People tell me I have a knack for turning senseless tragedy into vaguely amusing commentary, so who better to bring you the latest on DraculaBearGate?  Anyway, yesterday state officials opened an investigation into the incident, which they say occurred during the filming of a promotional video.

The story’s kind of complicated, but basically the victim, Stephan Miller, worked for a social networking site called ShareNow, and died while shooting a promo video at Predators in Action, a company owned by his cousin Randy that provides animals for use in media, with its headquarters located, awesomely, in Big Bear, California. 

-Stephan Miller died Tuesday after the 7 1/2-foot-tall bear, named Rocky, bit him on the neck.
-An autopsy Thursday found that Stephan Miller died within minutes of neck injuries consistent with a single bite.
-"If the coroner’s report says there’s only one bite, then it follows what the initial report was, which is that the person was bitten, not attacked.”
-"Knowing the bear, taking little nip-type bites with the front teeth, every bear does that," said Joel Almquist, who co-owns an exotic animal santuary called Forever Wild and has himself wrestled Rocky. [AP]

So yeah, in case you missed that, a guy who voluntarily wrestled Dracula Bear admits he could kill when he’s just trying to say hi.  Anyway, the Dept of Industrial Relations will be investigating ShareNow for health and safety violations.

[Company Chairman Nigel] Robertson said he hired Stephan Miller, an expert in Internet startups, 10 months ago to establish online communities and was impressed by his dedication. Miller, the No. 3 man at the fledgling company, would sleep in the office in a sleeping bag and last week tattooed ShareNow’s logo on his arm, Robertson said. He talked often about his passion for exotic animals.

Not sure what the connection is between a passion for exotic animals and a dotcom tattoo on your arm, but I’m guessing it involves having shit for brains. 

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals [of course] provided the news media with copies of federal inspection reports that noted some problems at the site in 2001, 2005 and 2007, but a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Agriculture called them "very minor issues" that were quickly corrected.

Examples included water troughs that were frozen over, a worn and stained cutting board for meat preparation and jagged edges on some plywood enclosures.

Don’t laugh, you give a bear some frozen water, a splinter, or an improperly prepared beef slab, and they’re liable to claw your guts out.  I know a lot about bears, because I read Zoobooks.

Rocky, the grizzly bear that allegedly wrestled Will Ferrell in Semi-Pro killed its trainer with a bite to the neck yesterday.  (GRR, DRACULA BEAR! …sorry, poor taste)

Three experienced handlers were working with the grizzly Tuesday at the Predators in Action wild animal training center when the bear attacked Stephan Miller, 39, said San Bernardino County sheriff’s spokeswoman Cindy Beavers [Beavers! -Ed.].  Miller’s brother cousin Randy doubled for Ferrell in the bear-wrestling scene.

Pepper spray was used to subdue and contain the bear, and there were no other injuries, Beavers said [hee hee, still funny! – Ed.]. Paramedics arriving shortly after the initial emergency call around 3 p.m. were unable to revive Stephan Miller. 

Sheriff’s Sgt. Dave Phelps said the bear was a 5-year-old male named Rocky. The Predators in Action Web site said Rocky is 7 1/2 feet tall and weighs 700 pounds.

So… I’m gonna throw this out there: If I’m ever being attacked by a 700-pound grizzly bear, rest-assured the time for non-lethal weaponry has passed.  In a way I bet the guys who pulled out the pepper spray are a little relieved the dude died – because otherwise he’d be waiting at their house ready to take a 9-iron to someone’s nuts. 

In related news, one time a butterfly landed on my shoulder while I was dove hunting.  "Shoot it! Shoot it!" I yelled. 

10,000 B.C. had the number one B.O. this weekend, grossing $35.7 million, which was only slightly lower than most analysts’ estimates.  By comparison, 300 took in $71 million on the same weekend last year.  Advantage: things that don’t suck.

Meanwhile, Semi Pro fell 62% on its second weekend with $5.8 million, and Martin Lawrence’s College Road Trip made $14.5 million.  "That’s so Raven!" said industry analysts.

In any case, none of the movies out right now are remotely interesting, and my time would be better spent planning a tea party with my Bruce Greenwood-inspired RealDoll than discussing any of them.  Sitting near a busy intersection this weekend was obviously more interesting than watching movies.

[Source] 

Sexman posted a review of Semi Pro yesterday and somehow I missed it. (In case you’ve been living under a rock or in some third world country like Baltimore, Sexman is FilmDrunk’s official movie reviewer).

I have to say, I wasn’t as impressed with this review.  There was far too much summary.  Remember, Sexman, a review is 70% summary and 30% analysis.  Plus he liked it, and nice reviews are never fun. All in all he gives it four fingers, which I guess is good since he rates movies on a scale of five, but in my experience, being able to fit four fingers is never a good thing.   

But Sexman is just a young buck, he’ll learn these things in time.

Semi-Pro was number one at the Box Office this weekend, grossing just $15 million in an even weaker than expected showing.  Overall, it was the lowest-grossing weekend in three months.

The New Line release averaged a decent $4,906 from 3,121 sites but did not match the numbers of the funnyman’s other recent hits like Blades of Glory ($33M), Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby ($47M), and Anchorman ($28.4M).

Great, maybe Hollywood will learn something from this.  Haha, just kidding of course.

Those were all rated PG-13 allowing the comedian’s teen fans to buy tickets while Semi-Pro carried the more restrictive R which most likely affected ticket sales. It was the lowest gross for a number one film since Jodie Foster’s The Brave One which debuted to $13.5M last September. [Source]

Oh right, it was Rated R – that must be it.  Here I was thinking the poor showing had something to do with a script that looks like it came from the reject pile of Ferrell’s last four sports movies, or possibly the insipid marketing campaign, or maybe the 15 different taglines that all managed to include the word "Fro".  Nope!  Obviously it failed because 15-year-olds can’t get tickets to R-Rated movies – I mean, that’s like trying to divide by zero or finding a word that rhymes with orange.  If they’d only hired some movie ticket salesmen as airport security, 9/11 probably would’ve never happened.