BF COMING TO A THEATER NEAR YOU

A new movie about a tv documentary series trying to capture Bigfoot on Film is coming out This Friday. Heres a a critic from Variety written way back in June 2007.

by Alex Billington
Get this, they're making a comedy about bigfoot! Or for that matter, it's already made (and already got an R rating). Sounds a bit like that trippy scene in Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny, but full length. The film is titled Strange Wilderness, produced by Adam Sandler's Happy Madison, and stars Steve Zahn, Allen Covert, Jonah Hill, Justin Long, Jeff Garlin and Broken Lizard's Kevin Heffernan. Haven't heard of it before? That's because it just changed hands in Hollywood, from the bad guys at Fox to the good guys at Paramount.

Paramount just acquired the distribution rights to the film, which was originally at Fox where it received an R rating for "non-stop language, drug use, crude and sexual humor". Now it's slated to hit on February 1st, 2008, right at the tip of the bad movie season early in the year.

The story follows the hosts (Zahn and Covert) of fictional wildlife TV show "Strange Wilderness," which is headed toward extinction because of bad ratings; they hatch a scheme to find the one animal that can save the show — Bigfoot. The film is directed and co-written by Fred Wolf, who wrote Black Sheep, Dirty Work, and Joe Dirt, but this is his first time directing.

Sounds kind of fun, but they're going to be dumping it in January, which shows hardly any confidence, especially considering another studio already dumped it entirely. Who knows, it could be a January 2008 sleeper hit, or a flop, only time will tell!

Sushiland - BFRLC Lunch #2 a great success

Today, lunch was at Sushiland, 135 NW 10th Ave. After a few minute wait, members of the BFRLC were seated around the main sushi bar, where a conveyor belt of all types of sushi goes round and round. Sushi rollers are in the middle of this bar whipping up roll after roll – eel, salmon, tuna, avocado and numerous other fresh looking edibles are artistically created into delectable sushi. One member had a couple house rolls with egg, tuna, and imitation crab. Also eaten were salmon rolls, tuna rolls, edamame, inari and miso soup. The miso had nice chunks of tofu as well as a pleasant tasting seaweed. The rice for the rolls was warm, fresh and sweet – the perfect sweetness to match the tastes of wasabi and ginger. Water refill rates were good – the servers made sure that all the BF Researchers were well hydrated. Lastly, the price was perfect. We salute you, Sushiland.

FEDS FUND BIGFOOT TRAP

Located in the Applegate Ranger District along the Collings Mountain Trail a half mile west of Applegate Lake, the Bigfoot trap is believed to be the only one of its kind in the nation, perhaps on the planet. And it was fortified and funded by the Federal Government-- well actually volunteers of the USDA Forest Service "Passport in Time" program.

Although most projects in the program involve historic or archaeological sites, the Bigfoot trap, which draws hundreds of curious humans each year, was unusual enough to be included, observes Jeff LaLande, archaeologist for the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest.

Measuring 10-feet-by-10-feet, it's a wooden box built of 12-inch wide and 2-inch thick planks. A heavy expanded metal grate served as the trap door, triggered by the big fellow reaching a hairy hand for the bait — a deer or rabbit carcass — hanging at the rear of the structure.

Heavy metal bands binding the planks and telephone poles anchoring it to the ground were meant to keep the burly beast from breaking out. Citing safety concerns, the Forest Service bolted the trap door open in 1980. Uncle Sam didn’t want tourists trapped, bigfooted or not.

The trap was originally constructed, according to forest service records, when a short-lived group dubbed the North American Wildlife Research (NAWR) firm applied for a special use permit in the early 1970s.

Ron Olson, a surviving member of the NAWR shared his feelings with Medford, Oregon's Mail Tribune

“I wouldn’t ever want to see Bigfoot held in captivity,” stresses Ron Olson. “The idea was to learn about him. We wanted to put a transmitter on him. We wanted to find out how they evade people and where they migrate to.”
“We weren’t going to kill it — we had a tranquilizer gun,” he explains. “We had a sled built to put him on. We even had big manacles ready if we got one and the tranquilizer started to wear out. We had it pretty well organized.”

Olson ought to know about the massive trap: He, along with his late father and a friend, built it in 1974.

If you are close to the Oregon/California border near Jacksonville, take Highway 238 onto Upper Applegate Road towards the Applegate Dam. A pull-off along the right side of the side the road is used for parking. There you will find the trailhead of Collings Mountain Trail, hike just over a half mile to an abandoned miner's claim and follow a dirt trail to the 1974 structure.