The Shark Film Office

Saturday Night Live (October 11, 1975)

2008-07-03T23:38:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday night (June 28th), NBC paid tribute to George Carlin, who died the previous weekend, by replaying the pilot episode of Saturday Night Live from October 11, 1975. Carlin, as a sure sign of his stature in the comedic world at that point in time, served as host for the show, and I was there. OK, not there in New York, but I did watch the show when it first aired.

I saw the first Saturday Night Live episode in a way that many would consider to be “on the sly.” Owing to the fact that I was staying up incredibly late for an 11-year old, some would consider it that, but it really wasn’t that way. My parents, especially my Mom, let me stay up late on Friday and Saturday nights, and these late night vigils were aided by the very layout of our home in Eagle River. The parents upstairs, we three kids in our secluded basement fortress, with me spending weekend nights in a sleeping bag in the playroom. Technically, I was supposed to shut the tube off at midnight (I begged and pleaded to get it moved from 11:00, to which my mother relented), but I was soon dipping well past that, staying up to watch music and video shows like The Midnight Special (with Wolfman Jack) and Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert until the wee hours of the night. I would soon up this in the next couple of years to include any number of midnight matinee movie shows, The New Avengers and Kolchak the Night Stalker, but first, there was Saturday Night Live.

When SNL (then merely called Saturday Night, perhaps to distinguish it from Howard Cosell’s failed ABC series of the same season) showed up on my radar, I really had no idea what I was getting into. I just happened to stay awake (sometimes I didn't even make it), my brothers were asleep in the next room, my parents were asleep upstairs, and I had a burgeoning form of insomnia and a very obliging but quite hypnotizing television downstairs, which I was allowed to move to my room. I had seen the ads for the show throughout the week on NBC, and I even remember an article in the paper talking about the Battle of the Saturday Night shows (I recall a picture of a bunch of water-skiers in a pyramid promoting the Cosell show). While I had thought after I read the article in the paper that it would be cool to check both of these new shows out -- I was at a point in my youth where I had completely memorized the TV guide in the paper and watched any show at least one each season -- I really didn’t think that I would get the chance to see the late night version. The Cosell show, actually titled Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell, arrived in our home near "the family hour" -- and we did our normal Saturday evening family pizza routine on the night it premiered, watching the ridiculous Bay City Rollers and the rest of the variety-style entertainment -- and then never saw it again. Cancelled -- gone -- all but forgotten.

And then, a couple of weeks later, just flipping channels one night, there was George Carlin, whom my cousin Brad had already introduced to me, this time really "on the sly," beginning one of his routines. Since I had missed the opening of the show and the credits that followed, I had no idea what I was watching. So I checked the schedule, and there it read Saturday Night. I had stumbled upon the very show I thought I would never get to see.

Cut to last Sunday morning: living in a world already past the VCR, I was once again watching George Carlin describing to me the differences between baseball and football on the SNL stage. This time, though, I am seeing him work his verbal magic on my DVR player. I am able to burn through the commercials and the Janis Ian performances (then and now, ugh... Billy Preston, though... sweet...) and am able to watch the entire show in just under an hour. It's amazing just how much of the routine of the show, which our society has by now absorbed into its collective consciousness, was already built into that first episode, almost as if the structure -- outside of the individual characters and skits which would propel it to immense fame -- had risen fully formed out of the mire of that first Saturday evening in 1975. And another thing arose in that opening pilot of a show: the so-so skit based on an incredibly sketchy idea. The half-joke that almost feels like it was tossed together in a desperate attempt to fill time. Sometimes though, the joke comes off solely through the utter charm of the performers involved.

Following Ian's At Seventeen (which, I must admit, I have always secretly liked, so I rewound the show to watch her sing it later), we are shown a rough approximation of the famous rising-shark image from Jaws, and the words Victims of Shark Bite superimposed over it. The set-up is exceedingly simple -- a basic community talk show format. Jane Curtin, as she would steadfastly a thousand times it seems throughout her run on the show, plays the host. For her initial gig, she gives her name as Phyllis Crawford, and after welcoming the audience to Victims of Shark Bite, she introduces her "first guest," a "Mr. Martin Gressner of Long Island, New York." She begins the interview:

"Mr. Gressner, would you tell the audience just how you became a Victim of Shark Bite?"

The camera cuts to a shot of Curtin sitting next to John Belushi, still mostly unknown to the world, and seeming to strain hard to keep his wise-guy smirk at bay, much like many of the cast does in this initial show. At odds with his usual disheveled appearance, Belushi is wearing a tie and a brown blazer, and he is sitting in a chair, his right leg tucked comfortably under his other leg. What the viewer immediately takes in (as the audience clearly does judging from the massive giggling at large in the opening of the scene) is that Belushi seems to be missing his left arm. The effect is done in that time-honored, low-budget, improv way: by having Belushi keep from slipping his left arm through the sleeve of the blazer, leaving the cloth to spill unfilled down his side, and then selling the illusion by tucking the sleeve into his blazer pocket, while his arm remains inside the jacket. Belushi continues the skit:

"I'd be happy to, Phyllis. I was swimming about 50 yards offshore from my summer home in Montauk, Long Island. It was high tide, and all of a sudden, I felt this sharp, piercing pain in my left shoulder. I didn't know what it was at first -- my left arm felt numb. Well, my arm was gone, and since then, I've had to learn how to do everything with my right hand."

Belushi, the smirk mostly gone and delivering his lines like he really believes he has lost his arm, sells the illusion by hitting all of his marks. He points to the left shoulder, winces and nearly stutters when he mentions the arm, and even stretches his right hand briefly while stressing his predicament. The camera aids him greatly by slowly tightening its focus squarely on the comic's upper half. The bit has turned surprisingly serious to this point, despite the fact that Belushi clearly has his left arm inside of his blazer. Curtin then asks:

"Just when did this incident take place?"

"Oh, I'd say... three, maybe four months ago. I've had to learn how to shave with my right hand, and eat with my right --"

The audience goes wild, for when Belushi counts down the months, he does so by sticking his left hand out from its hiding place inside the jacket to thrust three, and then four, fingers. Curtin's host immediately jumps on his transgression:

"Just a minute, Mr. Gressner, it seems as if you do have a left arm there."

Having been found out, Belushi grabs the flap of his blazer and flips it desperately into the air.

"No, it's gone! See, shark bit it off! Nothing there!"

"Mr. Gressner, THAT is your sleeve. You DO have a left arm, and it looks perfectly normal!"

Belushi tries hard to dig his way out of this fix, and his eyes search about for anything that will divert attention away. He sees his right leg tucked up onto his chair and changes direction:

"Oh... it was... my leg! He bit my leg off! You see, I had to hop around on one foot -- I'm an invalid. I have a wheelchair...!"

"No, you DO have a leg there -- it's tucked under your other leg." She pulls his foot out and drops it on the floor. "You see, you're fine! There's nothing wrong with you!"

"Well, I saw that movie where the guy had his leg bit off --" Curtin breaks away in frustration to announce to the audience that they will have their next Victim of Shark Bite on after a word from their sponsors, and the skit ends.

It's barely a joke, as I stated before, and it's almost the sort of gag a kid would pull goofing around with his friends. In fact, much of Saturday Night Live's material throughout the years is exactly that: juvenilia, the sophomoric stuff that most similar shows wouldn't touch unless it were to make an ironic statement of some sort. It doesn't make it any less funny, and as I said, much of the success of this material depends on the charm of the presenter. In Belushi, who built his every move on his scruffy, shambolic charisma, such a thin premise is almost guaranteed of success, because he allows the audience to be in on the joke from the beginning.

I find the skit most interesting, though, as a supplement to one of SNL's most famous characters, Chevy Chase's Landshark, which appeared in a handful of skits in the first two seasons of the show. That sharks played such a huge, early role in the development of this television landmark is surely a testament to just how pervasive our society's absurd fear of these creatures had overwhelmed popular culture in 1975, the year of the theatrical release of Jaws. The writers and producers of Saturday Night Live not only leaped upon lampooning this fear by introducing a character who would help them in capturing a devoted audience following, but even saw fit to include a rougher, more formatively child-like version of this humor in its opening show.

By testing the waters in this way, they may not have gotten a solid bite. But sometimes the slightest nibble can be a decent precursor of things to come...

Hammerhead: Shark Frenzy (2005)

2008-05-06T06:38:00.001-07:00

Director: Michael Oblowitz
Nu Image/First Look, 1:32, color
Cast Notables: Jeffrey Combs; William Forsythe; Hunter Tylo; Velizar Binev
Cinema 4 Rating: 3
Appearance: Mutant. As described in the film, a Giant Hammerhead crossed with a human being that, incidentally, used to bang Hunter Tylo's character (but before the whole shark business...)

I kept hoping a bucket would appear out of nowhere in Hammerhead: Shark Frenzy.

Not to catch the vomit that any discerning viewer would spew without pause upon attempting to watch this execrable exercise in shark terror. And not to catch any of the massive doses of arterial spray that douse the screen frequently within the film’s labored attempt to update The Most Dangerous Game by making the hunter a screamingly mad scientist whose weapon of choice is a mutant giant hammerhead shark-human being hybrid.

No, the bucket is not for either of those reasons. The bucket is only for water.

I wanted a bucket with water to appear to see if the characters would react to it with the same fear that they apply to any body of water within the film: with the constant fear, reasoned or not, that somewhere inside that liquid there would be some form of shark ready to attack them. Inland, ocean, laboratory tank… it doesn’t matter. The thought of water seems to drive certain characters in this film into screeching fits.

Due to this, I wanted the ragtag group of victims to turn a corner of a shed at some point… and there they discover a seemingly normal, unthreatening bucket of water, sitting beside the shed in exactly the way that a seemingly normal, unthreatening bucket of water would. Doughy leading man William Forsythe, still able to wrangle action parts despite his span, would slip on a wet leaf, and his gun would fall into the bucket. “My God!,” leading lady Hunter Tylo would blubber through the mass of her wasp-stung lips. “Our only weapon! We have to retrieve it!” Then, much bickering would ensue, and it would finally be decided somehow through the machinations of ill-logic that the most expendable character (perhaps a she… usually a she in these things, probably the bimbo still running through the jungle on his four-inch spike heels, tripping every three feet) would be best suited to grab the gun out of the bucket. She would slowly work her hand towards the rim of the bucket, and the eerie, squealing music would slowly build, and she would get her hand even closer, and there would be a close-up of her face as she grimaces and starts to cry in fear, her hand shaking ever more as she starts to dip her fingers into the water…

…and, of course, she would get eaten by the giant hammerhead shark-human hybrid thing roaming about the island and infesting every single drop of water around the place. Without any explanation for how the giant hammerhead shark-human hybrid thing managed to cram itself into the relatively tiny bucket, he would leap from its bottom and devour the entire top half of her body, leaving her detached groin and legs to flail about for a split-second before collapsing to the ground. Forsythe, however, would recover the gun from the bucket during the attack, keeping his wits about him as usual, fire off a couple of useless shots, and then manage to corral the rest of his party while the giant hammerhead shark-human hybrid thing zipped off to leap out of another body of water. Perhaps a drinking glass this time…

The characters’ constant fear is completely justified. There is a hardly a scene in this film where the water, in any form, doesn’t have some threat from sharky menace attached to it. On an island that seems about as huge as all of Hawaii put together, no matter where the characters are, and no matter how split up they get throughout the film, that hybrid thing always seems to be around. And even in the early scenes where two playful swimmers decide to stupidly jump into waters filled with tens of real hammerheads, they get eaten by the hybrid thing instead. A girl slips on a slope beside some water, and the recognizable triple-fin back of the hybrid thing breaks the surface. One villainous lackey lays their hand beside a lab tank, and the hybrid thing takes off a finger. It just goes on and on like this for what must be days on end.

I am not going to deride the scientific thought behind the creation of this creature nor its justification for existence. Mad scientists are, by definition, mad, and they don’t really need reasons why. They just provide the monster, and usually that is good enough. This film does have a terrific mad thrashing about in it, though the portrayal is a tad bit lower one, though still relentlessly hammy, than Jeffrey Combs’ brilliant initial cinematic success as the committed Herbert West in Re-Animator. I kept thinking that Hammerhead would have actually worked far better in black-and-white, Combs’ look and performance being almost perfect for an old Universal-style (or at least, Monogram) horror flick. Scratch the gore, of course, and make the hybrid thing a little more sympathetic – there is little or no attempt here to do so, and that is a major failing in the film, especially given that the human part of the hybrid thing is Combs’ character’s son.

Combs does have one great speech in the film, and if more of the dialogue were this hotly spat, it could have been a lowbrow classic. When questioned as to why he doesn't just use sharks that lay eggs, he replies without hesitation, in an almost staccato delivery, "Easier? Maybe. The giant Hammerhead isn't like other sharks. It's the pinnacle of shark evolution. Nurtures its young in placenta. What's a Great White? It's a machine - swims and eats. Doesn't think, like the Sphyrna mokarran. The Sphyrna is far more advanced. Much more capable of being genetically integrated with the human race." Sure... of course. You have to buy these things if you are going to get anywhere in a film like this.

If there is anything to like, outside of Combs and the usual reasons one watches these films -- monsters on a rampage, itself almost a reflexive action; you like them almost in spite of themselves, and if you don't, you don't -- the leads are fairly committed. Forsythe remains focused on the task at hand -- ignoring the fact that he is in Hammerhead: Shark Frenzy -- and continues to move at an action-movie pace despite his closer physical resemblance to the island itself. He is an underused actor, far better than the material he has been primarily trapped in since the early '90s, but I suppose he fills his niche. As for Hunter Tylo, longtime actress on The Bold and the Beautiful, her amazing body -- though not of work -- makes her at least one of the more comely specimens of the modern duck-billed woman. Lisa Rinna, your reign may be in doubt.

The shark himself, much like the giant-ass lips of Tylo and Rinna, is a preposterous mess, as hybrids tend to be, and he would be scary in a dream-like fashion if he weren't so damn funny. I think that Combs' scientist character was incorrect though in describing him as a cross between a giant hammerhead and a human (outside of the fact that the largest of the hammerhead shark species, Sphyrna mokarran, is actually called the Great Hammerhead). No, after watching attack after attack, filled with ridiculous close-ups of the supposedly frightening creature's visage (which somewhat reminds me of Sloth from The Goonies), I am now led to believe there is some Muppet DNA in the mix as well. It could very well lead to a very bloody day on Sesame Street. Elmo, watch your ass.

Of course, Hammerhead: Shark Frenzy the film crawled out of the Boaz Davidson cesspool, he of the Shark Attack films and numerous side attempts at bad shark-filled menace ad nauseum. To qualify that, I must state that I don't believe he has actually made any attempts at good shark-filled menace. He has now made the leap, however, after stocking Sci-Fi Channel for the next six decades with cheap "nature run amok" epics, to the big leagues. It is a telling thing, though, that one of those films sporting his name as executive producer -- 88 Minutes starring Al Pacino -- is almost universally being derided as one of the worst films of the decade, if not Pacino's career. I have not seen the film, so I cannot judge (except to say that Al's hair is crazy hilarious...)

But it is interesting to note, that after a career built on dozens of horrible but cheap, mostly straight-to-video flicks, Boaz Davidson only attracts the true ire of the critics when he ventures into their territory. Most of them are haughty enough, and too busy, to allow themselves the luxury of soaking in the hot, stinking bath that is his oeuvre. Now, with his name on other mostly savaged films like the remake of The Wicker Man and De Palma's The Black Dahlia, not to mention the upcoming Conan the Barbarian series restart, those critics can now wallow along with the rest of us in his highly undemanding pigsty. You can defend him and say "Aw, he's just a producer! You can't put all of the blame on him..." Well, yes I can, because after all, on Hammerhead: Shark Frenzy, he can't use that escape clause. He co-wrote the damnable thing.

And now I want to drown him in that bucket full of water. I knew it had to be sitting out there for a reason.

TSFO Octopus Arm: Below the Sea (1933)

2008-05-02T06:05:00.000-07:00

Director: Albert S. Rogell //
Columbia, 1:18, b/w
Cast Notables: Fay Wray, Ralph Bellamy
Cinema 4 Rating: 5
Appearance: Giant Octopus (of a species which doesn't occur naturally where this film takes place)

We get so used to modern special effects and getting used to believing in their effectiveness in filmmaking – when it really could not be further from the truth in most cases – that we tend to dismiss everything that came before. Modern audiences also like to scoff at what they consider “primitive” techniques, where I would argue that those “primitive” techniques, however moldy they may seem to us, were often far more efficient at helping the director tell his story than many of the slicker, more recent attempts where the effects overtake the story itself and make the films nothing more than spectacle, sapping any true feeling away from the proceedings. In an age where any action can be slickly rendered, filmmakers have to be careful to blend those effects to make us truly believe in them, i.e. those monsters are really in the same room and taking an emotional and physical toll on their victims.

Part of the charm in searching out old films that one has never seen before is discovering moments that not only look incredible to the immediate eye, even today, but also cause one to be amazed that such a moment or story was even attempted, especially in the earlier days of the cinema. Even if the moment doesn’t really work or looks kind of jerky or static, it still can seem amazing through the sheer chutzpah it must have taken to try it in those less technologically advanced days. Most often, these moments are in films already considered to be part of the canon: the films we are told are great, and it just waits for us to discover them ourselves. Early on in my youth, I felt this with Keaton and Chaplin, and then Fairbanks’ The Thief of Baghdad (Fairbanks films in general, really…). Murnau’s Sunrise, which, as a teen, I was taking at first to be a boring drama, slowly revealed its epic intensity to me through some amazing 1927 camera effects. Welles took me to another planet – not literally, but his films… well, you should know the score there yourself. And need I mention how Strangers On A Train became my favorite Hitchcock film via its carousel-gone-wild sequence, which I was not anticipating at all, and which then burrowed itself into my mind the way only the most thrilling scenes can? To top all of this was that moment when I met the Mighty Kong – it wasn’t just special effects to me, even then, but my mind still reels over the balls it took to make that film, let alone pull it off.

These films loom far, far above the film subject of this particular post, but that vague sense – that “Eureka!” moment of personal discovery – is precisely the same. Smaller, quieter, less ambitious films can have those moments too, and silent films and the films of the 1930s are top-loaded with these moments. You just have to know where to look. TCM makes it easier to find them than it used to be. Their Forbidden Hollywood series focusing on pre-Code delights contains scads of these types of scenes, and not all of them are hot girls in lingerie. (Those scenes certainly count, though, towards the same effect…)

Also on a special night on TCM, where Robert Osborne was concentrating in tongue-in-cheek fashion on films with octopi in them, came this tiny, extremely flawed but somehow entertaining sideshow: Below the Sea, a Columbia “B” from 1933, featuring Ralph Bellamy in the hero’s role getting all gooey – understandably – over that living doll, Fay Wray. The mechanics of the plot are so ridiculous its not even worth going over it, but in a nutshell: a German U-boat laden with a chest of gold bars worth $3 million goes down in the sea during WWI, sunk by a Norwegian ship, but the German captain and his first mate survive. Crawling to shore, they make a map of the gold's whereabouts on the ocean floor, but in a stunningly done murder scene almost worthy of Hitch himself, the captain pushes the unsuspecting crewman off a cliff, which he bounces down satisfactorily.

Years later, the captain teams up with the top deep-sea diver in the game, played by Bellamy, and through the auspices of a third party, a lusty wharf madam with a cache of coin, they make attempts to retrieve the gold. Only, the captain will not reveal the whereabouts nor even show the map to anyone else, but through a series of double-crosses, Bellamy eventually forces the captain into a pact by stealing one-half of the map (why he doesn’t take the whole thing and do away with the obviously crazy German I don’t know, except that it would cause Bellamy to no longer perform effectively as the eventual hero of the piece, given the standards of the day).

Another attempt to retrieve the gold, this time on a ship owned by the family of a high society flibbertigibbet portrayed by Ms. Wray. Naturally, she falls for Bellamy, but only after making use of his diving equipment for her own photo shoots, including making him jealous by openly kissing her photographer inside the diving bell. Scenes of Wray scrambling to fit her tiny little self into his giant diving suit are also a delight. After the darker drama of the treasure hunters, this romantic interplay is, for once, a good deal of fun, especially as a build-up where the film is ultimately leading. Wray matches Bellamy jibe for jibe, and even dive for dive, with a very buoyant spirit unfettered by thoughts of inequality between the sexes. She simply is who she is and never apologizes for it.

I must be honest and say that, even though they were showing it on a night devoted to octopi, I was watching this film to hopefully catch an early film glimpse of a shark on screen. Sadly, there is none, but while I was expecting an octopus to show up at some point, I didn’t realize to what extent it would. Especially, in 1933 (even though though there are earlier films with octopus attacks). While Ms. Wray was also in that year’s King Kong, that film was made my Cooper over at RKO, a man with serious attitude, and I didn’t think that Columbia Pictures had it in them to try their own monstrous attack film in that era. While the octopus is not insanely huge, it is big enough to encapsulate fully the diving bell in which Ms. Wray and the photographer are trapped. The octopus wraps its arms about the instrument, and eventually causes the capsule to disengage from the air tubes that give continued life to its mortal occupants. I would judge that each of the creature’s arms, taking the size of the bell into consideration and the size of Bellamy fighting the creature in his suit, were anywhere from 12 to 18 feet in length. And while it is not a real octopus for the most part on screen, the methods used are still most effective in creating a bumbling sort of almost accidental though spooky menace.

But even menace brought solely about by the natural curiosity of a large cephalopod checking out an object which has dropped into its territory is automatically an outright attack by human terms. Especially terms as identified by human movie characters, who are often even more ridiculous than the real thing (but not always). South Park’s “It’s coming right for us!” hunting attitude regarding monsters and animals of all types is perfectly apt for this film, where the dive-suited Bellamy uses the only weapon at his disposal – an underwater welding torch – to do away with the massive creature. Honestly, it’s an approach I never would have considered – a knife or spear seemed most reasonable – but its spark-spitting underwater flashiness is certainly a far more visually intriguing sight than someone simply plunging a rubber knife into a rubber costume. After a couple minutes of struggle, there is finally an explosion of – what? Ink? Blood? A combination of the two? Whatever causes the dark cloud to erupt around both diver and attacker, it is remarkable to see. The octopus collapses to the ocean floor, the tubes are reconnected to the bell, and the future of Bellamy and Wray is assured. At least, for a happy ending to the film.

And for me, regarding Below the Sea, this fight is one of those moments of which I spoke. Going into the film, I did not know that a movie combining these various elements even existed --- and here it was. Did I need a film in which a giant octopus molests a diving bell containing Fay Wray which ends in a breathless fight between giant sea monster and a welding torch? Not necessarily, but I don't blame the octopus for trying. After all, it's Fay Wray.

And I am glad that my own stumble-footed octopus ways led me to wrap my tentacles around the film.

Goggle-Fishing Bear (1949)

2008-04-24T08:02:00.000-07:00

Directors: Preston Blair & Michael Lah
MGM, 0:07 animated short, color
Cinema 4 Rating: 5
Shark appearance: cartoon shark (undefinable species), able to roar and growl, no sense of humor.

So, who has it worse? Sharks in the movies -- where they are employed mainly to threaten the lives of the (usually) human characters in the film, or at the very least, imply that said characters are in mortal danger -- or sharks in cartoons?

Certainly, the answers is "in the movies," since sharks almost always end up dying onscreen for their sins, and in some films (in the dark, olden days of the industry), really dying for our entertainment. Their menace is perceived as far more real, naturally, and the potential harm to the reputation of sharks in the real world is that much more immense.

Cartoon sharks, on the other hand, not being flesh and blood, have a cakewalk. Or is that "cake-swim"? Sure, they show up, flash their pearlies, frighten the protagonist(s) and generally have a fine, evil time of it as the contracted villain of the piece. They do what is expected of any shark in a film: be evil, get your comeuppance, end of story. Except cartoon sharks, given that they are in a piece where death is a rare (if ever) occurrence, don't get blown to smithereens (as a final blow, that is) or get a bullet through the head or get harpooned or electrocuted or spear-gunned. Cartoon sharks, though actually one of the rarer species on earth, most often survive their appearances in their films. The twist is that they often face a different sort of living death...

In Goggle-Fishing Bear, an MGM short from 1949, the shark in question literally and ultimately becomes the butt of the joke. Accompanied by the usual compliment of lush backgrounds, detailed closeups and sharp character work that was a hallmark at MGM in the '40s, ursine dope Barney Bear takes to his rowboat for a spot of fishing relaxation. Of course, anyone even remotely familiar with poor ol' Barney, or cartoons in general, knows that relaxation is definitely not in the cards. Even if he had opted to stay home and actually play cards instead, relaxation would not be ready to be paired with the misbegotten Barney. In much the same manner that sharks have their place to play in cartoons, so is Barney burdened with the yoke of playing the eternal lummox.

The opening third of the short concerns Barney's attempts at enjoying a day trident-fishing off his outboard motor boat as being initially thwarted by the intrusion of a typically cute sea lion pup (not a seal, though people will immediately see him and shout, like a small child would in delight, "seal!). The pup gives Barney the sort of hard time that one expects, but these frustrations immediately cease once the third character of the film is introduced: the shark.

His entrance is grand, far grander than the film itself deserves. As Barney and the sea lion pup go through their cutesy struggles with one another, at the point where the pup has been so fully shunned by the bear that he mopes away sadly on his own, a huge, looming shadow falls over him. The pup glances off to see what is causing the circling shadow, and as he does, a huge green and yellow shark turns about and makes a beeline for the pup. Panic ensues, but the pup retains just enough of his senses to try and warn his would-be playmate, Barney, of the impending doom. He zips between the bear's legs, sending the ursine spinning about and accidentally releasing the fish Barney has just caught. The pup barks madly in desperation. Barney is so annoyed by the pup by now that he ignores its warnings, and continues back to his trident-fishing. As the shark continues drifting forwards, closer and closer, the pup has no choice but to give up on his friend, scream frantically and head for the hills. Or the boat. Whatever the case may be.

So, now I ask, which is of more murderous intent? The natural hunger that continues the great Chain of Life, wherein a shark might instinctually seek out his prey, or a bear seeking to vent a few holes in a wholly innocent sea lion pup's head with a trident? When the shark pulls up and bumps Barney Bear in the bottom twice, the bear, believing it to be more goading from the pup, doesn't hesitate to stab his trident several times over into the snout of the shark. It slowly dawns on Barney what he has just done, and he steps away from the giant shark and acts sheepishly. The shark, angered, pulls forward and roars tremendously, its jaws fully open to allow its breath and sound waves to crash over Barney. The bear stands calmly and smartly shows the trident to the shark as if to display that it couldn't possibly do any harm, and then jabs himself in the chest as an example. Of course, it hurts Barney, and as a last desperate measure, Barney thrusts the trident over the shark's snout, pins it to the ocean floor, and makes a break for the boat, where the sea lion is already waiting to escape.

Being more than a match for a mere trident, the shark dispenses with the tool and snaps sharply onto the tips of Barney's flippers. The flippers stretch out to ridiculous lengths as Barney frantically swims for the surface. He reaches the boat, and the seal grabs his hands to pull him aboard. The boat tips upward with the weight of the bear, and when Barney grabs the slats serving as seats in the tiny craft, the boards are ripped out, and Barney zips back underwater and towards the waiting jaws of the massive shark. The fish takes a huge snap at Barney's backside, and scrapes off the poor bear's swimsuit and fur in the process, leaving Barney either bare-bottomed or bear-bottomed -- take your pick. Barney hides amongst some underwater weeds, and uses his trident to pull off a hastily improvised impersonation of King Neptune. He halts the shark with one steady hand, and then points away from him. The shark departs, but as Barney runs off in the opposite direction, the shark immediately turns about. There follows a series of snaps as Barney's person, but each snap is thwarted by the fact that Barney is running on a series of underwater moguls, and so he goes up and down with each attempted bite.

The shark swims far ahead, rests on the bottom, and opens his jaws wide like a cave. Naturally, Barney runs right in with his momentum, and the shark closes his mouth in triumph. Barney continues to run, and the shape of his body is seen walking to the end of the shark's tail. Barney realizes his mistake and turns around to run the other way. He smashes right through the teeth of the shark, leaving a silhouette of his body in the remainder of the shark's surprised grin. Barney finds a small rock and somehow manages to hide his own massive body underneath it. The rock sprouts eyes all of a sudden, but they aren't Barney's. As the shark pulls up to investigate, we find that the rock is actually an octopus, which screams at the sight of the monstrous fish and stretches up on its six legs (yes, this octopus only has six legs, not eight) in fright. It zips away, leaving an unaware Barney at the mercy of the shark.

Luckily, the sea lion pup comes to the rescue. As the shark closes its jaws in on the bear, the pup zooms into the shark's mouth and holds the jaws agape. As part of the struggle between pinniped and shark, the fish's teeth are shown to prod Barney in the rear, and the bear turns his head, presumably in anticipation of his own demise. Instead, he espies the brave little pup, straining mightily to keep the shark's jaws from snapping his would-be pal to pieces. Barney turns tail and exits the scene, only to return -- in a reminder of precisely why one indulges their mind with cartoon logic in the first place -- with a highly convenient car jack. He jams the jack in the shark's mouth and cranks it upward. The pup is no where to be seen, until it peeks out from underneath the huge tongue of the shark. The bear grabs the pup just as the shark breaks through the jack's resistance and slams its jaws shut.

Barney and the sea lion make their escape, the bear literally running upward through the water to the surface, with the shark close behind. Perhaps a bit too close for the pup's comfort, as once he sees the shark breathing hot on their necks, jumps out of Barney's grip and carries the bear himself all the way to the boat, finishing the effort with a massive leap far beyond what one expects from a tiny little sea lion pup encumbered by the weight of a portly ursine. They start the outboard engine and take off, but the shark soon catches up and uses his dorsal fin to saw the boat in twain. Barney pulls the halved pieces back together, but they sink immediately. The pup starts to bail water out, which is truly an impossible task if one is already completely underwater. But -- via that sweet cartoon logic again -- he manages to succeed. The boat pops back on the surface, somehow completely intact. The shark, not to be outdone, spins his tail section into a propeller and launches himself towards the boat like a torpedo. He strikes the boat full on, and a massive explosion ensues. Barney, the pup, the anchor and the myriad pieces of the wrecked boat fly upward, and then start to fall back to the surface of the water. The shark pops out and strikes his best pre-Jaws, mouth-agape, waiting-for-his-prey pose, a hungry smile formed on his cruel face.

But, did you really think that Barney Bear and an innocent and playful sea lion pup would really get devoured in a cartoon from 1949? In the days of the Code, would what is recognizable as evil by the bulk of the public at that time go unpunished? Of course not, and the shark receives his due according to this absurdly moral center: a faceful of anchor, a wrapping by the anchor line, and a newly outfitted yacht body courtesy of the remaining pieces of the boat, mysteriously nailed and perfectly aligned along the shark's back. The pup comes out wearing Barney's diving set and sporting the trident, which he pokes into the shark's rear, causing the fish to emit an anguished "Ooh!" Barney decides it would be fun to pantomime driving their new craft while the pup tortures the shark with a series of jabs to the rear. As they float off into the islanded sunset, the sharks cries are heard over and over again: "Oh!" "Ooh!" "Oh!"

As I said, our boy has become the butt of the joke. Maybe it would be better to get spear-gunned...

Shark! [aka Caine] (1969)

2008-04-13T11:58:00.000-07:00

Director: Samuel Fuller
Excelsior, 1:32, color
Cinema 4 Rating: 4

Just before the opening credits end on this early Burt Reynolds starring feature, the following dedication appears:

"This film is dedicated to the fearless stuntmen who repeatedly risked their lives against attacks in shark infested waters during the filming of this picture."

The film then gives up the Samuel Fuller's name as the director, and within about half an hour, the viewer will come under the realization that Shark! (also sometimes known as Caine, the name of Reynolds' character) is perhaps in that small but not so intimate circle of the worst releases ever to be lensed by a renowned international filmmaker. That it is available enough for low-budget schlock house Troma to gain the rights and release it as part of their DVD line might be testament enough as to its haggard status in film history. Fuller, the creator of cult classics such as Shock Corridor, The Naked Kiss, Pickup on South Street and The Steel Helmet (this is an unreserved call for any and all to check them out... he was truly an amazing and original director), famously quit the production after the studio decided to use the death of a stunt diver to promote the film.

Why? Naturally, this stunt diver was killed by a shark, and as we know by now, if there are two things that go well together, it is the media and a shark attack. Even years before Jaws, this was a solid rule. Fuller was apparently upset with a great deal during the production, but this was the final straw. When the film was released, Fuller saw a drastically reedited version from the one he had envisioned, and though he asked for his name to be removed from the print, he was refused this courtesy. (The film was, no surprise, re-edited and released once Jaws-hysteria struck the world.)

This is not to say that the film is not of interest, outside of the fact that someone is shown actually being killed in Shark!, which is a natural, sick draw. Reynolds, before his stardom hit, is already fully practicing his "what the hell... I'm a handsome guy" off-kilter humor, and he radiates the charm that would serve him well over the coming decade as a leading man. Arthur Kennedy, an old favorite of mine, is far too over the top as a drunk doctor, but he does have a couple of nice moments. And the fight scenes are engaging and sharp, with Burt going crazy with the full leaps into his opponents, and often into the food and trinket stalls lining the streets of whatever Sudanese port in which this film (shot in Mexico) is supposed to take place. There is also a mildly kinky vibe to his "romance" with legendary Mexican actress Silvia Pinal, as they both intend to seduce one another for, ultimately, the same purpose. All in all, there is a definite rough edge to every character within the film, which squarely is a sure sign of Fuller's involvement; even with his eventual denial of the film on whole, its toughness certainly conveys the feeling that it is one of his making.

But, it is shoddily printed, most of the key scenes are far too dark to even know what is going on, and the sound quality is inferior as well (it's loud enough, but much of the dialogue is garbled). All of this serves as a serious detriment to the key reason both you and I are here on this page, which is the shark scenes. If you are watching this movie for the death scene with the stuntman, it is hard to tell which underwater scene it is. There is a shark attack scene in the prelude to the credits, and there is one at the tail end of the film. At first, I thought it was the same shots shown twice. Checking back on it, there are differences in each scene. There is, however, a shark attacking a stuntman and a resulting stream of blood spewing forth in each shot. It is possible that these shots are both from the same attack, but from different angles, but without any further knowledge to back this up, it is hard for me to say.

But, the death scene is not the only time that the editors have their way with continuity or cohesion. Not just switching back and forth throughout the movie amongst a series of reused shots, the menacing shark also switches species on more than one occasion. If they were trying to give the impression that there were multiple sharks surrounding the actors, then they have failed as they never show a single shot where there is more than one shark at a time. I know there is some compulsion to live up to the phrase "shark infested waters," but... an infestation of one? If this is the way you must portray it, apparently the waters where they were diving were equally "ray infested," as the same shot of a single bottom-drifting ray is used more than once as well. By the same token, you could argue the film is "Silvia Pinal or Burt Reynolds infested."

The only thing that Shark! is not infested with (in the single digits) is Samuel Fuller. He swam away from its voyeuristic legacy long ago...

Open Water 2: Adrift (2006)

2008-01-17T22:21:00.001-08:00

Open Water 2: Adrift
Director: Hans Horn // 2006
Cinema 4 Rating: 4
Shark appearance: quite surprisingly, in dialogue only -- and the constant implied threat that they may show up, which they never do...

I understand. Really, I do. I get the basic appeal when an Open Water or a Saw comes out, and the world flips out because, by and large, the genre films we had gotten for the brief period preceding the respective debuts of those films had been a soggy lot overall. Something slightly off-kilter from that with which we had been deluged seemed refreshing -- it's the reason why the world shat bricks when Blair Witch went "Boo!," giving half the audience the chills, and the other half motion sickness.

Me? Open Water was indeed a breath of fresh air... for a very short while. But then a pair of completely self-absorbed lead characters brought me to the early conclusion that mere death by exposure, hypothermia and drowning was simply too nice a way out for these people -- so, bring on the sharks, by all means! I was inventing gods so that I could momentarily believe in them long enough to be able to pray for the deaths of these egotistical idiots. Render them to shreds, finny ones, and torture those assholes until they are left spitting fear and half-mad from exhaustion and blood loss. Too harsh, you say? Clearly you are the sort of person represented by the characters in Open Water. You just don't know how wrong you are...

Here is where I am confused by the introduction of a sequel to that film, appended with the numeral "2" and coloned to a subtitle: "Adrift." On my end of things, I love sharks, so it would seem that I love films that would feature sharks. The problem is that when sharks are featured in these films, it is generally as agents of man's destruction. The sharks come off as evil, which they aren't, and the people, with the rare exception of an outright villain, come off as the hapless victims of these intruding and terrible creatures, which neither one is at all. As with Jaws -- a film that as a fan of both genre film and great movies in general, I adore unreservedly -- sharks can come up on the losing end of the deal when too much negative media attention causes the public to backlash against an imagined threat to humanity. (For this very same reason, it is surprising that the Black-Eyed Peas are still alive for all the damage their music has done to our culture. Quick, Time Magazine! Put up a cover article about that form of terrorism! Let's get our fishermen trying to haul in Fergie...)

So, it would seem that I would not want shark movies to be out there in the abundance that they are. Yes, we have twenty years of Shark Week helping the public understand the role of sharks in our world, but our primary impulse when shown a picture of a great white or mako is instant fear. I love sharks, but if I walk around a corner and there is a giant shark statue or poster staring me square in the face (as has happened most recently at Disney, and previously as several other locales such as aquariums), despite my admiration, I still jump. Despite my knowledge that it is a mere representation, I still jump. Certainly, fear is our most primal instinct; certainly, fight or flight are our two most necessary reactions. It doesn't surprise me that people reacted in the way they did to Jaws, though for reasons pertaining to my own agenda, I like to chalk it up to the fact that most people are basically morons. And it doesn't surprise that there is an audience for films and shows that continue to play off this fear, even in an age where we really should know better.

I know better. So, why do I watch and even anticipate shark movies, even when I shouldn't according to my own politics. One would be I like to see people get eaten. I don't want the shark to get hurt at all, but I don't mind someone sliding down something else's gullet. But, here's the chief, A-Number-One reason: I am simply waiting for another good shark movie. There is Jaws... and then that is pretty much it. I kept going to the sequels, because I kept waiting for that magic to strike again. Ugh. What a waste of time that proved to be. If you corner me, I will tell you why I own a copy of Deep Blue Sea: because, despite the fact it is a bad film, it's actually a great time at the movies. The script is so crazily constructed, with half-assed concept on top of another half-assed concept on top of yet another half-assed concept -- a tower of klutzy half-assedness that equals the size of the sunken shaft the protagonists have to negotiate within the film's plot -- that it becomes rather lovable, like a lost, drunken puppy. Plus, there is a completely unnecessary but perfect strip-down-to-her-scanties scene, a handful of good, amusing lines, an amiable hero, some half-swell and half-horrible special effects, and a great if not ridiculous Samuel L. Jackson death. And LL Cool J players a preacher/cook who closes the credits with a song about how his "head is like a shark fin!" C'mon, it's so pathetic, I have to love it.

But, it's still not a good film. And that is what I was hoping for in the original Open Water. This, you may have surmised, it turned out not to be. Still, I am not one to instantly dismiss the chance that a sequel can outshine its predecessor. (I am an Empire Strikes Back and Mad Max II guy, after all.) It's rare, but it can work out. But, even though it goes against what I just espoused above, there was one thing I was completely expecting out of Open Water 2: Adrift... friggin' sharks!

Screw spoiler alerts! I don't care if it pisses anybody off, because if you get to a certain point in the film, no matter who you are, no matter what you feel about sharks... there will come a moment about midway through the film where you casually say, "I wonder where the sharks are? I mean, gee, it's great that someone has expressed their concern about sharks showing up, but... when do they show up?" Then, about ten minutes later: "Boy, those sharks should be here by now!" You will tap your watch, and then check to see if it matches the time on your DVD player to make sure the universe hasn't gone out of whack, and that you haven't got caught in some sort of time loop where you are stuck endlessly watching a six-pack of complete douchebags who have stupidly leapt off a yacht anchored in Mexican waters without first creating available access by either rope or ladder to get out of the water, float about and slowly go crazy trying to figure out another way out.

Ten more minutes, you'll be checking the disc envelope to see if it actually does mention there are sharks in this film so you can sue someone for false advertising (it doesn't -- you are sooooo lucky, Netflix!). Five more minutes, you start frothing at the mouth. You will jump off the couch and over the coffee table in one magnificent leap, yelling "Here's your fucking shark! I'm your goddamn fucking shark!," and then you will start to chew your way through the television in the hopes that you will take out one of the remaining whining cast members with your own gnashing jaws, mastication skills learned from all of the shark movies you rented where the sharks that were implied to show up did show up. Then, you will need someone to call an ambulance for you, since your mouth is now full of shards of glass, and your face and upper torso are possibly covered in second degree burns. And you won't ever know if sharks actually do show up in the last ten minutes. Which they don't.

No one renting this film is doing so with the belief that there aren't any sharks in it. People are renting it because they have either seen the first film, and either liked it or were at least entertained just enough to feel like checking out the sequel, or they have heard second-hand from someone who liked it, and now find themselves faced with a late-evening nothing-else-on-the-store shelves choice between this and a Mary Kate and Ashley shopping caper. "Well, this one has sharks in it, so I will rent it!," they might say. They will hear a character impart her fears early on that sharks may come, and they will also view a scene not much later where there might be a shark or something bumping someone's leg.

And then, half an hour later, each and every one of these misled people will attack the television in the manner which I described earlier. Somewhere, in that mythical TV land that we hear so often about (and that Nickelodeon makes easy money off of), televisions huddle in fear over a story about a legended DVD that causes human beings to try and chew their way through a screen in complete raving madness because the disc didn't actually have sharks in it when it was implied through the simple marketing of a title that there were. It is the TV land version of The Ring, where a television has 70 minutes from the time the disc is inserted in the player before it is trashed to pieces. All because of a shiny, seemingly harmless little disc called Open Water II: Adrift, that doesn't mean to lie to us, but causes untold destruction from its inability to follow through on its inherent implications.

For the sake of our televisions (and our dental insurance), these Open Water people must be stopped now...

[Author's note: Open Water 2: Adrift is actually well-shot, not too badly acted by most of the cast, creates a fair amount of suspense, sticks to its initial intentions, isn't really exploitive, and I suspect it's possible that it may have been filmed without really being intended as a sequel to the first film. Whatever the reason, it is the producer's fault for its ultimate disappointment for mere association with what is widely and famously known as a shark movie. Imagine Jaws 2 actually being about a bunch of dentists stuck in the middle of the ocean. "Water, water everywhere, but none with which to rinse and spit!" Actually, this might have made a better movie...]

The Adventures of Ford Fairlaine (1990)

2007-12-24T22:03:00.000-08:00

The Adventures of Ford Fairlane
Director: Renny Harlin
Cinema 4 Rating: 4
Appearance: Dialogue & cameo (deceased and BBQed)

What smells worse than the scent of overly charred shark meat, roasted to disgusting effect on a spit? Possibly only the script to this flop attempt to launch Andrew Dice Clay as a major motion picture leading man. Truthfully, I kind of like Clay on film, even if I have never been even the slightest fan of his stand-up act. I thought he was the funniest thing in the Lea Thompson-Victoria Jackson misfire Casual Sex?, which isn't the boldest statement given its general shoddiness, but it's the truth. Looking back on the supposed shock of his Saturday Night Live appearance the year this film came out, it's hard to see what all the hubbub was about, Bub.

Given a legitimately R-rated platform to sell his largely misogynistic and sophomoric material, Clay ends up slapping out a truer approximation of his cartoonish, buffoonish character (which, being a guy, does have its charms, admittedly), but ultimately soft-pedals that image in the interest of making himself acceptable to a wider audience. It's almost Pee Wee"s Playhouse for the beer-swilling crowd; full of fratboy-type humor, but basically defanged and harmless. Clay is even given a koala bear as a sidekick. If the film actually had the balls its leading figure is assumed to possess via his self-proclaimed attitude, it might have proven to be at least a far more interesting enterprise, if not also verging over into NC-17 territory, which wouldn't serve producer Joel Silver's money-making purposes at all. In the end, numerous quickly flung, filthy jokes pay off here and there, the stunt casting is fun for awhile, and there is also Kari Wuhrer, who always makes things easy on the eyes for me. However, the leaden direction of Renny Harlin absolutely sinks this thing almost before it begins. It's a Michael Bay comedy years before the word knew who Michael Bay was, and at least most of the humor here is intentional, something Michael Bay is completely unable to pull off.

And then there's that surprise shark scene at a party for the film's ultra-slick villain (Oops! Did I give anything away? Shucks...), played quite well actually by Wayne "Danke Shoen" Newton. As he tries to mislead Ford (yes, Clay's P.I. character is named after his signature vehicle) with a tidbit of erroneous information, Newton's record mogul picks up on an announcement from the party's chef: "Shark is served!" We are given a close-up of the toothy grimace of a shark, roasted on a spit to such a greasy black pallor as to be unappetizing to even the most ravenous carnivore, the sharp pole jutting out through the creature's nose to hold it in place above the fire. The chef cuts into the flesh near the dorsal fin as Newton uses the call to dinner as an excuse to get away from the false small talk, finally declaring "I'm such a fan of shark meat!" Cigar in mouth, Newton holds out a plate as the chef pulls out a generous slice of flesh and slides it off his skewer. "Your shark steak, sir!"

Ugh... I think I am off food altogether now. No, it's not the shark. It's the sappiness of the film's ending. At least the shark, in death, still has his teeth. Clay clearly lost his before this film even got made.

L'avventura (1960)

2007-11-16T22:35:00.000-08:00

L'avventura
Director: Michelangelo Antonioni // Italian, 1960
Cinema 4 Rating: 9
Shark: unseen species of Mediterranean frequency
Appearance: dialogue only

In the traditional and monstrous fashion of most fictional sharks, the appearance of this "pescecane" (as it is referred to in the Italian of what is considered by many critics to be one of the greatest films of all time, L'avventura) comes out of nowhere to rupture the plot violently and infuse images of its "horrid" self into the thoughts of the film's idle rich. An idyllic summer voyage to the islands in the Aeolian Sea off Sicily, in which a boat full of the emotionally empty languish in their own ennui and the lies they tell themselves and others, all under the pretense of having a good time, turns tragic when the most conflicted of the lot, Anna, completely disappears, both from the island they are visiting, and from the movie altogether.

Before she disappears, however (and just before they decide to dock at the island) she tells a small lie. A lie about a shark swimming beneath her feet after her selfish and pouting dive off the craft and into the water. She screams and yells at the beast, but no one (including the audience) never gets a glimpse of it; later, back on the ship, she reveals her attention-getting ruse to her best friend Claudia. For the rest of the film following her disappearance, this small detail of her lie about the shark forces both the audience and Claudia to always wonder about her. Is Anna only hiding out playfully? We (and Claudia) also have the inside track on her tortured emotional state over her stagnant relationship with her boyfriend Sandro, and Antonio's teasing placement of boats in the near distance without a clearly defined passenger leave us pondering whether she has run off. The film, and its director, are not the least bit worried about where she is, nor about how her loss affects her friends. Rather, the concern is with their eventual lack of concern. Claudia and Sandro will have a fling almost immediately upon Anna's dispatch, and while they play at searching for her off and on, they almost blithely forget she ever existed for large portions of the film's remainder.

I have had this film on my "must see" lists for years now. The Criterion Collection disc of L'avventura does make pains to point out its inclusion as the #2 greatest film of all time just two years after its release on a Sight and Sound poll. To this day, I have only ever read one issue of Sight and Sound (and that, just a few years ago), but I had encountered their polls for years in various bookish sources since I was a teenager. My memory of this film's title stems directly from encountering that list from 1962, and partly from my teenaged incredulity at the inclusion of any film that hadn't already entered my admittedly narrow world view at that time. A handful of years away from allowing Kurosawa's swords and arrows to open my eyes to World Cinema, I was immersed only in American pop culture. Even the Hitchcock films I had seen and fallen in love with were the product of Hollywood. I would actually get visibly angry at the inclusion of films like this one or Bicycle Thieves appearing on such lists, believing falsely that only Americans knew how to make great films. After all, those were the films that I had seen. If these foreign films were so great, I then mused, how come they were not shown on television, instead of Bob Hope's The Cat and the Canary or all of those Jerry Lewis films I saw every Saturday afternoon?

I would learn eventually how wrong I was on this count, but when I saw that 1962 list, only two films were Hollywood productions -- Citizen Kane at #1, and Greed at #4 -- and while I had seen Kane and already loved it, Greed was unknown to me, and the fact that its director, Erich von Stroheim, was not American held little sway in its favor either way. Since I hadn't seen it, whatever its origin, it was just as foreign as the rest. My xenophobia at the age of 15 would not be deterred, but by 17, it was already doomed for the grave. That was when I went back to those Sight and Sound lists and took the stance of making them guidelines towards a film education. And yet, there are still films on those lists a quarter of a century later that I still haven't seen. Criterion is making it easier all the time, though, to do so, and it was with a reminder of those polls that I queued up L'avventura on Netflix.

What I was not expecting (as these things often go) was the appearance of Mr. "Pescacane." I was merely catching up with a film I had longed wished to see, and already somewhat bored with the film, when the shark scene perked me up. Perhaps this is Antonioni's intent, perhaps not. Whatever the reason for its inclusion, I was suddenly caught up in the storyline for the remaining two hours of the film. Not because I thought it was suddenly going to turn into Jaws -- I'm quite sure that I would have heard more about this film in my usual circles if it was that sort of movie -- but because it was the first moment in the film that truly whipped up my interest. My eye had already been caught by some of the film's amazingly structured shots, but the purposefully bland dialogue had dulled my interest until the shark lie brought me back into caring about the plot.

And this is what confuses me about the film, because I have read numerous short plot summaries of the film over the years, but I have to admit I can scarcely recall one that mentions anything about Anna's false encounter with her "pescecane." Seeing the film twice this week (a second viewing with commentary followed a couple nights later) forces me to consider the importance of the scene, and whether it is being discounted by those who are viewing the film. Just because the shark is a fabrication, doesn't mean it isn't there within the film. At first, because no one knows it is a lie, it becomes a figure, albeit brief, of terror to the other tourists; later, it becomes almost a mocking though still worrisome memory for certain members of the party. Soon, like Anna, the shark will be forgotten by them; Anna will disappear and become myth, whether by her own making or not. Unfortunately, the shark seems to be forgotten by many who see this film too, though I am glad its appearance (or lack of one) caught me aware.

That's why The Shark Film Office exists: to capture even the most elusive of the species.

[Note: Ironically enough, the most recent Sight and Sound poll in 1962 is more American than ever, with six Hollywood productions on the poll -- seven, really, since the first two Godfather installments are counted as one. Weird how this turned around me; I now dispute their results because it is too American.]

My Super Ex-Girlfriend (2006)

2007-07-29T12:42:00.001-07:00

My Super Ex-Girlfriend
Director: Ivan Reitman // 2006 [DVD]
Cinema 4 Rating: 5
Shark: Great White Shark
Appearance: CGI, dialogue

Sleeping with Anna Faris should be heavenly, and -- despite my deep and abiding appreciation for toothy marine creatures -- uninterrupted by the sight of a great white shark flying towards one’s head as one sits up in bed after awakening from what was probably the most emotionally and physically fulfilling night of one’s life. Setting my own personal fixation on Ms. Faris aside, this is exactly what happens to Luke Wilson just over an hour deep into the middling special effects comedy, My Super Ex-Girlfriend.

Wilson sleeps with Faris, his longtime crush, after breaking up with the voluptuous, but clearly “off her rocker,” superheroine G-Girl, played almost like a mannequin for the most part by Uma Thurman, who really should remain in the employ of a director like Tarantino who clearly worships her and understands her strengths as well as her weaknesses as an actress. (While she is physically perfect for the role, straight comedy is not her forte.) G-Girl, who lives her day-to-day existence in the guise of Jenny Johnson (a name on which, for personal reasons, I shall refrain from further comment), takes this emotional rejection in the manner one expects in a romantic comedy: badly, and with thoughts of revenge on her now “evil” ex-suitor. Only here, since G-Girl is essentially gifted with the powers of Superman (or Supergirl, for that matter), the revenge on a normal human being can get, ahem, potentially deadly for the party receiving the vengeful abuse.
Hence, the dream-shattering shark-tossing.

Waking up at last with his true love, Wilson hears the taunting words, “Oooh, honey!” outside of the bedroom window. Such a confrontation would be difficult in a normal romantic comedy, since the apartment is several stories up, but when he looks out the window, there is G-Girl, floating casually in mid-air, holding a thrashing, teeth-gnashing great white by the tail. With a modicum of effort, she tosses the shark through the bedroom window, where it lands full force onto Wilson’s side of the bed, snapping its deadly jaws at Wilson as he tucks in his feet. Luke bolts through the apartment, with the shark making several leaps in his direction, including one that ends with the shark closing its jaws mere inches from Wilson’s crotch, finding the couch cushion with its teeth instead. Wilson runs to the other bedroom window, and the shark makes one last leap at the terrified everyman, crashing through the glass and falling to the street below. We hear the screech of tires, a woman’s astonished scream, and several crashing noises, but that is the last we will see of the shark in the film. I assume the lovable predator meets its sad demise at the end of that fall, but Ivan Reitman, who has already directed the pinnacle of special-effects comedy, Ghostbusters, over 20 years ago, never lets us consider the bloody mess remaining, unless one is speaking of this film itself.

Faris closes the scene by asking, “Why would G-Girl throw a shark at us?” Wilson answers, “I don’t know,” but the real answer regarding the film is, “Why didn’t Ivan Reitman decide to throw more sharks at them?” In the middle of a big city, several stories up in an apartment building, the last thing anyone expects to see is a giant shark flying through their window. Despite the small show of G-Girl’s incredible powers up to this point, which establishes to a lessened degree that we are living within the fantasy of this film’s world, the shark scene is still such a strong visual non-sequitur, and so absurdly incongruous to the more mundane occurrences to which we have borne witness in the film, that the concept actually seems to work. It is quick, and it is sudden, and it is over before one can really consider its ramifications.

It may seem unfair to throw a director’s past classic work in his face, but we simply cannot ignore such an obvious regressive trend in Reitman’s work, and thus we must make comparisons to Ghostbusters here. In that film, the similar point where the audience has to make a wacky leap of visual faith is in the acceptance of the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man as a monstrous Godzilla-like screaming terror that will crush the entire city into rubble beneath his Michelin Man-like puffy feet. Reitman tried to play the same gag again in Ghostbusters II, but the Statue of Liberty was far too, eh, ordinary (and expected) -- to play out as wonderfully silly/scary as the Marshmallow Man scenario. Stay-Puft was a perfect choice, both in bringing horror – even the merely comedic variety – out of cuteness, and also for the fact that it, to this day, still plays as a great “What the fuck?” moment. But where the Reitman, Aykroyd and Ramis had it right in that film was in writing the scene so that it wasn’t purely this odd thing that came out of nowhere, but was actually the next bizarre link in a chain of increasing goofiness throughout the film. The Ghostbusters had, up to that moment, seen numerous things that one did not see everyday, each one larger and more threatening than the next, but when Stay-Puft arrives, Bill Murray still has enough bemused shock left in his character to say, indeed, “There’s something you don’t see everyday.”

The problem in Girlfriend is that the characters, even the normal citizenry, regularly have incredible things happening around them, all because they exist in a world where G-Girl is in constant battle with Professor Bedlam (downplayed well by Eddie Izzard, even if it is a waste of his talents), her spurned teen sweetheart who has grown up into a “don’t call me a super-villain” super-villain. True, there is a difference in the reality of the news reports and what really occurs (example: Wilson’s casual media-fed reaction to Izzard’s infamy), but this is an angle that is barely explored by Reitman, concentrating instead on the romantic angle. Everyone expects G-Girl to save the day, but when she does display her talents, even the filmmakers seem almost bored with the results. There is no real sense of wonder to her world-saving or to the display of her powers, either in the faces of the characters, or in the way they are displayed onscreen. It’s almost as if the superheroics were tacked onto a standard sitting romantic comedy script at the last minute, and little consideration was given to how this would play off the rest of the script. In the end, G-Girl is merely just a celebrity, and Wilson's character might as well be banging Paris Hilton to get basically the same reaction from his friends.

Before the shark scene occurs, there is nothing that can approach it in its inspired wackiness. And after? Nothing but the rote machinations of that “standard sitting romantic comedy script.” When I saw the trailer in the theatre, the only item that even made me halfway wish to see the film was the tossing of the shark, and now, seeing it on DVD, I find that I saved myself some decent coin by not following that slight impulse.

Late in the film, Wilson is asked why he has teamed up with the Professor to strip away G-Girl's powers, and the laid-back Wilson thinks for half a second, and replies, "She threw a shark at me!" Though the line is slightly amusing, it mainly serves to point up the flaw in the character's, and thus the writer's, logic. The reason for his revenge should be because the shark-tossing broke up his reverie in bed with the delightful Ms. Faris. Now that's a form of coitus interruptus that could make me kick Superman's ass. I wouldn't even need the Kryptonite...

Shark Hunter (2001)

2007-06-28T21:56:00.001-07:00

Shark Hunter
Dir: Matt Codd // 2001 [DVD]
Cinema 4 Rating: 4

HOW TO (Attempt to) MAKE THE CASE FOR A FILM CALLED SHARK HUNTER THAT JUST HAPPENS TO STAR ANTONIO SABATO, JR.

1. First, WATCH Shark Attack, Shark Attack 2, Blue Demon, Deep Blue Sea, Shark Attack 3: Megalodon, Jaws 2, Jaws 3, Jaws 4: The Revenge, Blood Surf, Megalodon, and Spring Break Shark Attack. In fact, watch just about any film released since Jaws, outside of Jaws, that has even the faintest trace, like blood in the water, of shark footage in it. Pay especial attention to Shark Attack 3: Megalodon. Then watch Jaws once again, not just to remind yourself of what a great shark movie is (as if you needed reminded that there is only one), but also because it is just that damn cool.

2. Then, SEE Shark Hunter. Fight your way initially through the horribly produced "flashback" footage of the lead character's "happy" childhood (this footage occurs over the far too ponderous credit sequence; I'm not sure which one makes the other seem even longer than it would seem originally), and get to the opening attack. No, there's nothing special to it, but you do get the fleeting sight of a dorsal fin the size of William "Refrigerator" Perry and the top quarter of the starring Megalodon's body as it crashes through the water at the lead character's family yacht, that we just naturally assume was smashed into splinters as the kid's parents disappeared into the Meg's tummy. We assume this because we don't really see any of this happen. The next sight we see is the aftermath, with the kid, who will grow up to be played by Antonio "Calvin Klein Underwear Model" Sabato, Jr., bobbing helplessly in the ocean inside a floatation tube, which giant sharks apparently don't go for, even though it just took down an entire yacht. Baby Sabato is left whimpering and shivering, and presumably with far more filling his underwear than just his junk. This never goes over very well when you are out on the catwalk.

3. DEAL immediately with the fact that Sabato's character becomes a super-brained submersible expert and college professor. If you can't, then you must stop watching. Sabato's emotional range in this flick runs the gamut from grimacing while grappling with internal angst to outwardly pissed-off at everyone in his path, but if you just simply accept he has thoughts outside of what pose he does next, and "Boy, those girls on Melrose Place were way hotter than the blonde I'm stuck with in this one," then you will go far in watching this film. Well, not far exactly, but you will get considerably more enjoyment out of the experience.

4. SETTLE into Shark Hunter as it transforms into The Abyss with a seventy-foot prehistoric shark instead of benevolent Day-Glo aliens. Watch Sabato as he enters the bathysphere that he designed, only to be met predictably by the wary and impatient crewmembers, every one of them with the same chip on their shoulders, as if they popped a can of Pringles Personality Cliché Chips and passed them around the ship. (They stick best to your clothes if you get the ones with ridges.) As these things go, they have wedged themselves into the ship, considering it their home, and not so eager to hand it over to the guy who built it. Watch Sabato prove over and over again that he knows more about the ship than they ever will combined, and watch as they battle him over this every time. Hello? He's the friggin' designer! Cut him some slack and pass along a heapin' helpin' of hospitality and reverence, if you don't mind. After all, he managed to design and build the thing while still having the burden of being portrayed by Antonio Sabato, Jr. Respect...

5. ADMIT to yourself that for relatively low-budget CGI effects, the ones used in this film are, in their modest way, actually far better and more effective than the ones used in bigger productions like Deep Blue Sea. Sure, everything is all murky-looking, but then look at 300. You could say, "Well, that was by design," but why can't that be true here as well? Certainly the brown-and-gray color palette of the overall film is intended on some level to match the output of the animators. It's a different approach to intentional design than 300 (where they attempted to replicate the look and feel of the graphic novel source material, to great success), but it works in the context of the film. And for one of those rare moments in modern movies, a CGI creature actually seems, for the most part, to have some sense of weight to its body and earthbound speed limitations, as opposed to being far too fast to be even remotely believable. Yeah, it still doesn't feel fully like the shark inhabits the same universe as the actors, but that would be a hard sell anyway, because...

6. ...One has to ACCEPT the fact that hardly any actors actually get wet in this shark vs. submersible fight to the death. This is because of the dry-for-wet underwater sequences used in much of the film, shot to make it seem as if the deep sea participants are actually submerged in thousands of feet of water when they are actually studio-bound and drier than your Grandma's panties in an Easy-Bake Oven. (Ask your older brother why they are there...) It is a noble attempt, and works to some degree here and there, but most people who have signed up to watch a shark flick are going to be disappointed, wanting to see shark teeth sinking into human flesh over and over. To do this, the shark and the people generally have to get in the same element. To actually get a shark attack in this film without dropping some bodies in the soup, our Meg does a one-up on the biogenetically jury-rigged psycho-sharks from Deep Blue Sea and comes up throught the submersible's moon-pool, scarfing down one of the crewmembers, who may as well have been wearing a red shirt from the moment the film started. If anyone was going to get it, besides the Eurotrash bossman of this expedition, it would be this guy. Unfortunately, the humongous shark can (or needs to) only fit the front half of his head through the tiny moon-pool opening, so that we get a badly jarring image of a fake shark attempting to jam his head through the hole, which matches horribly with everything else in the shot.

7. However, take the rest of the film to CHERISH the good things that Shark Hunter brings us: while brimming with some character clichés (though what movie doesn't? It is a very rare thing...), the movie does have enough gumption to try and not follow the well-dogpaddled shark movie path for much of its length. It is not a kill-by-kill flick, which turns the majority of the sharks in these films into nothing more than a slasher with a lateral line. I sympathize with those who might get this disc because that shark-slasher vibe is precisely what they are looking for, but shouldn't filmmakers learn to use this creature for far more than this angle? Yes, the mighty Jaws had that approach, but it started it (and sadly, didn't end it). So, give the producers of Shark Hunter credit for trying something a little different, even if they had to coerce another underwater sub-genre over to morph together with the shark attack one to do it.

8. GIVE THANKS to whatever you might believe in that there isn't a mad scientist trying to mutate the shark into a government weapon or some such nonsense, a residual effect of shark movies ever since Deep Blue Sea. (I suppose this gene-splicing bent also owes itself to real-word timeliness as well.) This movie is very direct. It's basically, "Hey, there's a Megalodon!" "No, there isn't -- oh shit! There is!" "We have to kill it!" "No, we have to study it -- oh shit! We have to kill it!," several times over. Pretty straightforward, and played mostly straight -- except the film doesn't want to finish it straight. As much as I hate to give away that there is a twist ending, there is... and the people that will like it are the type that swing that way, and the people that won't... well, they live in a constant fairy tale world anyway. There's no fixing these people. If they were fit to wear Antonio Sabato's shorts (and who is, really? Probably not Antonio now...), they would know what has to be done, and that the movie has to go the way that it does. It's what actually makes the film watchable in retrospect, giving it a little more oomph than it would have if it played completely by the sub-B-movie rules.

9. Lightly, but only lightly, since the film is not that good, BLESS the DVD gods that this film is available on disc. This way, if you must put yourself through seeing it, don't do it on the Sci-Fi Channel. Not because there is really anything except for a word or two that gets cut out of the TV version, but because the channel puts in so many commercials, the two hours you spend to watch 94 minutes (which are actually edited to far less) feels like three hours and twenty. And no one has figured out how to get around that plot device, except by renting or buying it. I insist that you do the former, but be warned that this is no classic in hiding -- not even close. But the film overall is far above the usual output in these things, at least from a dramatic standpoint and somewhat from a technical one. You could do worse, and there is far, far, far worse out there. It's sad when someone can look at a film of the level of Shark Hunter and proclaim that it is arguably in the top ten fictional shark-based films around, maybe even top five, but that's what happens when a sub-genre has so little going for it outside of its progenitor. Except for having sharks, of course...

Black Water Gold (1970)

2007-03-07T21:03:00.000-08:00

Director: Alan Landsburg // ABC-TV; 1:13; color
Crew Notables: Andrew Laszlo (cinematographer); Mike Curb (music)
Cast Notables: Keir Dullea, Bradford Dillman, Ricardo Montalban, Lana Wood, France Nuyen, Aron Kincaid, JaquesAubuchon, Paul Hampton
Cinema 4 Rating: 4

Let's get this over with quickly, shall we? 55 minutes into this not-wholly dull made-for-television deep sea treasure adventure, we finally get a glimpse of sharks in the water. After several diving sequences and some other watery action, a plan is hatched by one of the heroes to get the native population of the island to lightly chum the water with fish remnants from their fishing boats, thus attracting a handful of sharks to keep the villains out of the water where the hero knows the treasure is hidden. What seems (I'll explain in a moment) to be a blacktip reef shark or two, and then a reef shark of the Caribbean variety, show up to grab a quick snack and drive the baddies off for the nonce. The film doesn't make the sharks look menacing at all; in fact, they are only filmed from above the water, and are literally onscreen for less than 45 seconds, and after a couple of throwaway lines regarding the creatures -- such as "Nobody dives when those babies are in the water!" -- the movie resumes its focus on treasure diving.

When I say "seems to be", I mean exactly that -- the film is titled Black Water Gold, and while in the context of the film this refers to the type of water that the treasure ship is sunk beneath, it really should refer to the quality of the print which I had to endure to wait 55 minutes to see 45 seconds of crappy shark footage that could have been shot in equal quality by an epileptic third-grader with a Fisher-Price Pixelvision. As it turns out, it was shot by Andrew Laszlo, who did turn out a handful of decent films through the 80's, and was nominated for an Emmy for his work in Shogun a decade after this film. And I really can't fully criticize the cinematography anyway, because it seems the main problem with watching the film lies in the quality of the print that was transfered to DVD.

A handful of people on IMDB talk about what a great movie this is and how they remember it fondly from their youth, and I won't trample on their memory except to say that the film is rather short, and feels like it is missing at least one act -- namely, the second half of Act II and the first half of Act III. There is some murky underwater action, that thankfully (or not) is narrated by the hero so we can understand what the hell is happening, and just when there should be a final confrontation with the flamboyantly evil Bradford Dillman, the movie just ends. The villains are in the custody of the cops, and the heroes await their eventual payday. There are any number of made-for-TV movies (most of them ABC product, too) from my youth that I recall fondly, and many of them are fine to watch again, except that they do seem a tad truncated when viewed anew.

But the guy on IMDB who mentions something about how there are "plenty of hungry sharks" on hand? He is clearly a front for the fellows who put out this DVD, which comes backed with a copy of Mako: Jaws of Death (which I will be watching next -- I have already seen it numerous times, so I know it will fulfill the shark action quotient I desire, but hopefully the print will be better, too). It's actually from a cheap-ass four-movie set called Into the Deep, and naturally they try to lure the shark-loving viewer in with a picture of a shark that doesn't actually appear in any of the movies in the set! Boy, are we suckers. (I didn't even mean to rent this film; I was after Mako, but since they are on the same disc... what the hell...)

At least the movie is competent enough and has a few good lines from Dillman, even if Montalban does not have very much to do. You can't really fault it for a lack of sharks, since that is not what the movie is about, and the connection only comes from a video company 37 years after the fact. And the one thing, besides the sharks, that the film is deeply, deeply lacking are more glimpses of Lana Wood. Maybe her older sister Natalie didn't swim so well in the end, but everything looks OK in this smuggler's cove.

TSFO Manta Wing: Below (2002)

2007-02-25T07:45:00.000-08:00

Director: David Twohy
Written by: Lucas Sussman & Darren Aronofsky (also exec. prod.) and David Twohy
Cast Notables: Bruce Greenwood, Matt Davis, Olivia Williams, Jason Flemyng, Scott Foley, Zach Galifianakis, Holt McCallany, Nick Chunlund, Dexter Fletcher.
Cinema 4 Rating: 6

It is only a sequence of around thirty seconds or so, but it is incredibly memorable. Four Navy divers on a stricken U.S. submarine on patrol in the North Atlantic in World War II take to the depths to effect some repairs that can only be accessed by swimming around the sub. Climbing out of the submersible in scuba gear that had barely been invented (and that the Navy apparently did not even use yet), the quartet stand on the deck with only their flashlights illuminating the darkness surrounding them. One diver plays with the mass of plankton floating around them, passing his hand in front of his light and marveling at the tiny creatures. Suddenly, a huge ghostly shadow, with a very recognizable underbelly, rises up behind them, and then one of the divers looks to his side and sees the gaping maw of what must seem to the character to be an alien creature swooping towards him. A flare is lighted, and the divers find themselves standing amongst a mass of plankton-crazed manta rays, six or seven at least. The rays glide gracefully around the divers for a few moments, and then are gone.

I am not aware of the proclivity of manta rays to inhabit the Northern Atlantic, as I have always heard they were tropical denizens, but let's set aside inconsistencies (along with the scuba thing) and concentrate on this fact: this is a marvelous scene. Somewhat gratuitous in its shock value, but the characters are dealing with a ghost-haunted submarine, so something initially frightening but ultimately harmless (though haunting in its own right) was needed to punch up their dive effort. After watching this film for the first time yesterday, I went back and replayed this scene about a dozen times, partially so that I could get the details right, but also because, after almost two hours of well-posed but rather rote ghostly interference, death and mayhem, this scene was still the one lodged in my skull.

Since David Twohy, the creator of The Arrival and Pitch Black, was involved, I suppose we should count ourselves lucky that he didn't have the mantas wearing goggles to see in the darkness or had made mutated mantas with backwards-bending knees that attacked the sailors. I have read a rumor that co-writer Aronofsky was originally going to direct this film, and undoubtedly it would have been made more interesting had he done so, but let's accept things as they are. The film is OK though beautiful to look at, and I am glad the makers saw fit to include this Abyss-like moment with the graceful squadron of devil-fish in a ocean-set film entirely devoid of any other sea life.

More filmmakers should take the opportunity to show real creatures, even CGI-created ones, acting in a manner appropriate to their true nature, rather than making every animal a horrid threat to mankind. We don't need every shark appearance in a film to be a deadly one, and here, with an animal with a long-standing mythic reputation of seeming evil (based mainly on its devilish horns and huge size) surrounding its actually passive behavior, there is the impulsive implication of a threat that is then staunched by immediate understanding on the part of the humans in the scene. Of course, peace between humans and sharks (or spiders... or snakes... etc.) means ZERO dollars at the box office, so I understand why it isn't done more. I just wish it were so.

Blue Demon (2004)

2007-02-11T02:11:00.000-08:00

Director: Daniel Grodnik //
Cinema 4 Rating: 3

"Four years and millions of dollars on this project, and all I've got to show for it is a couple of big sharks with pretty eyes?" - Lawrence Van Allen (Danny Woodburn)

Let's imagine that Daniel Grodnik, the director slash co-writer slash producer, (i.e. The One On Whom To Place All Blame) of the genetically engineered Great White Shark straight-to-video purgatory flick Blue Demon, falls into that much fabled Peter Jackson fan-boy territory. Jackson, much like Ray Harryhausen and Ray Bradbury before him, credits the 1933 King Kong as the chief inspiration for his life and career in the realm of fantasy storytelling. (Kong is my favorite film, too -- though I have yet to get either a life or a career... in any realm...) Jackson works his way from making small, independent B-movies to becoming an multiple Academy Award winner, and then he set out (though he had tried before Oscar came calling) to remake King Kong, the movie of his cinematic awakening. The success of this endeavor is generally considered to have attained a high level (I loved his version... mostly), so let's consider this the textbook example of the student at least matching the works of his teacher, if not surpassing him.

Now, let's make-believe that Mr. Grodnik's favorite film in the world is Steven Spielberg's Jaws (1975). Information apart from a filmography on IMDB is hard to find (they don't even list his date of birth on there... and they've got tidbits on some of the most miniscule careers on that site), so I don't even know how old he was when Spielberg's film came out. We will pretend, for the sake of this hypothetical situation, that he was in his late teens or early twenties then, and was so inspired by the film that he decided that once he made his way up the Hollywood ladder, he would make his own killer shark movie. His first credit on IMDB is as an "assistant to the producer" on a Peter Yates' 1974 comedy, For Pete's Sake with Barbara Streisand, and then from there he executive produced Starhops in 1978, and then came his first joint screenplay-producing credit, 1980's Without Warning, sort of a pre-Predator Predator flick (with killer alien flying discs, Martin Landau and Jack Palance -- for some reason I really want to see this film again). Grodnik was on his way, but after churning out a handful of other screenplays up until '86, he stuck to producing mostly for the next twenty years.

Until Blue Demon. What was it that compelled him, after nearly twenty years of making films, to not just produce, and not just write, but make his directorial debut with a film about killer sharks? I can find nothing else in his filmography, apart from his executive production credit on Jim Wynorski's The Thing Below, released the same year as this film, that gets him even near the genre of giant killers from the deep. So, was it Jaws? Because, I can tell you, people have been remaking Jaws now for over thirty years, and apart from the camp-laden success of Deep Blue Sea (itself a likely godfather of this film), they have yet to get it even close to halfway right.

And that halfway mark is about thirty clicks off the port bow in this film, too. But let's get one thing straight right off the bat -- Dedee Pfeiffer, the cutie-pie younger sister of famous actress Michelle, is not to blame in her role of a marine biologist who has trained a sextet of pointy toothed killers to swim in formation and potentially defend our country from terrorists. (Yes, you heard that right...) For those that wonder if she can pull off playing a scientist, I just watched Tara Reid mumble her way through her archaeological dialogue in Alone in the Dark, so Dedee seems like the genuine article after that debacle. Even if she pronounces the scientific name of the Great White Shark, Carcharadon carcharias, with a soft "ch" sound instead of a hard "k", Pfeiffer is not to blame.

And neither is Danny Woodburn (Mickey from Seinfeld), who plays Pfeiffer's diminutive boss, and who has to endure a couple of jokes at the expense of his height (including reacting toward a portrait of Napoleon in his office, having a badly done forced perspective shot try to trick us he is much larger than his four-foot height, and not giving him a stepladder at a podium (at his own conference) so that he talks to the crowd and they can only see the top of his head). Here he uses the same commanding growl as the big boss that he employs to good comic effect as the foreman in the BK Stacker commercials. For the most part, the quintet of actual actors that were collecting paychecks for this stink-berg seemed to have shown up, said their lines with a modicum of conviction (even Jeff Fahey's epic scene-chewing role as J. Jonah Jameson-like General Remora -- yes, General Remora), and put the thing in their past before they even left the set.

No, I blame Daniel Grodnik, and Grodnik alone, both for the profound dopiness oozing out of the screenplay and for the inane things that his characters do and say throughout the film. But it is chiefly the conviction on the part of Grodnik that I call into question regarding the outcome of this film. Instead of one killer shark, we get six (five of them named after the Marx Brothers - sorry, the Sharx Brothers (don't blame me; it's in the script) and one called, for unclear reasons, Red Dog). But, for much of the film, they really aren't killer sharks. It should not come as a spoiler by this point that these sharks only kill five people in the course of the film. For those keeping track, that is less than one whole person apiece for these six fish, and only four of those people are chomped to death. Even though the film starts out slightly promising with an arm being ripped off a horse-faced actress who at least looks far too old to be in a sorority any longer, that is just about it on the gore front, so don't come looking here for your fix of the gruesome. The sordid truth is that the type of person who loves to rent killer shark movies is going to most likely despise this film for being nothing but a guppy when it comes to killer attitude.

We, the shark-movie public, might all be watching this film for the wrong reasons anyway, since it seems that Grodnik wants nothing more than to make a killer shark romantic comedy. In keeping with his confusion behind the camera, the music leaps from a lame eerie-sounding synthesizer theme to a dopey-sounding sitcom-variety "wacky" theme and then back again without any regard for momentum or rhythm within the story. Most of the main characters play it cute and hammy, but the more serious moments are left to what are clearly actors unready for such emotional outpouring in a film (there is the possibility that most of the tinier roles are friends of the auteur), and thus there is a very unsteady mix of styles at play in the film.

The office of the marine biologists (which has a freezer full of meat inside it even though the pen where the sharks are tested seems to be an entire industrial warehouse and buggy ride away) is filled from wall to fishtank-painted wall with all manner of marine toys, video games, shark hats and stuffed animals, and it is hard to imagine that anybody actually gets any work done there. In fact, the first time we see Pfeiffer in the film, she is throwing a ring over a tall, cylindrical phony fishtank (one of those ones that bubbles while the plastic fish dance about) to try and beat her soon-to-be ex-husband's office record -- did I forget to mention that she and Randall Batinkoff play divorcing marine biologists? (I wonder how that is bound to turn out...) I will leave it to the hardy viewer to discover how she uses this remarkable skill to defeat the villain in this movie, but I guarantee you that it will leave your neck stiff from the amount your head will shake in astonished disbelief.

Grodnik even stoops to having one of his cheaply animated CGI sharks (who are shown, over and over again, swimming past or towards us in formation... all of them in each shot... over and over again) bring up the rear with a sign held out "comically" in his teeth, which reads "Do Not Back Up - Severe Tire Damage". It is at this point that one starts to wonder if Grodnik really means for the whole thing to be a comedy, and that the three deaths up to this point are merely token ones to bring about the "appearance" of danger in the rest of the film. Further confusion is added with the au courant talk of terrorists and suitcase bombs, but the next pair of attack scenes make me believe that perhaps Grodnik, despite his background of violent sci-fi and action films, really is seeking to make the first "killer shark romantic comedy family film". A young girl (who I believe is the daughter of the director, though I am not sure) gets a warm and fuzzy moment with her screen dad after he falls in the lake while they are fishing -- oh, something else I forgot to mention: these are great whites bred to breathe freshwater as well as saltwater (yeah, I know...). Lucky for her, the sharks, which seem to zip past us in the CGI shots at about 20 to 30 knots, whenever they are closing in on their victims on the top of the water, seem to move like VW micro-buses on a racetrack full of molasses. While Dad thrashes about in the water, dorsal and tail fins are moved about without regard to the placement and speed of the other fins, and by this point in the film, there is never any fear that his daughter won't be able to hug her father again and give him a heart-tugging "I love you, Dad". (Which she does.)

Another warm fuzzy occurs in the next attack sequence when two shy teenagers flirt with the idea of going skinny dipping, but the only thing dippy here is the dialogue. Actually, the awkward actress is wearing her suit already -- surprise!! -- but once they get and water and start making out, this is when the film enters dangerous territory:

Boy: Y'know, that was my first kiss. (The girl giggles and starts to back away from him farther out in the water...) Boy: Where are you going? Girl: To the moon! That was my first kiss, too!
Boy: Well, ready or not, here I come!

This is truly an unfair tactic on Grodnik's part, because after lines like that, the viewer wants nothing more than for these two, and the writer, to get eaten. And not just by six biogenetically engineered great white sharks that can breathe in freshwater as well as saltwater have above-average intelligence and can be controlled bvia laptop or even cellphone -- did I mention the above-average intelligence and the fact that they can be controlled via laptop or even cellphone? -- but by about eight dozen of them in a blood-and-guts cotillion beyond all human comprehension. But it won't happen, because the attack scenes in the latter half of this film seem to have been directed by the guy who does the commercials for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Chunky Teen Girl and her anemic boyfriend will likely go on to produce offspring who will spend their lives saying lines that Grandmas stopped saying in the 1930's.

Thankfully, the sharks do away with a chick surfer once the sharks manage to somehow breach the lake and hit the ocean. This thankfulness is short-lived, however, since this leads to perhaps one of the worst dream sequences to ever have Dedee Pfeiffer as a genuine wing-bearing angel with both a lot of makeup and cleavage. (I'm clarifying this in case she has ever been, or will ever be, in any other Grodnik pictures.) And really, there is still about half an hour left to the film at this juncture, and there is still the whole villainous plot to deal with, character issues to be resolved, and about three or four huge chuckles involving nuclear explosions and sharks in your future. And I haven't even gotten around to talking about the whole "eye separating from the pupil" nonsense at the beginning of the film. Literally, the film opens with Pfeiffer's serious-sounding narration, which itself leads you to believe that this will not be a film loaded with badly done intentional comedy, where she intones "It started out as an experiment. The first change we noticed was in the eyes. The iris separated from the pupil, and it followed movement. Like a motion detector. I'd watch them for hours on end, and when they'd see me, they'd stare back, unblinking, unemotional. Sometimes I swear they were laughing at me."

Well, I don't know where Grodnik is going with that "iris/pupil" crap, but due to the fact that sharks don't blink to begin with, this might explain why these predominantly unemotional creatures seemed to be, uh, "unemotional". And, Dedee, if they were laughing at your character, they'd probably do what sharks often do in attack situations: roll their eyes back. I know I rolled mine back several times in this film, not least of all when I started to think about what would cause Daniel Grodnik to want to attack the world with his falsely toxic fable of killer sharks not really going all that amok. If it was indeed a long-gestating desire to do his own take on Jaws, then he has certainly brought shame upon the tradition of filmmakers building upon the past. And if it was truly an attempt to construct the first "killer shark romantic comedy family film", well, then, sir, you have succeeded. It is indeed the first of its kind. But then, consider the final lines of Pfeiffer's narration: "But, we made a horrible mistake. We meant to take the next step in evolution, but we created a monster."

Yes, you have, Mr. Grodnik. And sometimes, I swear they were laughing at you. If only they were sure whether or not they were supposed to laugh.