Cocaine Bear Turn Every Page: The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb

Cult classics in the past were overlooked movies that had the right combination of weirdness and entertainment value to stick out in a crowd and attract a small-butdevoted following. But since 2006’s Snakes on a Plane, Hollywood has bankrolled some films with the apparent intent of creating a cult classic. The new horror-comedy Cocaine Bear is cut from that try-hard cloth (and that’s not a compliment).

Directed by Elizabeth Banks, Cocaine Bear is very loosely based on a true story from the mid-1980s when a bear ingested cocaine that had been dropped out of a plane. Here, the cocaine sends the bear into a murderous frenzy, so a large cast of characters including hikers, children, a mother, a ranger, a detective, drug dealers, and delinquents find themselves targeted by the bear.

The film uses extreme gore (stay away if you’re squeamish) as a way to cover its lack of imagination. The premise could have sustained a Tremors-style horror/comedy, but the script feels unfocused and many of the suspense sequences fail to scare. The closest the film comes to reaching its potential is in a scene where one of the drug dealers (Alden Ehrenreich) plays dead only to have the bear pass out on top of him. Other characters’ efforts to get the bear off him without waking it are pretty funny.

While Cocaine Bear admirably keeps things brief, another problem it has is none of the characters stand out. Ehrenreich fares the best among the actors, but the film reminded me how much December’s Violent Night (another high-concept effort to create a cult classic) benefited from David Harbour’s winning work in that film.

The one notable thing about Cocaine Bear is it was the final film of the great Ray Liotta (Goodfellas, Field of Dreams). –Fritz Esker

We get an up-close look at the working relationship as well as the friendship between Pulitzer Prize-winning author Robert Caro and his editor, literary legend Robert Gottlieb, in the totally absorbing documentary Turn Every Page–The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb

Caro is the well known author of The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, a biography of New York urban planner Robert Moses, which is considered one of the best biographies of the 20th century. Caro has also written four of a planned five volume series of The Years of Lyndon Johnson, a biography of former U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Gottlieb has edited between 600 and 700 hundred books, and is also a gifted writer in his own right. On the subject of editing, Gottlieb says, “Editing is intelligent and sympathetic reaction to the text, and to what the author is trying to accomplish.”

This documentary is propelled by the writing and editing of the fifth and final Lyndon Johnson book. During the actual filming, both men were in their 80s, with Gottlieb about to turn 90, so they were well aware that time wasn't on their side.

The fascination Caro has for Johnson runs deep. He actually lived in the Texas Hill Country for three years to get an understanding of LBJ's upbringing. In his LBJ books, Caro examines Johnson's use of power – for both good and, well, not so good.

Turn Every Page is directed by Gottlieb's daughter, Lizzie, and even she had a hard time getting the two men into a room together, since the author and his editor sometimes have an adversarial relationship. At one point in the film, there is a hilarious battle about the use of semicolons. We also learn that Gottlieb collects women's vintage plastic pocketbooks and handbags. These little asides are surprising and funny.

The documentary also has interviews with former president Bill Clinton and late night talk show host Conan O'Brien, and Caro fan Ethan Hawke, who recites passages from Caro's books. Turn Every Page is engrossing from start to finish. –David Vicari