You’re settling down in Jellystone National Park, preparing for a nice “pic-a-nic.” Your paws unfurl a checkered blanket while your date unloads the contents of your basket: “Bluebeary” pie with honey, some ice-cold bruins and, of course, bear claws.
You begin to enjoy your afternoon lunch. The conversation takes a turn for the spiritual. “Hey baby, what’s ‘ursine?’” You feel that question is a bit polarizing, so you change the subject.
You take out your “Kodiak” camera and snap a photo to remember the moment. Before long, you feel your eyes getting heavier and lie down for a quick hibernation.
Your dreams are “koala-fiably” insane. In one of them, you try to fend off a swarm of bees. But it isn’t working. They maul you head to toe before you wake up in a cold sweat. You look around to see that your date has abandoned you. How “bar-bear-ic.”
As if things weren’t bad enough, you can’t get your bearings about you. You look down at your map, only to discover the markings and locations have been replaced with…
DARTS AND LAURELS
Hollywood has never had a shortage of bear movies. “Ted,” “The Revenant” and “Brigsby Bear” are just a few movies prevalently featuring bears in starring roles. They’ve conveyed everything from family values and fart jokes to brutal attempted murder.
In a world where originality is often downplayed in favor of nostalgia, a new movie set to be released in August features a grown-up Christopher Robin in need of the spark of imagination and child-like innocence.
Despite the more-than-likely uplifting tale, we’re dishing out a dart to Christopher Robin. And it isn’t just for the movie. The adult Robin is being played by Ewan McGregor, and we can’t help but believe he should be working with Lucasfilm on the long awaited Obi Wan film. We still love you, Ewan.
We assign a dart to the “Paddington” series as a whole. It attempted to do what the “Curious George” series already did: crush our childhood dreams. Paddington deserves no more time in our lives than what we’ve allotted.
By far the best of the “bear-themed” movies is the “Yogi Bear” live-action flick. The goofy, talking bear and his "constant companion" (but really, we all know) Boo Boo attempt to save their beloved Jellystone National Park from the seedy hands of the city’s corrupt mayor.
One might expect a remake of an iconic cartoon to be horrendous. And it kind of is in some ways. The film has its nauseating dialogue bits and poorly computer-generated characters that definitely distract the viewer at times.
All of these flaws play into the movie’s appeal. It remains a silly and feel good movie about the merits of protecting what is good. Of loving and caring for our environment.
Yogi and the other characters' numerous futile plans to save the park demonstrate the realities of bipartisanship but show us that the " important things" are often universal.
Thus we award a laurel to the live-action “Yogi Bear” movie for its loving attempt at translating American values into a modern vessel. We admire its nod to the the things that will outlive us.
But it has us wishing we had an endangered turtle to save all of America's national parks.
