Every year, Hollywood gets bashed over the lame movies the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (yes, sciences) chooses as supposedly the best of the year.
So maybe this new film, “Cocaine Bear,” will pick up a dozen nominations and walk away the big winner when it is eligible for the Oscars.
Here’s the premise: A 175-pound black bear eats a duffle bag full of cocaine and goes on a ferocious rampage, ravaging through a forest as he searches for more coke.
Seriously. See for yourself.
The trailer opens with two medics walking into a cabin before one hears growling coming from the other side of a door. “We should go,” he says before the bear breaks down the door and mauls him.
“Millions of dollars worth of cocaine fell from the sky this morning in Knoxville, Tennessee,” a narrator then says in the trailer to set up the premise.
Then we see a big cuddly bear lying on its back and playing with a taped-up brick of cocaine before eating it. “Let’s see what kind of effect that has on him,” says one guy, apparently unaware of the effect cocaine has.
Of course, Cocaine Bear kills a LOT of people, judging from all the bloody body limbs strewn throughout the trailer. He climbs trees to kill hikers, tearing them apart. He appears to smother another to death. But it’s hilarious ‘cuz it’s a bear high on cocaine, right?
The movie, set for release on February 24, features a delightful scene where a little kid, maybe 10 or 12, tells authorities that a bear ate the cocaine: “It was f***ed!”
“Hey, that’s inappropriate,” a female forest ranger tells the boy just before being ripped limb from limb.
Now, that’s Oscars stuff!
At another part in the trailer, the bear sings a song to the tune of Eric Clapton’s “Cocaine”: “Apex predator/high on cocaine.”
The film, directed by Elizabeth Banks, who played Avery Jessup in “30 Rock” and starred in the “Pitch Perfect” movies, is reportedly based on a true story. “Based” is an iffy word because nothing like that happened.
The New York Times reported on December 23, 1985, that a 175-pound black bear “apparently” died of an overdose of cocaine after discovering the drug, citing the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. The cocaine was reportedly pitched out of a plane piloted by Andrew Thornton, a convicted drug smuggler who died on September 11 in Knoxville, Tennessee. The bureau said the bear was found in northern Georgia surrounded by 40 open plastic containers that contained traces of cocaine.
A medical examiner later found the bear died from cerebral hemorrhaging, respiratory failure, hyperthermia, renal failure, heart failure, and a stroke, the Daily Mail reports.
Ah, but forget all that inconvenient stuff — this is art. The film is also one of the last actor Ray Liotta made before he died in May at age 67.
YouTubers love it already. “A movie about a bear high off cocaine that’s also Ray Liotta’s last ever film appearance. This is cinema,” one wrote in the comments under the trailer.
“This is going to be a cinematic masterpiece the likes of which have never been seen before,” wrote another. “I haven’t been inspired to see a movie in a theatre in like 5 years. I am now,” wrote another.
And finally, one wrote, “The bear deserves an Oscar!”
Maybe they’re right. Just try to name a “Best Picture” from the last few years. (For the record, something called “CODA,” a movie about a deaf family featuring all deaf actors, won last year, and “Nomadland” won the year before).
And “Cocaine Bear” certainly fits the times, doesn’t it?
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
Joseph Curl has covered politics for 35 years, including 12 years as White House correspondent for a national newspaper. He was also the a.m. editor of the Drudge Report for four years. Send tips to
