There's Junk and Then There's JUNK

Here I am.  Your blogger on demand.

I got a request last week from a good friend who asked me if I had watched "Sharknado" when it first aired. 

"You definitely should blog about it."

Okay, I had little interest in this made-for-TV disaster movie.  I had seen a couple of people comment about it on Facebook, but my time is limited with nonsense like this.  Besides, it was airing on the Syfy Network and I don't even know what channel that is on my system.  

But my friend mentioned it was airing again.  And, oh well, if I can get a couple of good lines out of it...

I'll do my best.  This blog piece goes out to you.

Truth be told, I'm glad I watched "Sharknado."  Because it confirmed to me what I have been thinking for some time.  And a concept that some politicians and media types have been using to their advantage.

America is a stupid country.

We're in a land where mediocrity reigns supreme.  Entertainment put together on a budget of three dollars and brought to you in a marketing frenzy that makes you actually feel guilty if you miss it.  Lambs led to a slaughter.  Sheep marching innocently single-file until they walk right over that cliff.

"Sharknado" is a microcosm of that dire state of affairs.

Supposedly, in its first airing, "Sharknado" had ratings that were below what a typical Syfy movie would do.  Of course, as I said, I have no clue what a typical Syfy film is.  But, once the cretins at the Syfy Network recognized the buzz of their movie, they aired it a second time and...whamo...audience levels increased 40%.

This would be totally acceptable if "Sharknado" was good junk.  

Good junk?  What is that?

Well, for instance, "Mahogany" with Diana Ross was good junk.

Any horror movie with the likes of Jamie Leigh Curtis or Jennifer Love Hewitt is good junk.

Any early 60s film produced by Ross Hunter and starring any combination of Lana Turner, Sandra Dee, and Troy Donahue is good junk.

Films that are so bad that they are good. 

"Sharknado," however is a movie so bad that it's downright cancerous.  Reprehensible to the Nth degree.  And, as lemmings gathered to watch and tweet about this, one more validation that we are one dumb nation.

The plot, if you call it that, is mind boggling.  There are water spouts in the Pacific Ocean that suck up thousands of killer sharks.  Here's the first vile act committed by the Syfy shitheads.  In the wake of the Oklahoma tornadoes, we get to see this? 

Meanwhile, this weather pattern is headed straight for Los Angeles, a town that barely survived Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.  It's hard to believe anything could be worse than that, but it is.  Sharks land on the Santa Monica Pier, the famed ferris wheel rolls into an office building, and we're ready for our first commercial break. 

Speaking of which, the Syfy sales team should be recognized for filling a two-hour slot with more commercials than actual program content.  I timed the breaks at six minutes.  If you don't own a DVR, you were screwed.  If you're boycotting advertisers who were in the Paula Deen shows, you definitely should add to your list any of the products that were hawked during "Sharknado."

Of course, it doesn't take long before somebody looks at the storming skies and utters the phrase "global warming."  Liberal Hollywood doesn't miss a shot at relating to us everything they heard Bill Maher say last week.  When it was mentioned a third and fourth time, I checked IMDB to see if Senator Harry Reid was listed as a story editor.

So, the flooding of Los Angeles begins with homes destroyed and here's the second despicable sin waged by the assholes at Syfy.  In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, we get to see this?  If ever there is another horrifying freak of nature, may the homes of any Syfy employee in New York and Los Angeles be the first to be destroyed.

But, wait, I forgot the sharks.  As LA goes underwater, there are sharks all around and no, they're not agents at William Morris.  They're in the McClure Tunnel eating folks stuck in a traffic jam.  They're popping out of sewer drains like Art Carney in "The Honeymooners."  Oh, look, they're in the pool and the Mexican guy just skimmed it for leaves.  Oh, well. 

Eventually, they're swimming around your living room and you try to divert one by having it eat portraits of Aunt Marge and Uncle Phil.  When one unsuspecting character is munched on along with a La-Z-Boy recliner, there is a sea of red that would make Cecil B. DeMille envious.  It prompts one survivor to look at the water and say, "hmm, it must be that time of month."

Really?  Menstrual jokes, too??  Where does it stop?

Of course, to make sure the viewer recognizes all the sights he saw last summer on the StarLine tour bus, all of your favorite Hollywood landmarks are amateurishly filmed and destroyed.  One slob says, "My mom said that Hollywood would be the death of me" and then is impaled with the "O" from the legendary sign.  A shark flies through the lights on top of the Hotel Roosevelt.  It's a feeding frenzy very similar to the last time new Nike basketball shoes went on sale in Compton.

While all this is going on, the viewer is also peppered with Twitter messages in the lower corner of the screen.  It seems all of Hollywood was watching as the likes of C-listers Elizabeth Banks, Olivia Wilde, and Patton Oswalt all chime in their comments as "Sharknado" unfolds.  Oh, sure, Syfy had nothing to do with this.  This was all purely spontaneous??  Right, and I'll also sell you the Chinese Theater for a dollar.  Oh, wait, it was destroyed, too?? 

I hear that, in the original airing, one of the Twitter comments was from the late "Glee" actor Cory Monteith and that was one of the last things he did.  If so, perhaps that lethal dose of heroin and alcohol was not so bad in comparison.  This Tweet was excised from the airing I saw.  As if any of the slime buckets at Syfy could have that much decency.

Indeed, this is a movie and concept you should be able to have fun with, but it's nothing but a backed up toilet in a bar at 3AM. The production values are sheer offensive.  In one shot, it's raining.  In the very next, the sun is out.  Sun in, sun out.  Rain in, rain out.  Sure, Los Angeles has microclimates but this is ridiculous. 

Meanwhile, the characters drive around in vehicles with process shots and rear projection that was much better done in 1933 by Warner Brothers.  The cars move like those rides you put your kids in for a quarter in front of the local super market.  Apparently, the producers spent all their money on paying has-beens to Tweet and nothing on the actual film itself.

Oh, and speaking of nobodys, that's the entire cast of "Sharknado."  Folks who haven't acted in years or, in the case of star Ian Ziering, didn't make it to the final rounds of "Dancing with the Stars."  The characters who are mean don't survive.  The good guys do, except for actor John Heard who gets eaten after trying to fend off a shark with his favorite bar stool.  These are all actors desperately trying to keep up with their SAG dues and nothing else.

Just when you thought it couldn't be any worse, "Sharknado" overachieves.  The aforementioned Ziering is swallowed whole by one shark while he's carrying a chain saw.  Now there's one fish who will be having some TMJ issues soon.  But, from the stomach, Ziering cuts his way out of the fish and brings with him a character that had been also swallowed whole two commercial breaks ago.  Who will we see next?  Pinocchio and Geppetto??

If any of the above sounds remotely funny, it's sadly not.  You realize that you've been had by the marketing "gurus" at Syfy five minutes after the first fish arrives.  There's not a single moment of cleverness or originality throughout and yes, one helicopter pilot predictably announces "we need a bigger chopper."  That remote control click you just heard came from Steven Spielberg's media room.

When "Sharknado" ends, the producers giggle a little bit more by flashing the title card you see in most French or Italian movies.

Fin.

The End.

Oh, I get it.

In reality, after watching "Sharknado," my head felt a little lighter as there were clearly fewer brain waves traveling through.  I can only imagine how viewers who are dumber than me must feel.  Me?  I can put it all in perspective.  I worry about all those who cannot.  And were suckered by a bunch of snively backslappers and marketing nabobs at Syfy.  Folks that are giddily announcing that "Sharknado 2" will take place in New York. 

Expect these idiots to show Staten Island and Long Beach, Long Island  completely decimated.  Hey, do you really expect them to show any compassion in their quest for a few rating points?

Please don't ask me to review the sequel.  I'm closing the on-demand feature of this blog for a while.

But there were a few good gags in here, right?

Dinner last night:  Had a gloriously big lunch of Italian specialties at the home of grade school friend Diane, so no need for dinner at all.