IslandGuru Who payed the critics

Stephan Hammond It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Sameer Callahan It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Cassandra Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

SnoopyStyle Troy Hurtubise is putting together a bear-proof suit to get close to the grizzlies. He recounts an encounter with a grizzly bear he calls the 'Old Man'. It's a strange obsession and not necessarily a healthy or smart one. It's not that he's a raving lunatic or that he's some kind of idiot. It's that he is fully committed. At times, one does wonder whether this guy is real or not. Some of the testing is hilarious like Three Stooges. His wilderness outfit hints at some kind of theatricality. His fringe jacket and beret looks like some costume. Part of this is absolutely showmanship unless bears started breathing fire. There's no reason to test the suit against an inferno. In the end, this is a character study but I still need that bear attack. I expected a bear attack. A bear needs to attack that suit.

Godstud The movie was funny and brilliant. Here's your everyman trying to make something different and following a dream. The funny thing isn't that he tried to design the suit for Grizzly bears but that after the film he actually redirected his thinking towards a suit designed to protect firefighters. While doing this and discovering his suit wasn't safe unless it was fireproof, he managed to create a compound that MIT professors said couldn't be made. He created a ceramic? compound that he demonstrated in his own unique way. He placed a small brick of it on top of a helmet and had a braizing torch directed on the top of it for 10 minutes (at 5000 degrees). After 10 minutes the temperate had risen barely 10 degrees. A crackpot? no doubt :) But likely a backyard genius too. See it once and remember that not all inventions in history were used in the original purpose that the creator envisioned.

c-sheffe I saw this film at the theater when it first came out and then again a couple of weeks ago ( I bought the DVD). I found it equally as enjoyable the second time around and applaud the talents of Lynch and Hertubise. I highly recommend this film to anyone who likes the real life quirkiness of the common obsessionist or a Canadian film buff. This film made me laugh out loud more than once and kept me interested throughout. I found that the humanness and the landscape of the film rings true and I believe that most people will relate to the character(s) on some level. I will definitely share this one with friends; it has party movie written all over it. Just sit back and take a sometimes fast, sometimes zany, ride. There are moments of tension, triumph and defeat that I find unforgettable.

BrownCam This documentary follows a Canadian bear researcher who builds a bear-proof suit of armour so he can confront a grizzly bear head on and live to tell the tale. This documentary on Troy Hurtubise is nothing short of hilarious! We follow troy through his building and testing of his 'grizzly-proof' suit to his hunt for the angry bear from donut shops and biker bars to the Rocky Mountains. As it's been said here, you have to love this guy, even though he's a little out there!'A bear of a movie that had audiences howling with laughter.' - The Toronto StarAnother fine gem from the National Film Board of Canada.