Author: thebigbuddy

Predator: Badlands Is An Epic, Surprisingly Funny Adventure, And Even Has A Breakout Character Named Bud

Badlands is a romp through a vividly realized alien world filled with danger. It’s also a film with heart.

Hollywood pumps out so much disappointing content, especially in the age of streaming, that it’s easy to become disillusioned with movies altogether.

But every once in a while there’s a film that reminds you how much fun movies can be, hitting all the right emotional notes while taking you completely out of this world for two blissful hours.

Predator: Badlands is that kind of movie. Unexpectedly funny and poignant, it also delivers the kind of action audiences have come to expect from the Predator franchise — and then some.

The biggest change here is that, for the first time, a Yautja (the alien species we call the Predators) is the protagonist.

Njohrr is a Yautja clan leader who believes Dek is not strong enough to earn his place in the clan.

Dek isn’t just any Yautja. He’s a youngster who is horribly wronged in the opening minutes of the film and sent to Genna, a place his species calls the “death planet” because virtually every form of life there is monstrous and spectacularly lethal.

His own death is a foregone conclusion on the brutal world until he meets two unlikely allies: Thia, a damaged synthetic (android) built by the notorious Weyland-Yutani corporation, and Bud.

Bud steals the show, but I wouldn’t dream of robbing anyone of the pleasure of experiencing Bud the way writer/director Dan Trachtenberg intended, so I will say no more.

Elle Fanning and Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi play Thia and Dek, respectively. Fanning adds a human element as she and Dek team up initially for survival, then out of loyalty to each other.

Badlands has a lot of heart and a script that knows just when to slice the tension. In one quiet scene after surviving an encounter with a particularly nasty creature, Thia (an energetic Elle Fanning) raves about the experience and the excitement of accompanying Dek and Bud on a hunt.

“The Dynamic Trio! Remember when we went down the tree? That monster’s mouth? I mean… Uggh. Didn’t smell great, didn’t smell great, but we got him. We got him! Thank you, seriously, for that experience. Truly amazing. Thrilling! Truly thrilling.

“What was your favorite part?” she asks the young Yautja.

“When my sword pierced the creature’s skull and its blood ran down my face,” Dek deadpans.

Dek is not invincible, and he’s without the vast majority of his arsenal, with only his trusty heat sword to defend against the hyper-aggressive fauna of Genna.

This is Trachtenberg’s second Predator film, and Badlands exists because he proved there was life still left in the franchise with 2022’s Prey.

That movie was unfortunately streamed direct to Hulu without a theatrical release, as were several big time films that year, because of a resurgent COVID wave. (Remember the Delta variant?)

But critics and audiences, including your humble Buddesian correspondents, found a lot to like in the story of Naru (Amber Midthunder), a young Comanche woman living on the Great Plains in 1719. After encountering a Yautja, Naru warns her tribe that a mysterious and dangerous creature is stalking their lands, but they laugh at her and accuse her of telling tall tales — until they see the Yautja for themselves, at which point they don’t find it amusing anymore.

Midthunder was fantastic, and Prey balanced its historical setting with stunning action sequences and quiet character moments.

Amber Midthunder as Naru in 2022’s Prey.

In earlier installments, including Prey, the Yautja were always the antagonists. We knew they were a warrior culture, that they followed an honor code and possessed fantastically advanced technology, but for the most part the Yautja remained a blank slate aside from some non-canonical media (mostly novelizations, comics and games) that attempted to expand the universe.

Badlands demystifies the Yautja somewhat out of necessity, which is always a dangerous gamble (just ask the xenomorph of Alien fame, which lost its mystique half a dozen sequels ago), but significantly raises the emotional stakes.

Dek isn’t invincible. Circumstances have robbed him of most of his arsenal, he’s thrown into a perilous and unfamiliar world, and he’s haunted by the fresh memories of the tragedy that sets off the events of the film.

That makes it easy for the audience to identify with and root for Dek, despite the difficulty of conveying emotions with alien facial features. Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi deserves credit not only for imbuing Dek with physicality, but also for getting the most he can out of the Yautja youngster’s brooding body language, howls of frustration and slowly dawning realization that he can choose his own path in life.

It may take a planet teeming with horrors to make an underdog of a Yautja, but Badlands succeeds on that count.

Predator: Badlands set a record for the franchise with a $40 million opening weekend, and pulled in $184 million total at the box office. It was made available for streaming this week. With the financial success, and the positive reviews from critics and fans alike, it’s possible we’ll see Dek, Thia and Bud continue their adventures in a sequel.

What’s Your Cat’s Petting Limit?

A netizen’s cat tolerated an astonishing 176 pets from his human!

An Instagrammer decided to test the limits of his feline overlords’ tolerance for pets, and it was instructional.

Porky, who looks like he’s a British shorthair, lasted 107 repetitions of his human’s hand rubbing his head before he’d had enough. His brother, Jim, lasted 176 repetitions!

Both are extraordinarily polite. Porky just got up and left when his human kept going despite clear signs that he was at his limit, like a swishing tail and shifting positions. Jim was still enjoying having his head stroked after the 100 pets mark.

I could not get away with this. Not even close.

First, Bud doesn’t like that kind of palm-open head petting. I’ve gotta be gentle and very precise, being careful not to touch his ears, which clearly annoys him. The limit is maybe…four? Five?

He likes it when I rub his cheek glands, under his chin, and around his jowls. I know enough to stop and let him give me a signal if he wants more.

He’ll move if he’s had enough, but if I’m not paying attention and I persist, he’s got no qualms about smacking me or biting down on my hand. He’s learned that warning bites should be gentle, but after a clear warning, all bets are off.

I was awarded with ELEVEN scratches on my left arm last week, although that was a case of misdirected aggression, not an overstimulation outburst. I should have seen it coming, since I know the signs indicating he’s frustrated about something and needs to release energy.

Yes, my cat is a jerk. Yes, I still love him. In fact, I’m glad he’s my Buddy and he didn’t end up with people who think cats do things out of spite, or would physically punish him for acting like a cat. A jerk of a cat, but a cat all the same.

He’s taught me to pay very close attention to body language, ears, whiskers, tail swishing, and all the other ways cats signal to us aside from verbalizing their feelings.

How do your feline masters respond to petting, and what are their limits?

Bud Will Now Be Known As ‘Mike’

My mom called my cat by my brother’s name, and that is hilarious!

My mom has always disliked cats, but some magical bonding moment must have happened the last time she watched Buddy for me because he’s grown in her estimation from a “crazy man” to “a cute cat” and a “good boy.”

A few weeks ago she even excitedly told me she’d gotten a Christmas gift for him. That’s two toys from her in two months! She was so happy to give him the toy — one of those balls that zips around on its own with sensors, changing direction and mimicking prey — when she and I exchanged presents, and beamed as she encouraged him to chase it down.

What the heck is going on here? Feline sorcery?!

And then there was the cherry on top, when she accidentally called Bud “Mike.”

Mike is my brother’s name.

“Oh geez,” my brother replied when I informed him via text.

So now I’m gonna call Buddy Mike, because it’s hilarious and diminishes my brother while elevating Bud. Not all the time, mind you. I can’t be confusing the little guy, and besides, my brother lives overseas, so I’ll only get the opportunity via Facetime. But it’ll be just enough to get under my brother’s skin and remind him every so often that, to our mom, he’s on my cat’s level.

A Colorado Woman May Have Been Killed By A Puma, But We Should Wait For The Facts

There are lots of questions but very few answers so far related to the death of a woman on a hiking trail in northern Colorado. Authorities have not confirmed a puma attack.

A woman who was found dead on a hiking trail may have been killed by a mountain lion, state authorities say.

Several hikers were making their way along the Crosier Mountain Trail in northern Colorado at noon on Thursday when they came upon a woman laying on the ground and a puma about 100 yards away from her, according to police.

The hikers made noise and tossed rocks to scare the cat off, then one of them — a medical doctor — checked the woman and found no vital signs.

They notified authorities, who launched a massive search by air and ground, closing down the neighboring trails and bringing search dogs into the effort.

The search teams found and killed two mountain lions, who will be autopsied to determine if either had human remains in their stomachs. If they do not, rangers and police will keep looking, as they say Colorado law requires them to euthanize animals who have killed humans, local news reports said.

Pumas, also known as mountain lions, cougars, catamounts, screamers and many other names, are the widest-ranging cats on Earth, found throughout South America, the west of the US, and southern Canada. Credit: Charles Chen/Pexels

It’s important to note that there are no autopsy reports so far. Police don’t know how the woman died, if she was killed by the puma spotted near her, or if the animal approached after her death.

If an investigation does determine a puma was responsible, it’s crucial to place the incident in context. The last recorded fatal mountain lion attack in Colorado was in 1999, and was not confirmed. The victim, a three-year-old boy named Jaryd Atadero, wandered away from the hiking group he was with and was never seen again.

Search efforts in the following days and weeks didn’t turn up anything, but in 2003 another group of hikers found part of Atadero’s clothing. His partial remains were later found nearby.

Police said Atadero could have been killed by a mountain lion, but there’s no definitive evidence and his cause of death remains a mystery.

Aside from that incident, there have been 11 recorded, non-fatal injuries attributed to pumas in Colorado in the past 45 years despite as many as 5,000 of the wildcats living in the state’s wilderness.

Nationally there is some discrepancy in record-keeping, but most sources agree there have been 29 people killed by mountain lions in the US since 1868. By contrast, more than 45,000 Americans are killed in gun-related incidents per year, about 40,000 Americans are killed in traffic collisions annually, and between 40 and 50 American lives are claimed by dogs per year.

Americans are a thousand times more likely to be killed by lightning than by a puma, according to the US Forestry Service.

Despite their size, pumas are more closely related to house cats and small wild cats. They can meow, but they cannot roar. Credit: Caleb Falkenhagen/Pexels

Cougars are elusive, do not consider humans prey, and the vast majority of the time go out of their way to avoid humans. Most incidents of conflict are triggered by people knowingly or unknowingly threatening puma cubs, or cornering the shy cats.

Despite that, there’s confusion among the general public. Mountain lions are routinely confused with African lions, so some Americans believe they are aggressive and dangerous.

Pumas, known scientifically as puma concolor, are part of the subfamily felidae, not pantherinae, which means they are more closely related to house cats and smaller wildcats than they are to true big cats like lions, tigers, jaguars and leopards.

Pumas can meow and purr, but they cannot roar. Their most distinctive vocalization is the powerful “wildcat scream,” leading to nicknames like screamer.

In the Colorado case, police say they believe the victim was hiking alone. Her name hasn’t been released, likely because authorities need to notify next of kin before making her identity public.

This is a tragedy for the victim and her family, and we don’t wish her fate on anyone. At the same time, we hope cooler heads prevail and this incident does not spark retaliatory killings or misguided attempts to cull the species.