3 out of 5

Director: Nash Edgerton

The younger brother of ‘Spider,’ trying a little bit too hard, but with another awesomely impressive stunt.  ‘Bear’ is sort of the lamest of Nash’s shorts (that are available on the Blue Tongue Films site, anyhow), because it’s the most obvious and the most drawn out for that obviousness.  The quote that leads it off also makes you eager to see how it plays out, but it honestly only connects on a surface level, and would seem to be, perhaps, an overheard quote (or something) that was extrapolated and extrapolated into an idea.  Once the idea was fleshed out, they should’ve tossed the quote.  So: girl wakes up, gets dressed for running / biking while her boyfriend creepily eyes her and pretends to be asleep.  He acts like a jerk after he gets up and before she leaves the house (which may or may not be purposeful… an oddly added detail that’s still not clarified even when brought up again later), and then the ‘deception’ becomes clear when we see him gathering a box of supplies that has traily bits sticking out that indicate a birthday celebration.  He then drives to where girlfriend is biking to surprise her.  Part of the surprise involves a bear suit.

If you haven’t seen ‘Spider,’ (or ‘Lucky’, which shows a similar sense of humor i.e. the same joke as these other two shorts) then perhaps the setup here will be more surprising.  But I think that, unless this is your first time watching moving pictures, you’ll see the setup and realize SOMETHING’S up, even though you might not be able to call all the beats.  The birthday reveal is also treated like it should be a twist when that box with party junk sticking out would’ve seemed to be a pretty obvious indication…

But that doesn’t make the short poorly shot, and though it is rather pointlessly dragged out just to elevate the one-two gags at the end, the great stunt in the middle and Nash’s framing (the camera is only steady for the first scene and when cutting to give us a status on the girlfriend, and then otherwise remains in constant – but clear – motion) keep it absolutely watchable for the 8 minutes or whatever.  And I also live in a world where I can watch all three of these shorts back to back.  Separated by the actual time it took to shoot, edit, produce, etc, ‘Bear’ could be seen more as another successful addition to the fun Edgerton has committed behind / in front of the camera… until he makes another god damn full length movie.