What Movies Have You Watched Recently?

[fyodor]

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As I recall, it was very clear from the context that the guys who left the rocks knew who they were leaving them for. I fail to see how this wasn't creepy.

Also, I think you are giving the hunters way too much benefit of the doubt. I've heard of staying out of the way of bear cubs, but attacking them? This seems like being on the far side of probable responses from people who give a darn. I didn't get a good vibe from those guys at all. If there is any guessing as to their motivations to be done, I think you're doing at least as much as anyone could. Which leaves less than firm ground to criticize on anyone else's extrapolations, including Treadwell's.

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Just rewatched the relevant footage. Yes the message leavers knew who Treadwell was. The 3 things he showed that they left were:

A message on a broken tree branch that appeared to read, "Hi Timothy. see you summer 2002" He reads it aloud twice as 'see you in summer of 2001" and calls it "a warning of a sorts" "obviously here to upset me" "some sort of a warning"

Some rocks stacked up that he calls, "a bit of trouble"

Then closer to his camp he finds some more rocks stacked and one has the happy face drawn on it. He calls this "very frightening" "a warning" "better than 'you're dead'" "Freddy Kruger creepy"

I think all 3 of these "warnings" could easily have been left by innocent "fans". That Treadwell interpretted them all as death threats says a lot about his state of mind.

The "hunters" that "attacked" the bear were armed with, in Treadwell's own words, "pepper spray and rocks". There are 6 of them and they appeared to have arrived in 2 boats. One guy is fishing and 2 of them are taking photographs. The bear is coming towards them. Two guys wave their arms in an apparent attempt to frighten it away. The bear is not afraid of them though, probably because it has gotten used to Treadwell's unthreating presence. So one guy throws some rocks at the bear to scare it back. He does not wind up and pitch them like a baseball in an attempt to hurt the bear. He just lightly throws them towards the bear.

Meanwhile Treadwell, who tells us over and over again in the video how he is there to protect the bears, does absolutely nothing. He almost comes to tears and says, "I don't want to expose myself to them"

[fyodor]

I felt Garden State was just bleh, far from special, not worth a rewatch. My niece who was about 19-20 at the time thought it was the best movie she had ever seen. She knew the main character/director from some tv show and was a big fan.

[Blarg]

How many other people living alone in the wilderness among the bears do you think they might alternatively have been addressing? I'm guessing that's an extremely limited population pool.

That's an important context and why I think you're misreading things here.

[fyodor]

[ QUOTE ]
How many other people living alone in the wilderness among the bears do you think they might alternatively have been addressing? I'm guessing that's an extremely limited population pool.

That's an important context and why I think you're misreading things here.


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In my last post I said "Yes the message leavers knew who Treadwell was." and quoted the message on the branch that starts "Hi Timothy". Yes I admit the message leavers knew who he was. I see nothing threating in the messages though.

He was going on tv every off season. He had co-authered a book. He was visiting schools. Is it not possible that the people leaving the messages were simply saying "Hi"?

Treadwell hid from everyone while he was there. How does he know they were out to get him? It just sounds and looks like paranoia to me.

Also if he was constantly hiding and wouldn't even come out to protect one of his bears from a nefarious rock hurler, how in hell was he protecting them?

[Blarg]

My bad, I thought you were being sarcastic, as I didn't remember specifically what the rocks said. I did get a different feeling from it than you did, though. I did find myself getting the creeps from it a bit. To me, the scene with the bears looked creepier than it did to you, too. Treadwell was obviously a bit paranoid and probably even a bit anti-social(though he may have been more pro-bear than very deeply anti-social, being that he had a few girlfriends and had other friends too). I don't think that means he was entirely paranoid in these instances, though. It's not that you don't make a fair case; it just doesn't seem any better than the take I had on things. Part of it is that the guys throwing rocks at the bear cub didn't look like helpful souls, somehow. They looked like they were enjoying it, and that added a lot to the feeling of malevolence I took away about his visitors. Your explanation seems more merely explanatory, as if you were relating the incident as a series of facts in isolation, without having watched the sequence. I just didn't get the harmless vibe from the bear stoners that you did.

[rothko]

[ QUOTE ]
A message on a broken tree branch that appeared to read, "Hi Timothy. see you summer 2002" He reads it aloud twice as 'see you in summer of 2001" and calls it "a warning of a sorts" "obviously here to upset me" "some sort of a warning"

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fyodor, just rewatched the section in question and it is 2001 that is written, not 2002, which you put forth, as if treadwell was so insane that he can't read. clearly, sir, you are the insane one and we can discount everything else you say.

everything else you say, however, is right on. upon review, it does appear that the group of men on the shore are fairly harmless and the rock throwing is merely to scare off the bear. in my initial viewing i think i got sucked into treadwell's skewed perspective and just accepted what he was saying (blarg, this is likely what happened to you, as well). likewise, the messages they left are not threatening. the closest they could come to something sinister would be if the men thought treadwell was a little off and perhaps chuckled to themselves, as they drew the happy face, etc.

glad to have discovered that i was taken in by this film in this way. makes the experience all the more fulfilling.

[Blarg]

Maybe I'm just a sucker for baby bears or something, I don't know. But that kinda pissed me off and creeped me out. Maybe if I watch it again, I'll change my mind. I think I may have this one in storage somewhere, but if not, I'll give it another look.

[rothko]

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Maybe I'm just a sucker for baby bears or something, I don't know. But that kinda pissed me off and creeped me out. Maybe if I watch it again, I'll change my mind. I think I may have this one in storage somewhere, but if not, I'll give it another look.

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i was pissed, too, as evidenced by my original post. try to watch it again. i'm interested to see if you'll come aboard.

[fyodor]

Maybe I really am the insane one. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] When I looked at the message I was sure it said 2002, and then when I heard him say 2001, I went back and paused it, and it still looked like 2002 to me. I wasn't drawing any conclusions at all from this though. I was just trying to relate the facts as clearly and in as unbiased a fashion as possible, as it seemed to me it had been a while since Blarg viewed it.

It is in any event, entirely possible that Treadwell was right that they were threats, but I believe my explanation is just as likely.

I am reminded of a guy I met in a bar once who talked my ear off about his ex-wife and her boyfriend and how they screwed him over big time and got the cops after him and now everyone was out to get him. I said, "You sound a little paranoid to me" and he replied, "They made me that way"

[rothko]

it's a crooked 1, but a 1 nonetheless.

also, i've reviewed it again and the hunters definitely plan to return and kill treadwell.