Seriously... Quest for Fire (1981) in on the Netflix. Not sure why I watched it, but I did. Well, watched it while I was writing something. I'm really not sure why I sat through so many caveman sex scenes. I do have a few comments:
- Ron Pearlman as a caveman; I think we all saw that one coming.
- I don't think I've ever actually seen a good depiction of an atlatl in a movie before. That was a surprise.
- We see three distinct groups of hominids in this movie: an australopithecene-like ape-beast (great DCC fodder, there), the main characters (I believe they're supposed to be cro-magnons but felt more like Neanderthals with better-than-predicted vocal ability) and then humans. It's neat that this movie actually gave a reasonable treatment to different sorts of hominids and had them co-exist (not peacefully, but still) which was incredibly likely.
- The humans make extensive use of colored clays to color themselves as well as to make things out of. I remember learning somewhere that the human capacity for representational thought is most likely a direct result of our use of ochre from riverbeds to dye ourselves, our clothes and to write with (as well as those very rivers being a great source of fish, a fantastic brain food) and I enjoyed that detail being in there, even if they didn't use ochre (it was a gray and a black clay in the movie). [Side note: I'm pretty sure that most gray and black naturally-occurring clays in river beds have a fairly high sulfur content. If so, that set would have stunk!]
- Caveman sex, even if the lady is a normal human, is still caveman sex.