seasonal feast, is fraught with competitive angst, those not possessing the requisite weight impounded, forced to keep searching, until Valhalla dawns.

Disneynature's Bears offers family friendly insights into the lives of young grizzlies, not without moments that may cause you to think not another Bambi, this is the harsh world of bears, beautifully euphemized, alluringly prohibitive.

The film's primary focus is, correct, bears, and it predominantly examines bearkind, which is both a strength and a weakness, clearly evidencing a variety of behaviours for curious audiences, while perhaps not focusing enough attention on surrounding flora and fauna.

I'm curious to know if the filmmakers had a plan for the Bambi scenario?

Mandatory viewing for jurisdictions considering hosting a Spring bear hunt.

How many Scouts and Ambers end up orphaned every year because of such hunts?

How many?

Narrated by John C. Reilly.

Hoping there's a sequel.

The Grey

A plane crashes in the sub-arctic Alaskan wilderness and its survivors find themselves hunted by a pack of blood thirsty wolves. Who knows why this particular pack decides to suddenly start attacking Liam Neeson (Ottway) and his co-workers (Neeson theorizes that they have crashed too close to their den) but they uncharacteristically do and Joe Carnahan's The Grey unreels in their pursuit.

Thinking they'll be safer in the woods and that a rescue team will never find them, this group of rugged drifters and loners leaves the crash sight and struggles to make their way across a barren stretch of frozen ground amidst brutal winds and freezing temperatures, one of them devoured en route.

After the rest of them make it, the wolves continue to circle and prey and in between confrontations we learn more about their troubled lives. They continue to move forward with the pack at their backs, arguing and conversing along the way.

In the end only one remains, having shockingly persevered longer than his fallen brethren.

Ready to battle the alpha.

Ignoring the logistics of everything that actually takes place in The Grey and focusing on how it recklessly pits a wild and brazen group of freewheeling hard-living workers up against their grizzled natural counterparts in a ludicrous unforgiving clash of human versus animal kind, may make the film more digestible.

In terms of the absurd.

Figuring that Neeson would be given the majority of the lines, I was interested in seeing whether or not his dramatic flexibility was still capable of motivating an entire film, from beginning to end. But my calculations were incorrect and the supporting cast is given plenty of room to manoeuvre, giving Neeson time to sit back and carefully structure his lines with shrewd deliberate nuances whose intermittent interjections and patient intonations carefully unify the supporting cast's dynamics in a thoughtful cohesive heterogeneity.

While the wolves constantly disrupt their unity.

Some of the lines seem like they came straight from an oil rig as well which gives them an endearing authentic quality.

In terms of what to do should your plane crash in a remote location, The Grey offers little practical advice.

Unless wolves begin to insatiably stalk you.

But as far as films celebrating derelict itinerant dispositions go, The Grey's not that bad, and perhaps by making its subject matter foolish, Carnahan tries to lure us into the narrative unconsciously, by harnessing the helpless qualities of our disbelief, thereby making us feel more like the characters in his film.

Predators

Never thought I'd see Adrien Brody covered in mud fighting a Predator monster, but Nimród Antal's Predators delivers such a scene and fills it with pugnacious intensity. The film immediately situates us within a frenetic free fall as several elite military personnel awake after having been cast out of an airborne vessel, parachute in tact. After landing, this multicultural group of warriors discover they've been kidnapped and shipped to an alien planet upon which they've become the prey of a group of unflappable veteran killers, who seek their destruction with inveterate artistry. There's only one way to deal: bond together as a group, embrace the brutal predicament, exchange chides and military strategies, be thankful that everyone has recourse to a common language, and fight back by any means necessary. If you like thrilling horrific action films set in a paranoid chaotic environment wherein battles and direct conversations are consistently presented in an exciting straightforward fashion, then you'll likely enjoy the latest instalment in the Predator series. Its attention to detail and expertly crafted wit indicate that it was created by filmmakers who take action seriously, respect their fans, and aren't looking to simply make a buck. I enjoyed the ambiguous dimension developed for Topher Grace's character, the depth added to the supporting cast, the vindictive one-liner delivered in Russian, the expansion of the Predator universe, the outstanding samurai scene, and the well-timed intelligently designed pacing. Acutely accelerated from start to finish, Predators diversifies and electrifies the Predator franchise, just in time for its third filmic decade.

The Fox Family (Fantasia Fest 2007)

When I heard about a new Korean film where a pack of foxes is transformed into a human family by a magic spell in order so that they can devour human livers during a lunar eclipse, livers which will provide them with the nourishment they require to maintain their human form, a chance they are only offered once in a thousand years, I figured I was in for a treat. And I figured correctly. Director Lee Hyung-Gon's The Fox Family delivers an hilarious, gruesome, off kilter horror/comedy/musical/romance that leaves most North American flicks cowering in their burrows. Sort of reminded me of Dead Alive. The Kumiho family has 30 days to figure out how to live amongst humans so that they can be guaranteed access to fresh livers on the night of the lunar eclipse. And how do they intend to obtain their meal? Why, opening up a circus of course! Their nimbly foxiness predisposes them to the acrobatic arts and soon they find themselves performing for kiddies in an urban centre, with one skit having the older sister's arms chainsawed off, squirting stump blood all over the crowd. Somewhat off-kilter.

I was a bit worried when I read that The Fox Family was a musical because I rarely take to such films but some of the numbers aren't bad, notably the lighthearted love songs. The song which accompanies the troupe's first experiences in the working world was a bit much, but it was overshadowed by the number which explores their attempts to get livers to join their entourage. The choreography is solid and one wonders how money was left over in the budget to create sprightly little special effects regarding humanoid foxlike behaviour.

Ki-Dong adds quite a lot to The Fox Family as he falls in love with the elder sister even though he knows she plans to feast upon his liver. It certainly doesn't stop him from pursuing some fertile fervid felicitous fox action. He remains with the family with the hopes of filming them in fox form, thereby providing the world with its first encounter with human-fox video, whereby he can earn enough scratch to pay off some goons. Like skirting the realms of heroine addiction in order to create some artistic legend before succumbing to devastation. And his comedic presence gives the film that extra bit of ridiculous depth which saves it two thirds of the way through as it starts to drag.

If you can get your hands on a copy, don't hold out on this hidden Korean gem. Come for the acrobatics and cringe whenever the motif of lips eating something disgusting reappears. It’s worth it for the ways in which it nurtures comedic insight, if not simply for the perfectly placed jilting opening line: "where can we find a lot of humans." I really don't know how to answer that question.