Sharknado Time Machine

Not too long ago, I wrote about the anticipation I always feel when attending a concert. When I'm really into a band and have been looking forward to the show, my expectations around what is going to take place go into hyper-drive. I have a list of songs I want to hear. I want the band to fun and not too aloof, but aloof enough if that's their thing. I don't know if other people feel this way when they go to shows. Maybe it's just me.

I feel this way about specific types of movies as well. Movies that fall into this category include: MCU movies, anything based on a musical, movies based on books I love, Quentin Tarantino movies, any movie involving a combination of Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, and Edgar Wright, and Star Wars universe movies. Of course, I also love really terrible things so I have to add one major movie type to this list:

SyFy's Sharknado franchise.

 

No one is ever going to say that any of the Sharknado movies are great pieces of cinematic art. They weren't created to be such things. If I wanted high art and sharks, well, I don't know that there is a movie that's both. SyFy movies are supposed to be fun and ridiculous, low on the budget, high on the suspension of disbelief. They're the equivalent of Hallmark Christmas movies for sci-fi/horror set. When the first Sharknado movie premiered way back in 2013,I thought it was hilarious. It reminded me of all those terrible movies I'd stay up late watching when I was a teenager. Like Troll 2 before it, the first Sharknado was campy, totally unbelievable, and the perfect summer movie. Who knew it would become a huge pop culture phenomenon and every celebrity would want to make an appearance in future movies? Who could have predicted that the creators and cast would stick around for six whole movies? But it did and they did.

The summer release of a Sharknado movie became an event. People live Tweeted the movies and created drinking games and themed parties. There's even a book called How to Survive a Sharknado. I know this because my brother bought it for me. On a few occasions, I had a long distance viewing party with my friend, Jessica. I got into the spectacle of the spectacle. A new Sharknado movie was something I looked forward to, even going as far as to put it on my calendar. SyFy had me hooked.

The first three movies were good in the way these types of movies are good. I spent the first movie counting how many ways sharks were killed during the movie and lamenting, but predicting the death of John Heard. The second movie featured both of the Julie Browns (from MTV) as well as everyone who ever worked at NBC/Universal (I assume it's a job requirement to make an appearance). The third one took place partially in DC and Nova returned. My favorite thing about the fourth movie was that I got to make a joke about kickstarting Vince Neil's heart and the Sharknado Twitter-verse thought it was funny (because the Sharknado Twitter-verse is a thing). The fifth movie gave us something none of knew we needed: the Sharknado Sisterhood. I would watch an entire movie about the sisterhood if that was a thing.

Anyway, I didn't even realize the sixth movie was happening. Yes, the fifth one left us with a cliffhanger involving time travel and the youngest son and other stuff I don't really remember. That means very little in the life span of a SyFy movie or really anything that people love. Just because there should be a sequel or another season of something, doesn't mean we get it (I'm looking at you, Joss Whedon). A few weeks ago, it dawned on me that I hadn't heard anything about a sixth movie. I checked Google and found out it was a thing and marked down the date on my calendar.

I have no idea what I watched last night.

I DVR-ed the movie when it originally aired and finally got around to watching it last night. Twenty-two minutes into the movie, I still wasn't really sure what was going on. It was originally about defeating the first sharknado and there were dinosaurs and people who died in the last movie were alive again. April, my least favorite character, learned how to fly a pterodactyl. There was a capacitor, like in Back to the Future. But then they were time traveling, sort of following youngest son Gil, who had come from the future to save the family in the fifth one. He was searching for them, but apparently you can only go back in time once. Eventually, there was an army of evil April robots and we made it back to the original shady deal boat from the very first movie. And then the sharknados stopped and the Shepard family was whole again and Nova was going back to college and John Heard never died...because the sharknados never happened.

Or something.

The Last Sharknado jumped the shark. I would argue that the Sharknado jumped the shark three movies ago, but hey, I'm not a studio executive who makes decisions about what does and doesn't get made. Am I sad I watched the sixth one? Absolutely not. There are three reasons for this:

1. Neil deGrasse Tyson
2. Alaska Thunderfuck
3. Christopher Knight

I expected none of these people to appear in a Sharknado movie, but here they are in the same one. Neil deGrasse Tyson and Alaska even appear in the same section of the movie, which is probably something neither one of them ever thought would happen. Who would cast an astrophysicist and a drag queen as Merlin and Morgana respectively? The Sharknado people, that's who. This specific sequence was the reason I enjoyed the first movie so much. It was over the top, including Merlin declaring, "Who needs science when you have a dragon?" and Fin pulling Excalibur from the stone, except that the sword's blade was in the shape of a chainsaw. Alaska/Morgana disappears with a trademark Alaska "Byeee" that was everything it needed to be and more.

Christopher Knight, better known as Peter Brady (the best Brady brother), was oddly endearing as Nova's grandpa. It's his death, at the jaws of sharks, when Nova is a little girl that leads her to her destiny as a sharknado fighter. This section also gets into a story line that comes up frequently in these movies: Fin being the worst. He and Nova argue about whether she should save her grandpa's life, with Fin being the worst and telling her she can't. Of course, things don't go as planned, and we end up with an army of evil robot Aprils. Christopher Knight as grandpa was the most genuine example of family goodness in the movie. It was another unexpected moment.

The sixth Sharknado was a lot like going to see a band I really like and all they played were crappy songs from their terrible new album; not quite what I wanted but not completely unenjoyable. I've done my job and watched all six movies so you didn't have to.

More importantly, if I don't want to enter a room with the confidence of a mediocre white man, I can enter a room with this thought instead:

Sharknado motivational poster
Frye meme
Merlin

DC Days: Prison View Estates

I have a habit of telling visitors to the museum where I'm a volunteer that the building has had "a lot of lives." Originally built as a Masonic Temple in 1908, the building would eventually be home to movie theatres (both legit and blue), offices, and eventually the only museum in the world dedicated to championing the works of women artists. Depending on the visitor, I might also share some of the history of the building that currently houses our museum shop, but it has to be the right visitor. Some people don't like to talk about sex shops. I usually end the discussion with some comments about the importance of place an the role we play in both preserving and continuing history. This is the kind of conversation that makes me an excellent docent.

I was thinking about this when I visiting the Workhouse Arts Center for a beer festival over the weekend. I've never been to the Workhouse Arts Center before. Until 2001, it was, in fact a prison. Construction began on the Lorton Reformatory (also called the Lorton Correctional Complex and the Occoquan Workhouse) the same year my museum started its life as a Masonic Temple in 1908. The first prisoners would arrive in 1910 and would be responsible for building much of the prison complex over the years. The Workhouse has a random history, originally opened as part of an experiment in open air prisons. The idea was to see if that prison set up would be better for rehabilitating less violent offenders like vagrants, drunks, and "family abusers." The original prison didn't have the brick buildings, but tents and open fields. Female prisoners were sent to the prison starting in 1912, mostly serving sentences for prostitution or disorderly conduct.

In 1917, the prison would become the center of the suffragist movement when many of the "Silent Sentinels" were arrested and held at the Workhouse. These were women like Lucy Burns and Alice Paul, arrested for their silent protests outside of the White House. On the night of November 14, 1917 the women were tortured and beaten in a night known as "the Night of Terror." The women would eventually be released and many sentences would be vacated. President Wilson changed his mind about suffrage not long after these events, moving the passage of the 19th Amendment forward (this is a very simplified version of what happened, but you get the point).

When my family first moved to the area in 1992, I remember driving past Lorton Prison and the neighborhood next door. There was a house on the corner that boasted the following sign:

I thought it was funny and weird in the best way possible. I remember wanting to visit, but not in a "I should get a prison pen pal" sort of way. It was always more like, "one day this probably won't be an active prison and I should come take a tour when they make into a museum" kind of way.

Lorton was decommissioned as a prison in 2001. The property was sold to Fairfax County the next year and is part of the D.C Workhouse (another name) and Reformatory Historic District. When it was decommissioned part of the law stated that the space had to be used for recreation or parkland. The Lorton Arts Foundation sought to use the land and facilities for an arts complex. In 2004, this was finally approved and the Workhouse Arts Center was open in 2008. The complex includes studio and gallery space for artists, open land for festivals and sporting events, and specials events. It's like the larger, weirder sibling to the Torpedo Factory in Old Town Alexandria. The Lucy Burns Museum is also underway, telling the story of 91 years of prison history.

I've been curious to see what Lorton is like now that it's an arts center. Does it still feel like a prison? Is it weird to have a studio in a space that was probably a cell at one point? Is the kiln the same kiln used to fire the original bricks prisoners used to build the prison? I can't say that I answered any of these questions during my first visit. I attended the 3rd Annual Workhouse Arts Center Brewfest. Drinking beer and spirits from Virginia (and a few neighboring states) breweries and distilleries at a decommissioned prison/arts center seemed like a good way to spend a Saturday. It was a beautiful (hot) day. The festival was fun, the beer was delicious, and I got to taste a whiskey made from George Washington's original recipe.

The buildings have been restored and reconfigured enough in the buildings we visited that they don't look like a prison per se. There's definitely an industrial vibe and the ceilings are low, but it doesn't scream "Cell Block A" or anything. The gallery was well lit and the artist I talked to really liked working in the space and being able to show his work. I wandered into an exhibition about the suffragists and ended up buying a t-shirt from a very kind docent who seemed impressed that I owned a "Jailed for Freedom" pin from the Alice Paul Institute. She and i discussed the Lucy Burns Museum; she encouraged me to come back and see the current exhibition when it was less exciting outside (her words not mine).

There are definitely parts of the grounds that have remained untouched since 2001 (or at least aren't as heavily used). Those areas, which you can see from the parking lot, remind me of driving past Lorton when it was an active prison. They look sad and institutional. I'd like to go back and visit the museum and spend more time in the gallery spaces. Maybe take a class sometime. Like my museum, the next life of the Workhouse seems to be one where history, art, and community meet. I like this new life for the Workhouse. It gives me hope.

Prison View Estate photo
Other photos by me