At the movies: 'Strange Wilderness'
National Lampoon meets 'Animal Planet'
By James A. Swan, Ph.D.On Friday, February 01, 2008, 2.7 million gallons of sewage spilled into Richardson Bay of San Francisco Bay. The smell from that event, however, was insignificant to what took place a few miles away at Century Theater's Northgate Film Complex, where I and four others sat through a screening of Paramount Classic's new film release, "Strange Wilderness."
An R-rated comedy, written by Saturday Night Live writers Fred Wolf and Peter Gaulke and produced by Adam Sandler, "Strange Wilderness" stars Steve Zahn as Peter Gaulke, son of a late host of a popular TV animal show. Gaulke is trying to walk in his father's footsteps and continue the show, but the ratings have fallen off the charts and the show has been put in the 3 a.m. time slot. Just why becomes quickly obvious, as we see how his crew is incompetent and given to gross-out language and antics — and he personally doesn't know much of anything about animals — not to mention a rival show by the slick Sky Pearson (Harry Hamlin) is doing very well.
The show is given two weeks to come up with something different or it is off the air. Miraculously, craggy Vietnam veteran "Bill Calhoun" (Joe Don Baker) shows up and offers to sell a map of Bigfoot's whereabouts in Ecuador for $1000.
Ernest Borgnine, playing the "Strange Wilderness" cameraman, cannot go to Ecuador, so he sends his marijuana-smoking nephew, "Ed" (Justin Long) in his place. They need a new soundman, and hire an alcoholic. Ashley Scott also joins them to add in a sexy blond with five nuts in search of Bigfoot, along the way meeting vicious sharks, a tribe of pygmies and Robert Patrick, playing a tough and deceitful guide.
Their adventure takes them to some supposedly exotic places, but the vegetation shows the cast never left LA. Now I know it may sound petty when the cardinal rule of watching a film is the willing suspension of disbelief, but the whole movie missed the point of what it could have been, had it been done as a smart comedy.
I'm not opposed to gross-out, slapstick humor: I liked "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure," "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle," and Kevin Smith's Jay and Silent Bob series. Jeff Daniels' deer camp comedy, "Escanaba In Da Moonlight," is one of my favorites. Sure, it has fart jokes and two-holer comedy scenes, but it warmheartedly pokes fun at Northern Michigan deer camps and some of the silly things that may happen in camp.
As hard as I tried, I could not like "Strange Wilderness," because it was often just plain dumb and showed little heart.
We laugh at films and TV when we see parts of ourselves in them, or we see some strange new way of looking at things — or maybe when the programs poke fun at something in a way that educates us about something that is wrong. Good comedy is harder to do than drama, because thoughtfulness and timing are so important.
I counted five laughs by others during the entire show: four by the same guy. When I got up to leave, everyone else had left.
The reality is the average person today spends over 90 percent of their life indoors, a lot of it watching screens: TV, iPod, computers and films. A lot of folks believe they can become experts by watching programs on these screens, when in reality they may be misled. I know about this only too well as I have been a consultant to a number of films and mainstream TV series, as well as outdoor shows. Scripts all too often are not accurate or are biased.
And, of course, outdoor sportsmen suffer from a lack of understanding.
A good comedy like one of the Zucker Brothers' "Naked Gun" movies that would poke fun at programs about nature, animals and the outdoors would serve a valuable purpose, as well as giving us some good entertainment. At times they did this, but the timing was off and the nuggets of truth in the satire got lost in gross-outs, foul language and bare-breasted women.
What I was hoping for was something more Werner Herzog and Zak Penn's mockumentary of Nessie hunting, "Incident at Loch Ness," or Herzog's documentary "Grizzly Man," which did a good job of showing us what Timothy Treadwell was like, on and off camera, which really was a sad joke.
People need to be made aware of just how nature programs can be misleading.
Opening on 1028 screens on Super Bowl Weekend, I suspect that Paramount figured "Strange Wilderness" was a picture for kids who did not want to watch the game. To me, it feels like National Lampoon meets "Animal Planet."
As a vehicle to get people to think critically about nature programming or to motivate people to get outdoors, the film did neither.
The movie did $3,050,000 at the box office over the weekend, which really surprises me, as "Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour," aimed at a similar age audience, raked in $29 million.
Steve Zahn must have a loyal following.
The film (all hour and 27 minutes of it) ends with the thought that in show biz, you always have to keep having good, creative ideas to keep going. On his IMDB bio, it says that Steve Zahn is an avid fly fisherman.
I hope he will return to his native roots in Minnesota and give us a comedy like "Escanaba In Da Moonlight" for fly fishing. That would be worth its weight in gold.
James Swan — who has appeared in more than a dozen feature films, including "Murder in the First" and "Star Trek: First Contact," as well as the television series "Nash Bridges," "Midnight Caller" and "Modern Marvels" — is the author of the book "In Defense of Hunting." Click to purchase a copy. To learn more about Swan, visit his Web site.
