Wasn't Dylan the surfer?

Well Island readers, it has happened. I have watched Sharknado. And it was glorious.

As I discussed this weekend, I have a special affection for movies like Sharknado. They're not great movies (not even really good movies) but they're entertaining enough and sometimes I need a break from all the seriousness of life and feminism and helping to create the world changers of tomorrow. Sometimes I just want to watch 90210 Steve chainsaw his way out of the belly of a shark.

Let's discuss the entire social media phenomenon that is this movie. There is not built-in fan base for a movie like this. Sure, you might follow SyFy on Twitter (like I do - I like the show "Face Off") and maybe you like previous movies like Mega Python vs. Gatoroid (featuring both Debbie Gibson and Tiffany) or Sharktopus (with the lesser know Roberts sibling, Eric) but I wouldn't classify that as a fan base. Not like the fan base summer blockbusters like Iron Man 3 or Star Trek have. It's not right to assume but I'm going to assume that no one was sitting around saying, "I'd love it if someone made a movie that appealed to my love of sharks, unusual weather phenomena, and stars of the 1990s." This is probably a small demographic of people (although I know you exist out there somewhere and probably have your own tumblr account or maybe a con).

I would have preferred to watch Sharknado with others but I know in my heart of hearts that most of my friends cannot and will not sit through this movie no matter how much I bribe them (homemade cookies! or marshmallows!) or if they've had too much to drink. Pumpkin was disinterested (to say the least). So I tackled Sharknado on my own. I did not have a chainsaw (like 90210 Steve) nor did I have a ingenious idea to stop the sharknadoes. It was just me, my notebook, and my love of the ridiculous.

There are lots of things I absolutely love about Sharknado. Here are the most important things you need to know about Sharknado (And there are "spoilers" - seriously, it's a movie about tornadoes that drop sharks on people. If you don't know how this is going to play out, I can't help you.)

1. The movie begins on a boat somewhere off the coast of Mexico. There are shady dealings on this boat and lots of stereotypes. I like to think that the sharks that attack the boat are really there to exact revenge for the real sharks in the world who are poached and action movie stereotypes. 
2. It's Ian Zerring - Steve from the original cast of Beverly Hills, 90210. He's almost 50 (this will be important in a few minutes) but still looks like he could hang out at the Peach Pit. Although people would probably find him a tad bit creepy. He's the hero/surfer/bar owner of this tale. 
3. Oh John Heard! What happened? You were the hot zoologist in Cat People, the attractive and affable dad in the Home Alone franchise - when did you decide to be the Gary Busey of SyFy movies? At least you saved a lady and her dog with your bar stool before your untimely shark death.
4. Did 90210 Steve just kill a shark with a surfboard?
5. "Sharks don't like vegemite?" 90210 Steve to Baz, his Aussie friend, after Baz is mauled by a shark.
6. Do people in this movie not watch the news? All throughout the movie I kept thinking, "Why was no evacuation plan put in place?" I know the state of California has plans in place for significant events like massive earthquakes so why was nothing put in place? And why was no one watching television? This seems totally weird to me. I mean, I don't expect any governments to have a sharknado plan but I do expect a certain amount of emergency preparedness even in a movie like this. 
7. "Don't forget taco Tuesdays." Maybe they can have shark taco Tuesdays next week. Just saying...
8. For real, a shark was just killed with a pool cue. By a waitress named Nova who has unresolved shark issues. 
9. Please note that the Ferris Wheel at the Santa Monica can kill you if it becomes untethered (unmoored?) during a sharknado. 
10. 90210 Steve and company decide to go to Beverly Hills (ha!) to check on his wife and kids even though he's not really part of the family anymore and Tara Reid (his wife) has a new boyfriend. And his daughter hates him. And his son is in Van Nuys at flight school (also important to the plot). What we need to learn from this is: A. 90210 Steve is a good father. B. He and Tara Reid seem really young to have such old children (he's 49, she's 37 so the math is okay) and C. His family is the worst. He should have just stuck with the waitress, the drunk, and the Australian.
11. And they take the 405! Freeway jokes, in spite of sharknadoes, are the best.
12. "There are sharks out there. You don't have to go out there." John Heard (before his epic death scene)
13. "By the way, I'm not a stripper." Nova (who's name is actually Jenny) I can't blame Tara Reid for thinking this at the start but clearly Nova is here to fall in love with Tara's flight school attending son so she and 90210 Steve can get back together at the end of the movie. Don't you watch movies ever?
14. If anyone has a definitive list of all the ways sharks are killed in this movie, I would love to see it. I counted surfboard, pool cue, gun, bookcase, gun, and bomb. I'm sure I missed a few along the way. There was a lot going on.
15. 90210 Steve, Tara, and their daughter - is this really the best time to discuss his involvement in your lives? There are sharks swimming in your living room and your boyfriend (Tara Reid) was just eaten. Get the eff out of your house now. 
16. Also, why is Tara Reid wearing a white sweater? And why did it never look dirty? She waded through bloody water at one point. The sweater should not be that white anymore.
17. Is 90210 Steve really repelling down a bridge to save children from a bus in shark infested waters? 
18. "I hate sharks. I'm from Wyoming." The bus driver/actor before his meets his untimely death in the most ironic yet saw it coming moment of the movie (so it's probably not really ironic at all).
19. How long do sharks live outside of water?
20. Government paranoia is rampant in this movie. The liquor store guy even claims that they know what kind of cheese he likes. And the sharknado was caused by global warming. 
21. I know understand why celebrities and the very wealthy drive Hummers.
22. Best dialogue: Nova: Why is there a retirement home next to an airport? Claudia (90210 Steve's daughter): Because old people can't hear.
23. Let's talk science for a moment: I know very little about the science of tornadoes let alone sharknadoes but I am certain that dropping bombs into the tornadoes from a helicopter will not "equalize" the tornado and cause it to disappear. And real talk, wouldn't that just mean the sharks would fall to the ground faster and kill more people? Did we really think this through?
24. Sharks killed Nova/Jenny's grandpa. So sure, she's game to throw bombs into a tornado from a helicopter flown by a dude she just met who isn't really a pilot. And she also likes him.
25. The shark vs. chainsaw scene is epic and awesome as a stand alone scene but honestly is even better within the action of the movie. You should really watch the build up to this scene to really get the weight of what just happened. 
26. "I really hate sharks." Nova. The sun comes up, the family is reunited, Nova has a new boyfriend (probably), and improbable activities stop improbable weather. And L.A. goes back to having to just worry about earthquakes.

There you have it - everything you need to know about Sharknado but were afraid to ask. I hope I didn't ruin it for you. Did I enjoy this movie? Absolutely. It was everything I expected from a movie called Sharknado and more. Will I watch it again? Only with a group of friends, some wine, and my suspension of disbelief firmly in place.

Because sharks and tornadoes

I loved the tv show Mystery Science Theater 3000 (or MST3K for us cool kids). Comedy Central ran the show when I was in high school and the Sci-Fi Channel (before their re-branding as SyFy) ran it for three seasons after that. The show was awesome: an evil scientist traps a guy and some robot sidekicks in space and they have to watch really terrible movies (you know for science). Instead of just watching them, they add their own commentary to the movie. Joel, the guy (and later Mike), Crow, Tom Servo, and Gypsy were the freaking best. It's because of MST3K that I've seen Steve Reeves movies, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, Cave Dwellers, and Zombie Nightmare. I think that Lazy Movie Weekend is my blog version of MST3K. Anyone who has ever watched a movie with me (particularly one I love) knows that this is what I do when I watch movies. I can't help myself. I blame Tom Servo.

I have an affection for terrible movies like some people have affection for hedgehogs or superheroes. Seriously, I wrote an entire post about Xanadu. I don't understand why people don't like that movie - it's amazing (and awful all at the same time). MST3K wasn't my only source for B movies. There was also Morgus on tv in New Orleans (a fantastic mad scientist played by Sid Noel Rideau). Before the USA network decided to run NCIS marathons all the time, it was the home of Up All Night and marathons of terrible movies like the Swamp Thing movies or Troll 2 or any creature feature made in the 50s and 60s. And WGN out of Chicago (that everyone seems to have with cable), ran the classic Universal creature features like Dracula, The Mummy, and Frankenstein. These are not scary movies - there's a certain amount of creepiness in many of them and certainly some of the most inventive uses of low budget special effects out there but they're fairly tame movies in terms of the creep factor. One of my favorite parts of watching these movies was to try to spot where the costume didn't quite make it to the end of an actor's arm or cover their entire neck. Most of these movies are thin on plot, big on horrible dialogue, and always have a fairly attractive cast that's put into some kind of peril or has to save the world from radioactive, giant spiders (or ants) or robots. There's always a neat resolution at the end where the scientist character tells the remaining characters (and us) how the giant spider came to be or how the robots rose up and took over. I loved them as a teenager and I love them now. I honed my suspension of disbelief skills by watching these movies. I feel like this skill helps me most when I watch romantic comedies.

Anyway, I was at a work event in Florida this week so I've basically been out of the loop on everything since Monday. I happen to love this particular work event but I also miss sunshine and sleeping. My flight was delayed so I didn't get home until close to 1 am (and I got up and went to work on Friday because I'm a boss). I was traveling with Kyli, a friend and fellow trainer. Kyli and I are have similar travel styles so despite our delay and other people's inability to navigate airports and maybe the rudest person I've ever encountered at an airport Starbucks, we managed to have a good time and a few laughs along the way. At one point, Kyli was looking through her Facebook newsfeed and saw all these posts about sharknadoes. Neither of us had any idea what anyone was talking about.

We missed out on the greatest movie event ever - SyFy's Sharknado.

When she first said it, I couldn't decide if Kyli was talking about some kind of massive shark death somewhere, something related to Shark Week, or an obscure weather phenomenon. I mean, no one knew what a derecho was until two years ago so why not a sharknado? I was also very tired so I also thought I might have misheard her. Kyli looked up "sharknado" on Google and we discovered that it's a movie about sharks being sucked into tornadoes and then being dropped out of the sky where they promptly eat people. Or are killed by Steve from Beverly Hills, 90210. The Twitter comments I saw last night were awesome - Mia Farrow was even watching. Sharknado owned social media in a way that Hollywood blockbusters only dream about. I think this review just about sums it up.

I'm not entirely sure where to start with the idea behind Sharknado and you know what? It doesn't matter. Movies (and books and tv shows) are there to help us escape from the dailiness of our lives. Had a bad day? Watch Waiting for Guffman or Tommy Boy because if Corky and fat guy in a little coat don't make you laugh than you have no soul. Break up with your boyfriend? Music & Lyrics or Say Anything both work. You'll cry but you'll also laugh and a little bit of your faith in love will be restored. Need to prepare for the impending zombie apocalypse? Simon Pegg's got you covered; Shaun of the Dead is really the only zombie prep movie you need to watch.

I've had a long week of presenting, standing for long periods of time, and smiling a lot (smiling is not always my favorite) so going home to watch Sharknado would have been the ideal activity for me to do. But Sharknado is not on again until Thursday. I'm not entirely sure what I will do with my time between now and then. Thanks to Kyli, I have lots of Buzzfeed articles to keep me entertained.

I have seen the only part of the movie that probably matters: the shark versus 90210 Steve and his chainsaw. It is exactly what I expected from a movie called Sharknado starring Tara Reid, 90210 Steve, and John Heard (who was in an equally terrible movie in the 80s called Cat People - it may get its on LMW treatment at some point). Please let there be a sequel.

Warning: this is a little gross so maybe don't watch it if you're eating breakfast or something that is red. Or you don't like the use of chainsaws in unexpected ways.  UPDATE: Apparently the video below has been removed. You can watch the scene over on SyFy's official movie page.

All we need now is Joel, the bots, and some popcorn.