Yes, O Internets, I’m a week late to the mighty supernova of wretchedness that is Sharknado–but this is what happens when my supervillain and I have scheduling conflicts! But tonight, OH MY YES, we will be making up for that in spades. The finest snarkers in the Greater Puget Sound Metropolitan Area will be gathering at the Murkworks tonight for a truly special event: the very first Murkworks Movie Suckoff which is not, repeat, NOT prefaced by my having surgery of any kind! You may imagine my deep satisfaction at this, because it means I get to get into the cider and Sortilege instead!
“But Anna,” I hear you cry, “what movie could possibly be worthy of going up against Sharknado in a Suckoff?! Will it even matter? Because for fuck’s sake, sharks in a tornado!”
DAMN GOOD QUESTION! Tonight we shall go either with Atomic Twister or Deep Blue Sea, depending on which we can find for rent! We’ll either have more sharky, snarky goodness, OR, we’ll have an atomic tornado! Either way, it promises to be spectacularly awful. And tonight, by 7pm Pacific time, I’ll be announcing in this very post who our lucky, lucky challenger is going to be. Moreover, I will be updating this post with commentary as it happens!
Stand by, my friends, et mes amis d’Internet, until the snark commences!
ETA 7:49pm: And OUR CHALLENGER, ladies and gentlemen: Deep Blue Sea! (Not to be confused with Great Big Sea!) All hands are on deck and we are about to be drinking drinks called Tornados. Which include dark rum, passion fruit rum, pineapple juice, and grenadine!
Look behind the fold for more!
ETA 7:50pm: Booting up the Blu-Ray of Deep Blue Sea and we see a worried-looking woman with a HUGE FUCKOFF SHARK behind her. Everybody just giggled knowingly and said “Yeaaaaah.” This is setting the tone for the evening NICELY.
ETA 7:52pm: Erik: “So this is the good movie?” (Mimi told us Scarecrow staff protested “But this is a GOOD movie!” when she told them she was renting it for a bad movie contest.)
ETA 7:55pm: We’re opening with people necking on a boat. “Did you feel something?” “Oh yeah, I feel something!” OHNOEZ something hit the boat and the wine spilled OHNOEZ FORESHADOWING! Paul: “They should have spilled the white wine!”
ETA 7:57pm: Everyone: “NOT THE TEDDY BEAR! NOOOOOOO!” Mimi: “The only character we care about so far!”
ETA 7:58pm: WE HAVE SHARK. Everybody cheered instantly!
Kathryn: “GASP! Is this our strong-jawed, blond-haired hero?”
ETA 7:59pm: Mimi reports from Twitter: “Watching Sharknado. #oscarnominee”
Kathryn: “That is the skinniest CEO I’ve ever seen!”
ETA 8:00pm: Sam Jackson just came on screen and doubletaked and was all “But but… he’s under deep cover from S.H.I.E.L.D.?! But colonels don’t do field work!” Kathryn: “Remember, this is the GOOD movie!”
Paul: “They’re experimenting on shark brains to cure Alzheimer’s!” Me: “….. THAT works!” Dara: “Noooo, but carry on!”
ETA 8:02pm: Dara: “Dirk McLargeHuge on…. SEALAB!”
ETA 8:03pm: Blonde Scientist: “I hate tourists and I’ve decided I’m going to like you!” Kathryn: “…. on the basis of the Tattoo joke?! o.O”
Kathryn: “Some sort of magic shark whisperer, right?”
ETA 8:05pm: Movie: “…. president of the board of Chimera Pharmaceuticals!” Everybody: “Chiiiiimera!” (No, this couldn’t POSSIBLY be foreshadowy!)
ETA 8:06pm: Mimi: “Why are they so big?” Kathryn: “Don’t you know the bigger an animal is, the smarter it is? That’s why elephants have been to the moon!”
ETA 8:08pm: Kathryn: “I was gonna IMDB ‘Deep Blue Sea’ but I fat-fingered it so it was ‘Derp Blue Sea’!” Everybody: “That’s about right!”
ETA 8:09pm: Blonde Scientist: *rattles off what’s on Levels 1, 2, and 3 of Aquatica* Me: “Level 4, transvestites wearing green!”
ETA 8:10pm: Mimi: “That’s the fakest looking shark I’ve ever seen!” Kathryn: “It’s made of STYROFOAM!”
ETA 8:11pm: Movie: “Do you rec dive?” Dara: “Do you like gladiator movies?”
ETA 8:12pm: Movie: *plays rap* Kathryn: “OH yeah right because he’s black… no wait, because he’s L.L. Cool J. Carry on!”
ETA 8:14pm: Mimi: “Are they feeding the sharks… sharks?” Kathryn: “They’re feeding them CGI, apparently!” Me: “Feeding sharks sharks, just leads straight to Mad Shark disease!”
Kathryn: “I betcha the effects in this will be better than in Sharknado.”
ETA 8:16pm: Movie: *presents Stellan Skarsgård in cast* Mimi: “OMG that’s a GOOD actor!” Paul: “One thing that really counts against a bad movie is that if you have good actors in a shit film!”
Blonde Scientist: *says technobabble* All: “Well, those were words!”
ETA 8:17pm: Movie: “I’m just a fish keeper, lady!” All: “You’re a fish keeper lady?!”
ETA 8:18pm: Movie: *presents weather report* Me: “Thank you, Plot Exposition Channel!”
ETA 8:21pm: Kathryn: “That was a plot point! +1, movie!” Dara: “WE’RE NOT ADDING ANY MORE MOVIES.”
ETA 8:22pm: Dara: “So basically this movie said ‘We can do Jurassic Park with sharks?'” Kathryn: “JURASSIC SHARK!”
ETA 8:25pm: Movie: “She’s sleeping like a baby!” Jenny: “In my experience, babies don’t sleep very well.”
Mimi: “There’s a lot of significant glaring in this movie!” Jenny: “It spares them having to write any dialogue.”
ETA 8:26pm: Movie: *shots for shark* Jenny: “This is the worst acupuncture apppointment ever!” Paul: “They’re checking his oil.”
ETA 8:29pm: Movie: *SHARK CHOMP ON STELLAN!* Various characters: “NOOOOOO!” All: “NO SMOKING ALLOWED!”
ETA 8:30pm: Paul: “All these smart people and not a one of them knows how to tie a tourniquet?!”
Movie: “He’s hemorraghing!” Kathryn: “YES, HE’S HEMORRAGHING! HIS ARM WAS BITTEN OFF!”
ETA 8:31pm: Kathryn: “Does anyone mind if I talk over this dramatic rescue?” Dara: “We really need a kaiju about now. This would make this movie MUCH better.”
ETA 8:32pm: All: *cheers for shark to chomp the helicopter* Movie: *drops sharkchomped Stellan on stretcher into water* All: “WHAT?!” Movie: *shows yanking on cord from water* All: “THERE’S THE SHARK!”
ETA 8:35pm: Paul: “Maybe they shouldn’t have made the whole left side of the platform out of TNT!” Jenny: “It LOOKED like it was solid!”
ETA 8:38pm” Movie: *L.L Cool J. on phone with parrot* “The line’s been cut!” Kathryn: “Or has it been BITTEN?”
ETA 8:39pm: All: *votes for parrot as best character in the movie*
ETA 8:40pm: Movie: *parrot flips out and flies off* Jenny: “The bird is the only one with ACTUAL SURVIVAL INSTINCTS.”
ETA 8:42pm: Kathryn: “So we’re at sea, on fire, and we’re sinking.” Dara: “In a HURRICANE.”
ETA 8:44pm: Jackson: “They’re not just knocking down doors for the fun of it! They’re after us!” Square-jawed Hero: “Looks like it!” Kathryn: “We’d better have sex to make sure!”
ETA 8:45pm: Movie: “With this research we could wipe out Alzheimer’s forever!” Paul: “As a last step we just had to feed them atom bombs!” Dara: “We couldn’t have fed them to a whale!” Paul: “That’s why they’re GENIUSES! ANY IDIOT could have fed them to a whale! They were doing that back in the 60’s!”
(C.f. The Shape of Doom, BEST VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA EPISODE EVER.)
ETA 8:49pm: Movie: *SHARK CHOMP ON PARROT!* All: “NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Mimi: “Maybe he’ll KILL IT IN REVENGE!”
ETA 8:52pm: Movie: *has L.L. KILL THE HELL OUT OF THE SHARK IN REVENGE* “You ate my bird!” All: “YAAAAAAY!”
ETA 8:54pm: Jackson: “… we lost hope.” Dara: “And also Donny! We think they were together.” Mimi: “But I know… Susan was delicious.”
ETA 8:55pm: Jackson: *MASSIVELY PONTIFICATES* Movie: *MASSIVELY SHARKCHOMPS ON JACKSON* All: *WILD APPLAUSE*
ETA 8:57pm: Kathryn: “The support struts are the weakest part?! o.O” Jenny: “If you’re expecting logic out of this movie, you’re expecting TOO MUCH!” Kathryn: “Now that there’s only white people around, I’m sure we’ll survive!” Dara: “Now that there’s only white people around, we can work together!”
ETA 8:59pm: Movie: *has SHARK VISION* Mimi: “Not that I believe sharks actually see like that…” Dara: “We know from the STORYTELLING that this is SharkCam!”
ETA 9:00pm: Kathryn: “Pacific Rim is a MUCH BETTER MOVIE THAN THIS. Just to be official.”
ETA 9:02pm: Movie: *drops Blonde Scientist in water* Blonde Scientist: “I DON’T WANNA DIE!” Dara: “TOO BAD!” Movie: *SHARKCHOMP ON BLONDE SCIENTIST WITH BONUS LAST SHOT OF BLONDE SCIENTIST IN SHARK MOUTH*
ETA 9:05pm: Kathryn: “They need to hook up the leads to the ladder–” Dara: “And electrify the hull!” Me: “They were doing that back in the 60’s!”
(C.f. EVERY EPISODE OF VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA EVER.)
ETA 9:07pm: Movie: “I spent four years at Caltech and that’s the best physics explanation I’ve ever heard.” Dara: “If I’d been going to classes, maybe it’d have been different!”
ETA 9:09pm: L.L. Cool J.: *is philosopical* Brunette Scientist: *is snarky* Kathryn: “WHITE PEOPLE! Who even understands their ways?”
Jenny: “JUST REMEMBER: The raptors can open doors now!”
ETA 9:10pm: Movie: *MASSIVE FLIP OUT AT SURPRISE STELLANCORPSE* “AAAAAAAAAAH!” Jenny: “I think the trailer should have been two minutes of that.”
ETA 9:11pm: L.L. Cool J: *is awesome into a recording* All: “That was… actually funny!”
ETA 9:12pm: Movie: *SHARKCHOMP ON REMAINING SUPPORTING WHITE MALE CHARACTER* Kathryn: “That was like a bathtub squeaky shark with a G.I. Joe in its mouth!” Dara: “But I liked the little twitches in the foot!”
ETA 9:13pm: Kathryn: “FISH ARE FRIENDS. NOT FOOD!”
ETA 9:14pm: Dara and Mimi, singing: “TIP-TOE THROUGH THE SHARK MIST! Tip-toe, cause we’re all gonna die, so tip-toe, through the shark mist, with me! o/~”
ETA 9:15pm: L.L.: “No brother ever makes it out of a situation like this!” Dara: “I bet he put it in his contract that he has to live.” Paul: “Maybe he and Sam L. flipped a coin!”
Dara: “Hon, I got news, zip drives didn’t store data when they weren’t submerged in water!”
ETA 9:17pm: Brunette Scientist: *drops data disk in water* Movie: *SHARKCHOMP FAIL* Me: “LET IT GO, ELSA! LET IT GO!”
ETA 9:18pm: Mimi: “Saved her life, lost her data!” Kathryn: “Her lipstick is perfect, though!”
ETA 9:22pm: Movie: *has last three characters escape into the water AND SHARKCHOMP ON L.L.* All: “Awwwwwwwww!”
ETA 9:23pm: Movie: *L.L. Cool J SHARKSTABBITY WITH A CROSS* Dara: “THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU!”
ETA 9:25pm: Hero McSquareJaw: “That’s what an 8,000 pound mako thinks about: the deep blue sea.” All: (knowing nods) “AHHHHHHH! That’s why it’s called–”
ETA 9:28pm: Hero McSquareJaw: *drops weapon and dives into water* Movie: *SHARKCHOMP ON SCIENTIST* All: “……. wut?”
ETA 9:31pm: Hero McSquareJaw: *survives* L.L.: *survives* “BRING ME SOME SUSHI!” All: *groans*
ETA 9:32pm: Kathryn: “So all the chicks are dead…. I’m just sayin’…”
ETA 9:33pm: And now, INTERMISSION! Me: “Well, that was… bracing!” Erik: “Well, there were at least three good moments in that movie!” Kathryn: “JESUS H. BALLS!” Mimi: *singing* “MY HAT IS LIKE A SHARK’S FIN!”
ETA 9:39pm: Kathryn and Mimi found the lyrics to L.L. Cool J’s rap over the credits: “Deepest Bluest”. OH GOD OH GOD THE LYRICS.
ETA 9:44pm: Dara: *does Shatner reading of lyrics* All: *COMPLETELY LOSE IT* Kathryn: “I LOVE EVERYONE IN THIS ROOM.” Jenny: “I love how she went off in a room by herself!”
ETA 9:45-10:00pm: All: *re-boozes up*
And this, O Internets, is a Deep Blue Sea! Which I need to be drinking now because OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD.
Deep Blue Sea
Paul: “I’d rather be running from a Sharknado than a Spiderlanche!” Me: “FAIR POINT, well argued!”
Kathryn (reading from Metafilter, where there’s a thread of people riffing on titles for new shark movies): “World War S!” Another poster: “I don’t get it!” *imemdiately after* “OH OKAY THE S STANDS FOR SHARK!”
HERE WE GO FOLKS, it’s SHOWTIME for Sharknado!
ETA 9:59pm: Mimi: “So they just basically get sucked into a…” Kathryn: “Yep, THAT’S THE MOVIE!” Jenny: “OH GOD WHAT HAVE WE DONE?!”
ETA 10:02pm: Kathryn: “That’s not tornado clouds!” Me: “Only a fool looks for logic in the chambers of Sharknado.”
ETA 10:05pm: Movie: *SHARKNADOS ALL OVER BOAT CAPTAIN, IN GOD WE WISH WE WERE RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK FASHION, THEN SEGUES TO SURFING* Kathryn: “Best. Segue. EVER.”
ETA 10:06pm: Erik (plaintively): “Can we watch Deep Blue Sea again?”
Kathryn: “He’s not an actor, he’s a surfer!” Dara: “Well, I can TELL he’s not an actor.”
Paul: “There’s another ass! What’s our ass count up to so far?” Kathryn: “Nine!”
ETA 10:09pm: Dara: This is… and I’ve seen a LOT of bad dubbing… some of the WORST DUBBING I’VE EVER SEEN.
Erik: “There’s not a frame of this movie that makes any sense.” Kathryn: “The guy eating soup. That IS how people actually eat soup.” Dara: “Did we actually SEE him eating soup?”
ETA 10:10pm: Dara: “I haven’t seen Day for Night this bad since Ed Wood’s last film!”
ETA 10:11pm: Jenny: “This is making Deep Blue Sea look like an Oscar-worthy piece of art!”
Movie: *guy on water scooter* Paul: *Three Stooges WOO WOO WOO noises*
ETA 10:13pm: Kathryn: “There was biting and a leg. That’s all we know!” Dara: “I’m not convinced we know that!” Erik: “Have these people EVER operated a camera before?”
Paul: “I’ll say this: THESE ASSHOLES KNOW HOW TO TIE A TOURNIQUET.”‘
ETA 10:16pm: Kathryn: “Who is that guy?” Mimi: “That’s John Heard! What’s HE doing in this movie?” Me: “That’s not John Hurt!” Mimi: “HEARD. Like past tense of hear!” Dara: “Like past tense of CAREER!”
ETA 10:19pm: Kathryn: “This is finally a movie worthy of Tara Reid’s acting ability!” Erik: “I’ve never heard of her before this movie!” Me: “You’ll never hear of her AFTER this movie!”
ETA 10:22pm: Me: “The Ferris wheel shown in Act 1 will be…” Dara: “…rolling on people in Act 1.”
ETA 10:23pm: Kathryn: “The top half of my bar has been damaged by having the top half of another structure thrown on top of it, but there is mysteriously no damage!” Me: “The top half of my shirt, on the other hand…”
ETA 10:25pm: Me: “Servo, don’t you have a song about stock footage?” Dara and Paul: “DA DA DA DA DA! EAT IT MOVIE!”
ETA 10:26pm: Movie: “That’s a tiger shark!” “How do you know that?” “Shark Week! … where’d it go?” ALL: “THE SHARK’S UNDERNEATH THE CAR! GET OUT NOW!”
Dara fast forwarding through commercials: “How long IS this movie? 38 minutes?” All: “BE GRATEFUL!” Dara: “Objection withdrawn!”
ETA 10:28pm: Mimi *reads off movies John Heard has been in* Paul: “He was in C.H.U.D.?! Man, has HE fallen far!”
ETA 10:29pm: Movie: *makes Wilhelm-y screamy noise off-camera as someone dies* Dara: “Seven minutes, everyone, set your watches!”
ETA 10:30pm: Erik: “I haven’t seen Battlefield Earth. Is this worse?” Kathryn: “Here’s the thing about Battlefield Earth. It failed in an Aristotlean sense. This movie at least will have a beginning, a middle, and an end.” Dara: “THAT REMAINS TO BE SEEN!”
ETA 10:31pm: Movie: *indicates sharks will be swimming inland through sewers* Mimi: “THAT MAKES NO SENSE!” Dara: “Only a FOOL looks for LOGIC–” Me: “In the chambers of Sharknado!”
Paul: “Wouldn’t it be cool to see Ponyo running in on the waves of sharks?”
ETA 10:32pm: Dara: “YOU CANNOT WEEP AT SHARKS FALLING FROM THE SKIES IN A MOVIE CALLED SHARKNADO.”
ETA 10:34pm: Movie: *has sharks wriggling out of sewer drains* Erik: “Why do we have sewer systems? It’s just inviting the sharks!” Paul: “It’s playing right into their hands! Fins!”
Movie: “Why are you here?!” Dara: “My boyfriend’s a shark and he’s going to eat you!”
ETA 10:36pm: Mimi: “Where did all that water come from?!” Kathryn: “It came from OUTSIDE!” Mimi: “I DON’T UNDERSTAND! My… my brain! *splutters*”
ETA 10:38pm: Paul: “All these sharks up in shark heaven are all yeah, I got killed by dynamite, I got killed by TNT, me, I got killed by an armoire!” Me: “I used to be an adventurer like you…” All: “UNTIL I TOOK AN ARMOIRE TO THE KNEE!”
Mimi: “Random house full of blood, dead character unworthy of remembering his name, looks like that time of the month.” Jenny: “I HAVE GIVEN UP ON LIFE.”
ETA 10:40pm: Dara: “The house just imploded. I think it was built on a shark burial ground.”
ETA 10:43pm: Kathryn: “Tara Reid delivers her every line like somebody’s using her as a puppet.” Mimi: “Or has a gun in her back!”
Jenny: “And now we have an ad for Long John Silver’s!”
Paul: “I think we’re about halfway through!” All: “YAAAAAAAAAAY!”
ETA 10:49pm: Movie: *has shark trying to climb up a rope* All: “…..” Mimi: “My heart is in my throat!” Dara: “My bile is in my throat!”
ETA 10:52pm: Kathryn: “Look, it’s a tornado! Even though tornados totally don’t act like that!” Jenny: “The quality of the tornados they hired matches the quality of the actors!”
ETA 10:55pm: Movie: *TRUCK ASPLODES BECAUSE ENGINE IS FLOODED* All: “….. wut?” Kathryn: “They’re running into a liquor store! Like we should be!”
ETA 10:57pm: Plot Exposition Channel: *Expositionates* Random NPC: *pontificates about the Government* Kathryn (miserably): “That’s not the way tornados work…”
ETA 11:00pm: All: “I haven’t seen a single non-white person in this movie! Because if it’s one thing L.A. lacks, it’s non-white people!”
Jenny: “Please tell me we’ll see a shark flying a plane or my life (that I’ve given up on) will be incomplete!”
ETA 11:01pm: Erik: “Why don’t they just drive somewhere inland that’s safe, like Kansas, or Oklahoma? Somewhere where they don’t have tornados!”
ETA 11:04pm: Dara, summarizing the entire movie: “Wibbly-wobbly sharky-warky?” Mimi, to Jenny: “Did you just say ‘leave no shark behind?”
ETA 11:05pm: Dara, re: hardware store scene: “You CAN enchant the fuck out of a pickaxe!”
ETA 11:07-11:08pm: Kathryn, explaining why setting off a bomb into a tornado won’t work: “It’s like a fart in a bathtub!” Jenny: “I think that sums up this movie.”
Movie: *is emotional* Dara: “Has it been seven minutes yet?”
ETA 11:09pm: Chick with gun and shark scars: “I don’t like to talk about it…” Erik: “I was born a shark…”
ETA 11:11pm: Mimi: “So have we actually had a plot yet? So far it’s been all reactionary!” Paul: “Have we had a PLOT? The Government is sending shark tornados! To take that guy’s STOOL!”
Me: “They’re heading off to the Death Star and this is the part where Han Solo leaves…” Dara: “The Death… SHARK?”
ETA 11:13pm: Erik: “So can any of these people actually fly…?” Paul: “Well, she just REALLY HATES SHARKS.” Mimi: “And now this guy does too!”
ETA 11:14pm: Movie: “Bombs… bombs!” Dara: “WE HAVE BOMBS?!” Kathryn: “WHY DIDN’T YOU MENTION THE EXISTENCE OF THESE BOMBS?”
ETA 11:16pm: Jenny: “I love how all these sharks do is eat.” Paul: “They’re SHARKS!”
ETA 11:17pm: Dara: “A fire extinguisher and a smoke detector…” Erik: “Is the level of energy required to destroy a tornado!”
ETA 11:18pm: Movie: *SHARKCHOMPS newscaster Jonni-with-an-I* All: *fail to be surprised*
ETA 11:19pm: Mimi: “They’re sharks in a pool! They’re not getting out of the pool!” Dara: “They’re going to set the pool on FIRE! How is this helping?” Paul: “They weren’t going to set the pool ON FIRE. They were going to EXPLODE THE POOL!”
ETA 11:20pm: Dara: “Explosions don’t work that way!” Kathryn: “Sharks don’t work that way!” Jenny (miserably): “I don’t work any more!”
ETA 11:23pm: Mimi: “This movie! This movie!” Kathryn: “THIS MOVIE! Well, I suppose this is a movie in the sense that there’s a picture…”
ETA 11:27pm: Movie: *FUCK YOU SHARKCHOMP I HAVE A CHAINSAW* Dara: “I thought they smelled bad on the OUTSIDE!” Jenny: *cringes* Mimi: Jenny’s like MY BRAIN! MY BRAIN! OH MY BRAIN!”
Movie: *has hero pull Nova out of shark* All: “NO FUCKING WAY!”
ETA 11:28pm: Movie: “I HATE SHARKS!” Jennny: “Kiss her while she’s all covered with shark guts!”
ETA 11:29pm: Dara: “I’d like to assert that this is also a failure in the Aristotlean sense!” Kathryn: “I’ll give it to you!” Mimi: “THERE IS NO PLOT.”
ETA 11:30pm: Movie: *has title card reading FIN* All: *lose it laughing*
Kathryn, patting Jenny: “I’m SO SORRY! You’re my friend and I brought you into this!”
ETA 11:31pm: Me: “SO! Sharknado wins?” Mimi: “Oh god yes, fins up, fins down, fins in all directions, MY HAT IS A FIN.”
So yeah, Internets! Consulting the panel of gathered judges, we have a consensus that this is NOT as bad as Battlefield Earth. We do NOT have a consensus between Dara and myself as to whether this is worse than Death Bed: The Bed That Eats.
ETA 11:50pm: And now Kathryn has just analyzed exactly what’s wrong with this movie, i.e., that it’s not actually about the clear protagonist, i.e., Nova! Because it puts the father into the role without properly explaining his backstory!
Jenny: “You could fix this with a fan edit.” Kathryn: “That would require WATCHING THE MOVIE AGAIN.”
ETA 12:04am: Guests: *all leave* Me: *starts humming closing theme of Mystery Science Theater 3000* Paul: “Blowout to ‘I hate sharks too!'”
Thank you all and GOOD NIGHT!
