"The Bear Movement" is to me more a "re-emergence" against social pressure to shave, look civilized, and young driven by the just plain sexiness of masculine hairy men that can't be kept under control for long. Judging from how similar California bears are to Brazilian bears are to Turkish bears are to English bears, it has enormous and wide-spread gay appeal and genetic talent that many ladies seem to enjoy too.

Bear appeal is, as are most things, based on sexual taste. If you see a table full of bears in a restaurant and need to ask what a bear is, you'll never understand. Weight, masculinity, body hair, whiskers, muscle, shaved heads, flattops, etc. are all part of the list of bear features each bear and chaser puts in their own order of woofiness. Why do bears woof? Because they like to, and they also like to growl. Grouch Marx woofs wolfishly at a woman in one of his movies. Again, can't be explained. Why do bears make so many bear puns? A bear is a visual pun at its core. Human bears have a spiritual parallel to ursine bears as well.

And if you watch the trailer ([...]) with a cold heart and loins, no worries, bears just aren't your sexual taste, most entertainment is aimed at non-fans -- this is only the first feature-length fiction about bears. If BearCity touches you in one or more places, no amount of ursine puns or sexual silliness will spoil your enjoyment of it. Bears like a good laugh, drink, meal, cruise, seduction, sexytime, dance, drive, swim, nap, etc., and have given up trying to make non-fans comfortable with them.

This movie explores veins of bear and gay culture marbled with both credible and surreal situations, and old fashioned sentiments with snarky jokes, all on a non-political island of bearish hotness.

The appeal of this movie was evident as it circled the globe in LGBT film festivals, winning some awards, and sending huge roomfulls of bears into knowing smiles, giggles, and LOLs (I heard more jokes watching the DVD because laughter from theater audiences drowned a lot of them out). The charm of this movie is Langway's cobbling together of strong professional talent with very real and yummy non-professionals. Bear fans would gain plenty of pleasure even with the sound off just looking at all the bears. I call bear-watching "The Lazy [Gay] Man's Fetish".

The extra material on the DVD adds to your appreciation of what went into making BearCity.

Actors: Joe Conti, Gerald McCullouch, Brian Keane, Stephen Guarino, Alex Di Dio
Directors: Douglas Langway
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Language: English
Subtitles: English, Spanish
Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
Number of discs: 1
Rated: Unrated
Studio: TLA Releasing
Run Time: 99 minutes