The Shark Film Office

[For the month of September 2016, I am writing a series of shared posts in conjunction with another of my websites, Cinema 4: Cel Bloc , about cartoons that feature sharks in them. You can read the reviews on either site, but please do visit the other one if you like the content I have to offer.] Salt Water Taffy  (1930) Dir.: Frank Moser and Paul Terry TC4P Rating: 5/9 Species: cartoon shark, this time with snubbed dorsal fin; appears to be the pet of an octopus and is on a rather undefined form of leash. Probably a dogfish. Just as with live-action narrative films, there are far more animated films out there with sharks in them than you might think. The reasons one does not often think of such things, outside of a commonly held public disinterest in the animated state of sharks, are probably many, but there are probably a couple of main reason that really sum up why sharks are really second – and even possibly steerage – class citizens in the cartoon world. The first i...

Planet of the Sharks  (2016) Dir.: Mark Atkins TC4P Rating: 4/9 Species: mutated great white with amplified telepathic abilities as Alpha leader of all sharks in the film; various non-mutated species of sharks, specifically hammerheads and bulls can be spotted. The poster immediately to the right of this text speaks heavily of two influences.  The first obvious influence, from even the swiftest sideways glance, is  Jaws , which copies (though in a far more gruesome manner) the original film's image of the gaping maw of a monstrous shark rising up from the deep to swallow humanity whole. From the second influence –  the title of the film itself, Planet of the Sharks –  one can only surmise that someone has finally taken the logical leap in upping the renewed interest in the popular Planet of the Apes franchise, flooded the entire planet, and simply replaced the original concept's primates with sharks. I figured that such a thing might happen at some point a...