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

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Sharknados

I'm not entirely sure what I just watched. It might have been an Indiana Jones homage. It might have been a classic sci-fi creature. It's possible it's a weird rom-com. Or maybe a long-form advertisement for extreme sports. It's very possible it's a religious movie that also involves time travel. A lot of things happened in the space of this movie and we've been set up for more. But I still have no idea what I just finished watching. I was treated to a nice little interview featuring the creator and director of the Sharknado films, Anthony C. Ferrante, last Friday and on top of proving he is the nicest human being in the film industry, he basically confirmed that we will be watching Sharknado movies for the rest of our lives.

I'm torn on this. On one hand, I love the Sharknado movies. They're ridiculous, campy, completely unbelievable, and a wonderful testament to the power of social media to drive fandoms. The cast and crew seem dedicated to making these movies and from what Ferrante says in the interview, they commit to the most ridiculous ideas because they're enjoying being part of this franchise. Many of them, most notably Ian Ziering and Tara Reid, have salvaged their careers with these films. On the other hand, I don't actually believe we need any more of these movies. Five was way too many despite the fact that there are some delightful things in the fifth one (we'll get to these shortly). I'll continue to grapple with my love/hate/love/hate relationship with these movies and provide the service I always promise you: I watch these movies so you don't have to BUT you can feel like you did.

Let's dive into Sharknado 5: Global Swarming (pun intended).

1. There are an incredible amount of movie references in this one. I can only assume Ferrante was watching Stranger Things between movies and was like, "I'm going to do my homage to everything ever because I can! With sharks!" We've got, and these are just the ones I caught, Indiana Jones, a Godzilla reference, Back to the Future, James Bond references, an Infinity Stones/Marvel inspired plotline, the Brendan Fraser Mummy movies, and possibly a veiled Terminator reference although I may just be projecting that one.
2. Remember nothing good ever comes of repelling into cave or spelunking. Nothing.
3. Nova! She's actually back this time (seriously she was what was missing from the entire second and fourth movies). Nova belongs to the single greatest creation of the sharknado universe (yes, I just typed that sentence): the Sharknado Sisterhood. Seriously, why are we only now learning that they exist? More on the sisterhood shortly. "Please tell me you've started a band not a cult." Funniest thing Ian Ziering has ever said in his entire career.
4. I don't think they know how NATO or British people work. No one says "chap" that much.
5. Of course the sharknados are from the past and there are basically Infinity Stones at certain places around the world (Stonehenge, the pyramids) to keep it all in check. Of course this is why these things happen. It's not the Shepard family despite the fact that they are always in the middle of it. I know I said before that I don't blame them but now I'm not so sure.
6. Don't touch anything you find in a cave under Stonehenge, especially if it's surrounded by sharks. Haven't you ever watched a movie in your life?
7. "Don't aggravate the sharks." Say it in a delightful British accent for the full affect.
8. Took 15 full minutes for a "London Bridge is falling down" joke.
9. Normally the cameos make me laugh but we have to talk about Bret Michaels (which may also be the title of my first memoir for no apparent reason but that it's a great title). What is this even about? Why is he in London? Why is he randomly walking down the street? Why does he randomly have a guitar and starts playing once attached to the bus? Does he die? I missed it if he did. Why is Bret Michaels here? Vince Neil made sense in the one he was in; he was in Las Vegas which is basically the only place Vince Neil can feel like a normal human. There is literally no reason for Bret Michaels to be in London.
10. I still really dislike April and spent most of this movie cringing every time she speaks...which is often. Oh and she flies. Remember, she's a cyborg now.
11. So Gil, the youngest Shepard child, gets sucked into the sharknado, Fin rides a shark into Buckingham Palace so he can stop it from killing the Queen, and Charo is the Queen of England. All of this happened before the opening title sequence.  
12. Slow motion running = tragedy has occurred.
13. "We should have never gone into that cave." Understatement of the year.
14. Y'all, Nichelle Nicols is in this movie. Uhura is in this movie. But so is the Dance Moms woman, Chris Kattan, and Geraldo Rivera so maybe her appearance is negated by Geraldo. I don't know if there's some form of cameo math at work here. For everyone that's cool and amusing, there are six that are stupid.
15. And suddenly we're in Switzerland because now the sharknado is actually a transporter and people who are sucked into it just end up in another country. Maybe the sharknado isn't all that bad if you don't have to deal with the airlines anymore.
16. Meanwhile back in Kansas (literally), the other Shepard son is preparing a bunker of sorts with a weird old guy and foreshadowing his ultimate demise. The Shepard kids get the short end of every stick in these movies.
17. How does this movie even work? They're in Australia now and there are sharks in the water (where they belong) and April is injured even though they all jump in punching sharks in the face. I really thought she would die at this point and then Fin and Nova would end up together as the Goddess of Inappropriately Aged Co-Stars intended. 
18. Wait, is this movie actually about women running the world? Is Beyonce going to burst in and save the world by dropping a new album, having triplets, and having flawless hair all at the same time? The Sharknado Sisterhood is the part of this movie that I was expecting the least but love the most. It's like every 90s movie involving a woman in a cat suit met up with Wonder Woman and the Women's March and this is what we got. Olivia Newton-John is here making both Grease and Xanadu references and making April over in a way that would make Sandy proud but makes me rage-ful. She also says, "Don't get too physical."
19. Tony Hawk! My favorite cameo of this film because obviously skateboarding will save the world.
20. "The Paxton Initiative" - is that a reference to Bill Paxton? I really hope it is.
21. So now we're in Brazil and we've learned that the stone they took is one of several (See? Infinity Stones.) that allows a person to control the sharknados. And of  course a shady dude (played by Greg Louganis) steals it so we get a car chase through sharknados via Italy.
22. Which leads us to Downtown Julie Brown and Pope Fabio. Apparently, Downtown Julie Brown is an emissary of the Pope. Nothing makes sense anymore.
23. The sharks have gone nuclear and are heading to Japan because of course they are.
24. "Clear your mind of all thoughts." Shouldn't be hard with this movie.
25. They've created a Sharkzilla! I repeat, they've created a Sharkzilla!
26. There's the Xfinity plug I was waiting for. It took almost the entire movie for it to appear. Crazy.
27. Followed closely by our required "Today Show" appearance. Thank goodness for Kathie Lee, Hoda, and Al. I enjoy every instance of Al beating sharks to death with a baseball bat.
28. The Sisterhood arrives in Japan dressed for battle like they're going to either a stripper convention or a very dark bachelorette party. Nova jumps into the Sharkzilla/sharknado to save Gil (yes, we're still trying to save him although I've made no reference too him because too much is going on). And then Nova dies. Yes, of all the people to die, Nova dies. Fucking Shepard family ruins everything.
29. The only thing missing from this movie is Gilbert Gottfried. Oh wait, there he is, introducing us to "safarinados." If he had only screamed "Damned, dirty sharks" this movie would be complete for me. 
30. So they try to go back to Stonehenge to right the wrong of removing the stone but end up in Egypt at another temple to sharks (sure) located in a pyramid. Have we not learned anything, remaining members of the Shepard family? Don't touch anything. Don't go in the secret tomb you opened when you touched stuff. And don't turn on the ancient machine that you think might stop the sharknados. You'll just mess it up like you mess up everything else. 
31. And then...April dies. She sacrifices herself to save the world. Or something. Her somewhat grief-stricken husband picks up her cyborg head, ties it into a hobo pack, and starts his journey to find any survivors. 
32. Just when you thought we were at the end of these movies, Dolph Lundgren appears in a time machine/truck claiming to be future Gil Shepard. He's come back to save the world and bring everyone back from the dead (because all of the Shepards except Fin are dead). So they're going back in time because now we're in Back to the Future (they even used the same font). "Where we're going, you don't need a license." What I don't "understand" about this part is this: if he's gone back to the past and to the future to stop the sharknados, is Gil going to write himself out of history? Because if the first sharknado doesn't occur, his parents never get back together and he doesn't exist. Is that what the next movie is going to be about? 

There are about fifteen things I excluded from this list because as I was writing it I was thinking to myself, "this might be why I'm still single." I love suspending disbelief, particularly for campy, ridiculous sci-fi movies but at some point, the logical side of my life takes over and I'm back to where I was at the beginning of this post...I have literally no idea what I just watched.

Like all good things, it may be time for this one to come to an end.

Although, if Anthony C. Ferrante wants to make spinoff series of movies about the Sharknado Sisterhood, I'd be on board with that. I'd even send some suggestions to you about how to be better when it comes to creating strong female action heroes. I'm helpful that way.

Coming soon: I try StichFix and let some stranger on the internet select clothes for me. Let's see what she comes up with my first "fix." I'll also share my distrust of Pinterest and how to wear dinosaur themed clothes at work. We also need to tackle the glory that is GLOW (series and documentary) and tackle my fourth attempt at getting my meal planning act together. This time, it features chia seeds. All coming your way this August on the Island!!

Sometimes What Happens In Vegas Should Definitely Stay In Vegas

There should not be four Sharknado movies. If I want to be 100% honest, there shouldn't be any Sharknado movies. There should be a sequel or some other extension of the Firefly/Serenity universe or another season of Parks and Rec or another Spy movie but that's not how the world works. SyFy has built part of its brand on low budget-ish, oddball "horror/sci-fi/creature/freak weather phenomena" movies (I don't really know how to categorize them) so something like Sharknado was going to happen at some point in our collective history. People like sharks; I don't but people do. People also like escapist television (I really do). It makes sense to combine both of these elements to create the pop culture zeitgeist that is the Sharknado franchise. And so we have Sharknado 4: The 4th Awakens. Yes, that's it's actual name.

I try not to read too much about these movies before they happen. I enjoy being surprised by "celebrity" cameos, plot twists, and the inevitable shark-based puns. I'm still waiting for someone to put together the definitive list of ways sharks are killed in the movies. The cameos truly are the best part of any of the movies. My favorites all happened in the second movie; Downtown and Uptown Julie Brown, Biz Markie, and the cast of the Today show. Seriously, watching Matt Lauer kill a shark with an umbrella is the only time I've ever enjoyed watching him on the Today show. I take that back, my favorite cameo was George R.R. Martin in the third installment; he dies like all GoT's fans dreams of him ever finishing the series.

This year, for fun, the wonderful Neek Confessional (aka Jessica) and I decided to include a drinking game in our annual live tweeting/viewing extravaganza. Jessica was smart and took Monday off; I did not (new hires start on Monday so I have to be at work). Here's the game:

Next year, we should change puns to shark jokes but other than that, the drinking game worked well. I think I missed a lot of the cameos because I'm not up on my reality stars and MMA fighters. We also had a question of whether Fin's niece was being pouty or emo. I think we decided on pouty which is not the same thing. I finished my beer and a half and woke up just fine this morning.

So what does Sharknado 4: The 4th Awakens have to offer us? We learned the why having the world's largest ball of twine is important. We learned that some things should really stay in Vegas. We learned that marrying into the Shepard family is a poor life choice. We learned that while we were in Kansas, we definitely weren't in Kansas anymore. But most importantly, we learned that you can just throw a word in front of "nado" and you have a new weather phenomena that sounds terrifying - that's what Sharknado 4 gave us. By my count there were 8 types of nadoes in this film: regular sharknadoes, firenadoes, sandnadoes, bouldernadoes, lightningnadoes, lavanadoes, cownadoes, and nuclear sharknadoes. I hope I didn't miss any of them.

Apparently, sharknadoes were not enough. We, and by we I mean the makers of these movies, decided that the only way to up the "suspense" and the action of these movies was to add more types of made up-nadoes because that's how movies work. The cownado was probably the most effective; between Gilbert Gottfried shouting about cownadoes (as he does) and the sharks eating the cows in the cow/sharknado, it was pretty spectacular to watch. The nuclear sharknado at the end of the movie was pretty amazing too. It looked exactly like a nuclear cloud from a 1950s horror movie had a baby with the bomb at the end of the tv movie version of Stephen King's The Stand so vaguely realistic and yet sort of like a child drew it. I feel like that description could describe most of Sharknado 4 but that also seems sort of mean to say out loud.

What did I like about Sharknado 4? I enjoyed many of the cameos this year but admit that I may have missed a lot of them since I'm not as up on my reality show stars as I should be. My favorite cameos included Cheryl Tieg as Fin's mom, Vince Neil as Vince Neil, Alexandra Paul and Gena Lee Nolin as astrophysicists but really there to recreate their famous Baywatch slow motion running, Patti Stanger as a report (asking a matchmaking question of course), Paul Shaffer randomly playing a keyboard during a sharknado attack, and Carrot Top as the most unlucky Uber driver ever. Vince Neil's appearance led to my only excuse to ever tweet about Vince Neil:

PS - the answer is yes except that it won't matter because sharks.

My least favorite cameo was that of Stacey Dash as the mayor of Chicago. Now, if this was 1995 and we were discussing Clueless there would be no problem but it is 2016 and Stacey Dash has become that "celebrity" that needs to go away. I cannot with her. I can suspend my disbelief for literally everything else that happens in Sharknado 4, including that time April used sharks as a makeshift defibrillator, but I cannot and will not accept Stacey as the mayor of Chicago. Somehow this morphs into her being the Wicked Witch (a la The Wizard of Oz) including wearing striped socks AND having a house dropped on her. I get that most of the cast of every Sharknado movie is stunt casting but this just seems so wrong for so many reasons. She does ask the question that plagues these movies "Is Fin responsible for the sharknadoes?" It's a mildly valid question but I don't think we'll ever get the answer to this since it's been asked in three of the four movies without an answer.

We also find out the fate of April. If you remember from Sharknado 3 after she gives birth in the belly of a shark during her reentry into Earth from space (just go with it), April is possibly killed by spacecraft debris. Fans were invited to decided whether April lived or died; I voted firmly on the side of "April should die" because April is the worst. But apparently, the "April should live" camp was more vocal and won. Now, I say she's alive but she's not really. Her mad scientist father, played by Gary Busey (of course), has turned her into a cyborg. Not just any cyborg, a cyborg that somehow has a built-in reference to every sci-fi/fantasy/comic book movie made in the last 30 years. There's definitely a nod to the Star Wars franchise (some on Twitter even referred to her as a Sharknado Jedi - I'm so, so sorry Star Wars fans), there are references to Star Trek, the Terminator series, and at some point, April becomes a weird Iron Man without the suit but with some of the toys. April's entire existence reminds me of that Kristy Swanson movie from the 80s called Deadly Friend; there's something super creepy about her in the entire rest of the movie. Keep in mind that her husband and children all think she's dead so her reappearance as a sharknado fighting cyborg is traumatic to say the least. Her youngest child, the child born in the belly of a shark, refuses to recognize April as his mother. He says a shark is his mom. In fact:

It's not until the entire Shepard family decides to face the nuclear sharknado as a family (because "family rules" as Fin tells us), that Little Gil (seriously) decides Cyborg Mom is okay. He even pulls a chainsaw out of a rock (in a nod to Excalibur) to save his family when they've all been "eaten" by sharks Russian nesting doll style. The youngest Shepard has now battled sharks and won so he's truly one of them.

I'm going to admit that only about 15% of the movie makes any real sense. This sequel was so fast paced and moved through so many states that it was hard to keep up with where the family was, how many cameos I missed (we haven't even discussed Dog the Bounty Hunter and his weird Deliverance-like family of chainsaw aficionados), the "science" of why the sharknado and specifically the nuclear sharknado keep coming back (thanks to Al Roker for the explanation), and why Fin has a niece all of the sudden and she's hanging out with him, base jumping to safety, and generally kicking ass. I have no idea why she's here except that Nova is missing and there has to be a hot woman who's not Fin's daughter or wife because that's how these movies work. I thought it would be Fin's son's wife but she dies, setting us up for the end of the movie and the return of Nova.

Yes, Nova returns at the very end (literally the last 30 seconds) riding on top of the Eiffel Tower. I'm not even joking about this. She's been in Paris, as Fin's daughter so helpfully tells us (or maybe it was the niece). I wanted to believe she was there on vacation and finding her one true love but no, apparently, she's been fighting sharknadoes.

I guess this means there will be a fifth Sharknado movie and it will star Nova. Maybe she only appears in odd numbered movies (she was in the first and third installments). Maybe she (the actor) realized this one was a lost cause and held out for a movie where she is more of a central character. Maybe once and for all she will get her Shepard dude (I'm guessing it will be the older son since that's what the first movie told us would happen). Or maybe the next chapter of Sharknado will be free of the freaking Shepard family and Nova will be able to finally avenge her grandfather's shark attack death in the way she has always wanted...total shark annihilation.

I'll be here for you because I watch these movies so you don't have to.

Sharknado poster
Drinking game image by Jessica 
Tweet images by me (from my account)
Tweet image from @SharknadoSyFy

Lazy Movie Weekend Double Feature, Part 1: A Shark Tried to Eat Gossip Girl

I have a love/hate relationship with summer movies. Back in the day (which I'm allowed to say because I'm over 25), I used to go to every summer movie regardless of how terrible it might end up being. I feel like summer movie season was a simpler time back then too; Michael Bay didn't spew crap versions of cherished childhood favorites and there wasn't the same horror movie every summer with a rotating cast of the latest teen movie sensations. I like action movies, love a sappy romance (or five), enjoy animated movies every now and then, and can even get into a well made horror movie but I've been sorely disappointed the last few summers by movies. So I go to the movies less and I watch my favorites at home more. Life goes on. Hollywood is not broken because I don't go to the movies.

This summer I vowed to try a bit more to go to the movies; there are at least eleven movies that I want to see (I've seen two of them as of today; most are not out yet) and have enjoyed them in my way. I thought we'd focus this Lazy Movie Weekend on two movies that have nothing to do with one another except that I saw them within a few days of each other. Originally, I was going to combine them into one post but it's too much so you get two LMW posts this week! Consider it my birthday present to America.

Let's dive into our first feature The Shallows (pun absolutely intended). Spoilers ahead - just an FYI although I legit don't care if I ruin it for you because seriously this is a movie about a shark and a woman trying to survive. You know exactly what's going to happen.

Sharks are not my thing. I've seen the first Jaws movie since it's a requirement as a fan of movies and I've watched all three of the Sharknado movies so you don't have to (part four will be here very soon). I don't watch "Shark Week" and I've never seen any of the other well regarded movies involving a sharks vs. man plot (I'm told Deep Blue Sea and Open Water are both very good). However, the previews The Shallows intrigued me; Gossip Girl surfs and then battles a Great White. Totally plausible and obviously means someone made some excellent life choices. What could be better than that combination?

It's not a bad movie at all. The scenery is beautiful; as a non-beach person watching Gossip Girl (as I will refer to Blake Lively's character, Nancy, because that's how I think of her; she's not a Nancy) take in the secret beach for the first time, I had an overwhelming desire to go to the beach, just not a secret one. Where there are sharks. Additionally, there is a wonderful version of the Lou Reed classic "Walk on the Wild Side" playing as Gossip Girl and Carlos drive out to the beach. After he leaves her on the beach with some warnings about not staying out too late, we meet Gossip Girl's family who want her to go back to med school, realize she's come to the beach to commune with her dead mother, and watch her get ready to surf. She joins two dudes in the water and we're treated to a great sequence of them all catching waves and enjoying the thrill of the secret beach.

Then Gossip Girl ignores all of the smarts we know she has and decides to try for one more wave despite the fact that she's now alone, it's past 5 pm, and all of the other sea creatures are going away from her. Oh and there's a dead whale just chilling in the ocean not that far from her. How did any of them miss a rotting whale? Then the shark arrives. Gossip Girl is in the middle of his feeding area (or whatever one calls it) and now she is a target. The remainder of the 87 minute movie is a test of wills between Gossip Girl and the shark, who I'll refer to as Barry. She makes it to a rock and uses earrings in a way they were never meant to be used (this is the only part of the movie I had to look away during), befriends an injured seagull, watches three people get eaten by Barry, and devises a plan to make it to the buoy once high tide comes in. Barry, who has already taken a chunk out of Gossip Girl's leg, circles between her and the dead whale, with occasional forays into partially eating the other two surfers and a random guy on the beach (who sort of deserves what he gets for being a terrible human). I won't tell you how it all ends, although I'm sure you can guess, but I will say that Barry doesn't fair well and Gossip Girl shows us all what moxie really means.

The Shallows does raise a lot of questions:

• Why does no one ever say the name of the beach? Is it because it's Spanish name translates to Shark Beach or You Will Die If You Stay Past 5 pm Beach? Suspicious.
• Did anyone else want more Carlos in this movie? I really enjoyed him and was sad to see that he only has a little bit of screen time at the start and end of the movie. 
• Wouldn't it have been better if Gossip Girl wore a full wet suit? I know nothing about surfing or water sports but I feel like she would have been better served if she'd had a full suit on.
• Why didn't Gossip Girl leave with the other surfers? How was she planning on getting back from the secret beach? Did she not have an exit strategy? How did Gossip Girl all of the sudden become my cat when she jumps on top of the refrigerator and can't figure out how to get down?
• We're all aware that Great Whites are not native to or ever seen in Mexico right? How did Barry even get there?
• Isn't Barry stuffed? By the middle of the movie he's eaten part of a dead whale, probably some seagulls and other fish, and portions of at least three grown men. I wonder if Barry has an eating disorder or something.
• If he's not hungry, what did Gossip Girl do to Barry to provoke such hatred? Was it because she's married to Deadpool and they have an impossibly adorable child and seem really happy? Is Barry all of our collective dislike of her because of this? (Aside: I like Blake Lively.)
• Or maybe Barry is a metaphor for poor life choices - is that what we're being told? Gossip Girl shouldn't be on that beach in the first place; she's supposed to be in medical school. She's supposed to be teaching her younger sister how to surf. She's not supposed to be on this secret beach communing with her dead mom. 
• Where did the oil come from? I won't say why this is important but where's the source? Is it the dead whale or is this also a treatise on pollution and our rape of the environment?
• Is anyone else thinking that if this happened to them the arm of their wet suit would not fit around their leg? 
• Who else wears that much jewelry when surfing? Obviously this helped Gossip Girl immensely, probably more than the flare gun but not as much as the Go Pro camera, but is that normal? 
• How did she finish medical school so quickly? The epilogue of this movie troubles me more than any of what transpired in the previous 80 minutes.

Should you go see The Shallows? If you like sun while also being stressed when movie watching, enjoy pretty landscapes that are eventually marred by Barry's appearance, and like seeing improbable things happen to bring about the conclusion of this caper, then yes, you should see The Shallows. If you hate fun and summer and seagulls, go ahead and skip this one.

Shark image
Gossip Girl on the buoy
Steven Seagull

Lazy Movie Weekend Double Feature, Part 2: And Then There Were Aliens coming at you on Friday. Don't miss it!

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.