Sharknado

We're back!

Direced By: Anthony C. Ferrante (other SyFy Channel movies)
Starring: Ian Ziering, Cassie Scerbo, and Tara Reid
Plot Summary: "I would like to see the screenplay for this. Because it seems like their goal was, 'What can we do to make 'sharks in a tornado' last 90 minutes?'"

There is nothing we can give you for set-up on this one. The poster ("ENOUGH SAID!") and the trailer tell you everything you need to know. So, because SyFy Channel life is an a surreal, nonsensical state of being that punches the "science" half of science-fiction in the crotch, here are the facts:

--There are no hurricanes or tornadoes in Los Angeles, California. That's not a thing. That's why "TORNADOES IN LA?!" was such a big deal in The Day After Tomorrow.
--Wild animals have a tendency to say "DEUCES" to the rest of us in the event of a major storm, and even if they didn't, sharks don't swim far enough inland for any of this to happen.
--Sharks don't travel in packs, so there's no way in hell there'd be this many of them together, at any point, anywhere.
--No.

Observations Made As We Watched:
--"On a scale from 1 to 'we should've known because Tara Reid's in it,' how intense do you think this is gonna be?" 
--"HOW IS THIS STARTING IMMEDIATELY?" / "OMG THAT WAS MY THOUGHT TOO! NO CONTEXT, JUST SHARKS IN THE MOTHERF***ING SKY?"
--"Samuel L. Jackson needs to be here screaming about how he doesn't have time for this s***."
--"This guy looks like the gay porn version of a fisherman. Like, is that a Burberry trench coat?"
--"THEY CAME IN LIKE A WRECKING BALL!"
--"I have stuffed-animal sharks that look more realistic than this."
--"Jasmyn. JASMYN!" / "I... I don't... I can't even..."
--"DUDE, WHY ARE YOU STILL IN THE WATER?!" / "Y'ALL DUMB AS F***, MOVE YOUR ASSES!"
--"Whoever's still in the water at this point deserves a shark attack."
--"I'm mad this dude's name is Finn; number one, because that's corny, and number two, because all the other Finns I've seen are either cool or cute."
--"We are really going to need to address the graphics at some point." / "That last shark looked like it was made of Play-Doh."
--"I'm mad about Global Warming because of all the bad movies it has inspired."
--"That dude looked like a Sim getting attacked, f*** these graphics."
--"I'll always remember that Cory Monteith's final two tweets were about Sharknado."
--"They had to do this in LA because East Coast people won't take this s***."
--"I like that no one is asking how this is possible." / "Because they know WE'RE asking how this is possible."
--"That shark just apparated." / "Seriously, where the f*** are they coming from?"
--"Aww, Tara, they let you act!"
--"Was a car explosion really necessary? I mean, you have sharks falling out of the sky."
--"Oh, here we go! Here we go, there it is! SHARKNADO!"
--"Why does this car have a nitro button? This is not Crash Bandicoot Racing."
--"I would sacrifice a child to star in a SyFy Channel movie."

"I know this is a strange comment, but not enough people are dying. For a movie called Sharknado, very few people are actually being eaten by sharks."

Someone exercised an unexpected level of restraint here. We thought we'd see someone randomly get chomped every ten minutes, for all the crazy "SHAAAARKNAAAADOOOOOOO" hype of the trailer and the poster, but after the initial descent of flying sharks, things calmed down a bit. There even came a point where they acknowledged the improbability -- *cough* IMPOSSIBILITY  *cough* -- of the weather situation, when the news anchor stated it was the first hurricane to hit LA. Nobody said anything about the shark part of it, but whatever.

Here's the crew we followed through the movie: bar-owner Finn (Ziering), his employee Nova (Scerbo), their Aussie surfer friend Baz (because that was apparently the first Australian the writers thought of), and Finn's ex-wife and family (Reid, a teenage daughter, and eventually a son). Nova -- my (Jasmyn's) favorite -- was a trigger-happy bartender with a shotgun and a vendetta against sharks because of an attack she survived (with survivor's guilt, after everyone she was with died) some years back. Sarah's favorite was George, an old drunkard who pretty much lived at Finn's bar, but George, unfortunately, didn't make it.

Now, we need to briefly address the real flaw of the movie: the distractingly awful special effects.

Sarah: "GUYS, THAT'S NOT HOW SCARS LOOK! AT LEAST NOT OLD SCARS! I've got old scars, they're not pretty, but they sure as hell don't look like that!"
Jasmyn: "That scar looks like he was supposed to have gangrene ten years ago. That scar looks like it formed an air bubble and, somehow, he got cum stuck in it and it solidified."

This is the scar in question:

You can see the CGI fail in the trailer, but as Sarah said, the movie could have been properly gory if the sharks looked like sharks.

The Best Part: The side characters who ended up dying were hilarious. We loved drunk old George, as well as a funny schoolbus driver and a conspiracy-theorist gas station attendant. We were also really glad that Baz didn't make it out either, because he was annoying.

The Worst Part: For all the money SyFy saved on advertising (all they had to do was say "Sharknado" and Twitter did the rest), we hope that in the rumored sequel, they spend whatever they can on the graphics. Seriously, human-hungry sea creatures falling out of the sky would be a terrifying scenario if we weren't laughing at the animated fish-tank toys they were passing off as sharks.

Regarding the greatest absurdity here, the solution that Nova and Finn's son, Matt, come up with, which is to fly a helicopter around the sharknado and drop explosives in it to blow it up... Why the hell not? The way we see it, if you're living in a reality where a sharknado is possible, you're also living in a reality where throwing dynamite into a tornado to disperse it is possible. So, if we accept the circumstances in which this movie is happening, of course that solution makes sense.

You cannot watch Sharknado with a logical eye. So, once we put the insanity aside, once we embraced the sharknado and all that it was, we weren't too bothered by the fact that Nova gets eaten whole by a shark that later, BY COMPLETE COINCIDENCE, ends up being the shark Finn throws himself into with a chainsaw and then saws his and Nova's way out of. In fact, Sarah's only question at that point was, "How did he do that without cutting Nova?"

Sharknado is fun. Sharknado is the kind of movie that's at the core of why we started Camp or Crap? in the first place. It succeeded in what it set out to do, and it's so hilariously bad it's good, so we give it a B.

Now, for bonus fun, listen to the Sharknado theme song that plays over the end credits, "The Ballad of Sharknado." Yes. This happened.

 (Poster and trailer © The Asylum and Southward Films)

Knowing

Sarah and I are back from Christmas break, detoxed from finals and ready to spring back into action! We return to you with... well, we're actually not sure about this one. The first time I saw this movie, it was playing on the overhead screens of a long bus ride at an earsplitting volume that nearly prevented me from sleeping through it. But Nicolas Cage is in it, and that's always one hell of a starting point.



Directed By: Alex Proyas (The Crow, I, Robot)
Starring: Nicolas Cage and Rose Byrne
Plot Summary: "This already seems like it's going to be unnecessarily convoluted."

Let's begin by saying that we have several thoughts on Nicolas Cage, and very few of them are positive. Over-acting is a serious affliction for some actors (especially those in the action/sci-fi genres), and if there were a fundraising foundation for the cause, he would be the spokesman. The specific problem with Nic is that although he's really trying, he's completely transparent. We can see him chanting "THIS IS SERIOUS" before the film starts to roll. Nic is a funny, funny man, but it's never intentional. Thus, this compilation, by some brilliant man named Harry Hanrahan:



(Note: Ironically, back in the day, Nic encouraged his friend Johnny to get into acting. So, we can thank Nic Cage for Johnny Depp. Ponder that.)

Observations Made As We Watched:
--"Ugh, let's just watch this... it's like ripping off a band-aid."
--"It's like, because he's a Coppola, he didn't feel the need to take any acting classes, ever."
--"Oh my God, what's wrong with her head? Seriously, why is that little girl's forehead that wide?!"

"IT'S PLOT DEVICE DAY!"

We have a small level of pity for this movie, because the initial concept was actually interesting: There is a prophecy of sorts, in a series of numbers, that predicts all the world's major disasters and death tolls over a span of about 50 years, ending with the complete destruction of Earth. This prophecy is discovered by Nic's son at a time capsule ceremony at his elementary school. Nic, an astrophysics professor at MIT (yeah, MI-f***ing-T), discovers the pattern in the numbers, and the movie goes from there.

Theoretically, this could have been a brilliant movie. Director Alex Proyas is also responsible for one of my personal favorite sci-fi thrillers, I, Robot, a movie that has a lot more things going for it than this one does: a) a twisty plot with no loose ends, b) existential questions about one's life purpose, and c) Will Smith. Knowing, unfortunately, was dull. The movie basically boiled down to "This is happening. We're all going to die and no one can prevent it. There is no conflict here and there are no questions raised. Goodbye." So, after awhile, there just wasn't a point.

The Best Part: The idea.

The Worst Part: The execution.

Oh, Knowing. We see what you did. You had potential, and you tried, but you missed the mark. It's a C- for you.

(Poster and trailer © Summit Entertainment)

Speed Racer

Speed Racer is the first movie we've reviewed for our baby blog that neither of us had seen before. Sarah remembers watching the show when she was little, but my only knowledge of it came from a hilarious Geico commercial that came out four years ago. When I first saw the trailer for this movie, I was really psyched and was dying to see it... and then the reviews came in.



Directed By: The Wachowskis (The Matrix, V For Vendetta)
Starring: Emile Hirsch, John Goodman and Christina Ricci
Plot Summary: "There's some kind of color orgasm going on here."

The first thing to notice about this movie is the fact that Owen Paterson, the production designer, must have been on acid. There were moments, especially during the final race, which we are now referring to as Rainbow Road, when our eyes literally hurt from watching it. Before we started, Sarah even asked, "I have a headache, is this going to give me a seizure?" That being said, the visuals save the movie, because it is a cool-looking movie. The colors are so bright, and there are SO MANY OF THEM, that you almost forget there's no story.

Observations Made As We Watched:
--"Is that his NAME? Speed Racer is actually his NAME?!"
--"Do you feel like we're playing Mario Kart? Because I feel like we're playing Mario Kart."
--"I SERIOUSLY LOVE HIS HAIR!"
--"This could be futuristic London... or Tokyo... or it could be like, a thousand Times Squares... Where ARE we?!"
--"John Goodman needs a better bra."

"This ISN'T how cars work. They'd be dead a bazillion times over. Deadity-dead-dead."

There is a whole lot of Unnecessary in this movie. There is a pet chimp (named Chim-Chim, of course) who THROWS POO at an enemy's face. There are kung-fu ninjas. One of them has throwing stars but doesn't use them, and instead, accidentally catapults them into the wall NEXT TO Speed's head while his father, who apparently is a wrestling veteran (according to the random class ring they inserted into the shot), spins the aforementioned ninja over his head. The movie is over two hours long, and 90% of it was either a car race or a fight scene. Not to mention the fact that everyone knows kung fu. When the f*** did Speed Racer learn kung fu? All he wants to do is RACE, damn it!

The backstory is not interesting enough to drive Speed's need to race all the time. They talk about how Speed loves the art of racing and doesn't care about winning, but at no point does Speed ever explain what he loves about racing. In Almost Famous, the lead singer of Stillwater explains what he loves about performing (the "buzz"). In The Princess and the Frog, Tiana's father, an aspiring restauranteur, explains how food brings people together. Hell, even in Sweeney Todd, the deranged barber sings an ode to his razors. Passion is passion, and even though it's the kind of thing that should go without saying, we still don't understand Speed's obsession. "It's in my blood" is a really vague statement.

The Best Part: Aside from Emile Hirsch's hair, there is a moment during the final race when the Wachowskis decide to push the PG rating. Speed, having some kind of manic freakout breakdown, screams, "GET THAT WEAK S*** OFF MY TRACK!" to his competitor, Cannonball Taylor. I screamed "YES!!!"

The Worst Part: Yes, it's a racing movie. But there was too much racing and not enough story. The only reason we pulled for Speed at any point was Emile Hirsch, thankfully, acting his heart out. Sarah counted, and there were 7-8 races in this movie. By the time we got to Rainbow Road, it was too much. Too much motion, too many lasers... We closed our eyes because our faces hurt. THERE WERE THAT MANY COLORS. In 3D, this movie would most certainly kill people.

Also, there was a character named Inspector Detector. Inspector Detector. Seriously.

It's not a good movie, but in the grand scheme of bad (cough--THE FOG--cough), it's not terrible. It almost reaches a level of mediocrity that saves it from the worst ratings. So, we give Speed Racer a C+.

"It was like a rainbow threw up on you." --Sarah

PS: We couldn't believe the names of the characters in this movie, so we looked up Spritle (Speed's little brother) and found this photo from the original cartoon:

Sarah asked, "Why does it look like he's being molested by a priest?"

We'll leave you with that. All answers can be sent to camporcrap@gmail.com.

(Poster and trailer © Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc.)

The Faculty

As we mentioned in "Our Mission Statement," Sarah and I (Jasmyn) have very different movie collections. Sarah hadn't seen this movie before. I have, several times over, because I first saw it when I was 12 and became obsessed with its ridiculousness. However, this is one of those movie moments where we reach a fork in the road.



Directed By: Robert Rodriguez (Spy Kids, Sin City)
Starring: Elijah Wood, Josh Hartnett and Clea DuVall, among others
Plot Summary: "Are they using crack to kill the aliens?!"

Sarah, not being a fan of horror movies, does not feel qualified to judge this particular flick. She said it was like A Walk To Remember and Twilight combined. It was already bad, but made worse by the big-name ensemble cast (seriously, Jon Stewart and Salma Hayek are here, too) that did not deliver. Also, Sarah does NOT like surprises, and while I'm used to the jolts of this movie, for Sarah it was, well... surprising. The ear-invading parasites, the eye-stabbing, and the fingers and decapitated head that crawled away after they got chopped off, for example, were major issues.

Observations Made As We Watched:
--Lots of shrieking on Sarah's part
--Hysterical laughter on my part
--"THIS IS SO DISGUSTING!"
--"This isn't going to turn out well for him, is it?"
--"NO NO NO, RUN RUN RUN!!!"

I know this movie's questionable. I'm the one who added it to our blogging queue and shoved it in front of Speed Racer because I felt nostalgic. Anyway, I think there are plenty of redeemable qualities in this movie. Casey (Elijah Wood), as an unlikely little hero fighting against insane odds (cough -- FRODO -- cough), handles the "let's recap so the audience is up to speed" exposition in the middle of the movie perfectly. Plus, he has a line that I remembered for a long time afterwards, during subsequent viewings of alien invasion movies:

"If you were going to take over the world, would you blow up the White House, Independence Day style... or would you sneak in through the back door?"

Robert Rodriguez will later be well-known for the outrageous violence he throws into his work (did anyone else see Johnny Depp's blind gunfight after getting his eyeballs drilled out in Once Upon a Time In Mexico?), but The Faculty was clearly one of his earliest movies. When the alien mother finally shows up, in the form of a fanged worm from animatronic hell, it's laughable. In fact, Sarah was no longer freaked by the creature at that point. The tiny ones crawling into people's faces were another story.

The Best Part: The method used to destroy the aliens is a homemade speed/cocaine combo created in Zeke's (Josh Hartnett's) basement. It is, as his character explains, a diuretic, so it dries out the water-based invaders almost instantly. In one scene, where the crew of teen misfits must prove to each other that they have not been taken over, what do they do? They snort the white powder, kept in Bic pen capsules. Casey proceeds to giggle and freak out on Zeke's sofa.

Stan: "What the hell is wrong with him?"
Zeke: "He's tweaking, man! LET HIM F***ING TWEAK!!!"

The Worst Part: The dialogue, while being half-decent for what it is (and legitimately funny in some parts) is very obviously part of the screenwriter's attempt to make the movie edgy. But I have to admit, one of my favorite worst lines in a movie is delivered near the end, as Casey prepares to finally stab the alien mother:

"Guaranteed to JACK YOU UP!"

Sarah gives The Faculty a C, and while she says she'd need to see it again so that she's not completely taken aback by all the crazy, she can't see it getting higher than that. I, however, give it a solid, campy B. I think it falls under the "cult classic" category, along with several other deliciously bad movies that are on our collective horizons.

(Poster and trailer © Dimension Films)