Guest appearance on MILFcast!

Rachel and I were cordially invited to be guests on the 40th Episode of the Man I Love Films podcast (MILFcast).  Usually Kai is joined by Heather, but alas, she doesn't seem able to join when Rachel and I are guests.  So we got to pal around with another of our favorite podcasters - Scott Knopf from the Frankly, My Dear podcast.  Seriously, if you haven't checked out both of these podcasts, you must do so in the immediate future.  We talked movies, played some games and basically had a jolly good time.  Though, I'm probably not going to be asked to play The Game again.

Guest Review: MegaShark vs Giant Octopus

I mentioned seeing this on the latest episode of Reel Insight.  When I sat down to write an actual review, I knew my brother, Tom, with whom I saw the movie along with his fiancee, would do a much better job describing the experience.  So here is his review of MegaShark vs Giant Octopus.


Action movies always require of the viewer some level of suspension of disbelief.   We're not supposed to question it when Jason Bourne emerges unscathed from a barrage of bullets, only to turn and fire three perfectly-placed shots into the foreheads of his assailants.  And somehow, the love interest never catches on to how similar Clark Kent and Superman look or how Peter Parker always seems to arrive just after Spiderman leaves.  But none of these films can prepare us for the level of suspension of belief required for a battleship-sized extinct shark jumping 20,000 feet out of the ocean and timing a perfect chomp on a jumbo jet cruising at 500 miles an hour.  Such is the awesomeness of Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus.  

For movie-goers who thought the utmost pinnacle of American cinema was Snakes on a Plane, this film will not disappoint.  Never mind that both animals prefer feeding on inanimate metal objects such as oil rigs, submarines, and in one particularly memorable scene, the Golden Gate Bridge.  Never mind that a battleship fires its guns straight ahead and up into the air to fend off a shark.  If you can let go of any shred of plausibility, decent acting, or plot continuity you might expect from a movie-going experience, this film is a heck of a good time.  

Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus is the type of movie that the guys from Mystery Science Theatre 3000 would sit and make make wisecracks about, but it is so over-the-top awful that no wise cracks are necessary for it to be hilarious.  The graphics for special effect scenes (which are repeated identically throughout the film to stay within budget) look like they were made using Microsoft Paint, and evoke late 1980's Atari video games.  Perhaps this is why pop-singer Debbie Gibson fits perfectly in the lead role, as no one has heard from her since the late 1980's either.  Gibson delivers lines as if she was randomly selected from the audience at a film-making demonstration at a Universal Studios theme park.  Her co-star, along with The Bold and the Beautiful's Lorenzo Lamas, Sean Lawlor takes on an accent that Jess took to be Australian and I thought was supposed to be Southern until it was revealed that he is, in fact, Irish.  The actors work together in a science lab, studiously pouring liquid from viles into beakers until the liquid glows bright green, at which point they look at each other and nod, thus letting the audience know this is the outcome they were hoping for.   

There is a strong environmental theme throughout Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus.  For instance, the two monsters are awakened from their dormancy after an illegal US Navy SONAR exercise confuses a pod of whales in the Arctic who then crash into a glacier, cracking it open and releasing the ancient creatures frozen inside.  As Gibson's character explains, mega shark and giant octopus are natural enemies and were frozen mid-fight, which makes perfect sense because most things freeze while thrashing violently in the water.  All of this has something to do with global warming.  Also, the scientists are adamantly opposed to killing either creature because, as the only one of their kind, they are of course an endangered species.  They seem to be assuming that the shark and the octopus are somehow planning to breed with each other, thus creating the fearsome MegaGiant Sharktopus!  (Why not, it worked for Donkey and Dragon in Shrek!)  

In the end, the scientists' plan works and they lure the two creatures together who both manage to kill the other one at the same time.  They do this using "pheremones," which I'm pretty sure the screen writers read about on the side of a jar of honey.  In the final scene, the characters sit on a beach and reflect on their adventure when they are approached by a colleague urgently describing another "disturbance" in the North Sea, thus setting us up for the sequel, entitled (I'm not making this up)...Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus.

And if there aren't enough over-sized heterotherms for you in that film, stay tuned for the final installment in the trilogy, due out later in 2011,Mega Python vs. Gatoroid, in which Debbie Gibson is joined by (oh how I wish I were making this up)...Tiffany.  

Guest on the MILFcast

Rachel and I brought our podcasting skills (and coincidentally recording skills) to the MILFcast this week.  After a terrific session on Sunday that was lost, here is the new version, new game, new questions, new movies, we only recycled our celebrity impressions (with interesting results!)  Check it out here or on itunes.  Thanks Kai!

Guest Post: Films that take you back to School

Guest post by freelance blogger Camiele White:

It’s now the beginning of September --time for books, cranky teachers, and the gruel that passes as school lunch; for being pushed and ignored in the hallways, calculus homework, and detention. School drama and trauma is a common theme in film. In fact, thanks to the genius and hindsight of the late John Hughes, school dramadies have become their own subgenre. It’s in the spirit of the everlasting teenager that this blog is written --to pay homage to a genre of film that beckons students back to the hallowed halls of education.

It’s only fair that we split this into three distinct categories: primary school, high school, and college. There are those films that are perfect for the whole family --giving children the excitement of an uncertain future and parents the nostalgia of crayons and spelling words. On the other hand, there are those films that are made just for the 18 and overs that connect on a very visceral level. The proper thing to do would be to pick a film or two from each age group that sum up the lazy days of school.

Primary School
Matilda: One of the most beloved books by one of my all-time favourite authors, Roald Dahl, Matilda tells the story of a young girl who struggles with the weight of her intelligence in a world wrought with ignorant adults who use their size and their power to reign over the small and inexperienced. This film was an incredible peek inside the psyche of an elementary school child. I’ve always marvelled at the film’s simplicity and ability to manage the fine balance between “cutesy” and dark --a skill that was
crafted brilliantly by Dahl himself. Entering into this new  world of big excitement and big adventures, a world in which one is no longer the exception. Matilda was an outcast in her family, but at school she was a friend and a confidante. She had the power to uplift (literally) the hopes of each and every student that walked through the darkened halls of Crunchem. This film did for kids what I imagine Animal House (which we’ll explore a little later) did for college hopefuls: bring a bit of freakshow and fantasy to the uninitiated. 

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone: Though the first film of the Harry Potter franchise was, in my humble opinion, the weakest, one can’t miscount the film as a model of elementary school mystery. Yes, it was a film about wizards and witches. But there was an incredible sense of humanity and delicacy added to the film to bring it out of the darkness of witchcraft and into the lightness of a child’s imagination. Chris Columbus, known for his fluffy family films of the 90s, brought his keen eye for the whimsical and gave children the audacity to believe in magic again --something that had been a bit lacking in the films of the early new millennium. Harry, like Matilda, is coming from a home situation that is a wee bit less than comforting. In a world where you’re always ridiculed and locked away in a broom closet (or in this case, the cupboard under the stairs) Hogwarts was Harry’s only salvation. In these two films, it seems that school is being touted as a place of escapism where a child is encouraged to fully explore the precocious whims of his fancy. And isn’t that, my darlings, what elementary school was all about? Graham crackers and recess.

High School
The Breakfast Club: I would be remiss if I didn’t mention at least one of the films that came courtesy of the Brat Pack in the mid-80s (plus, my brother would hate me forever, as it’s one of his favourite films). For the better part of that decade, John Hughes had the film industry in a choke hold. No film summed up the highs and crushing lows of high school than The Breakfast Club. Chronicling the sit-in Saturday of the nerd, the prom queen, the jock, the outcast, and the rebel; there’s nothing more evocative of the high school daze than having to explore the inner workings of our peers as they walk the hallways. The most profound statement that the film makes, boldly and unequivocally, is that no matter your perceived identity, you are the only one who knows who and what you truly are. It’s a film that allows each viewer to remember a time when they were defined by the restrictions of the yearbook superlatives. As a beacon of the forever young film industry, I simply must tip my hat to Hughes for his incredible use of objective hindsight.

Fame: Forget High School Musical, you poor, uninitiated tweensters. This film is the real deal: song, dance, drama that just won’t quit. As one of my all time favourite films of any era, Fame broke the boundaries of understanding the inner workings of the ordinary teenager thrown into extraordinary circumstances. In the halls of the New York High School of Performing Arts, lives are changed and hearts are constantly broken. It’s at this high school that we see how the passion that runs through teenage veins is nothing to sniff at. Every moment is a chance to slice your place in history; every second you’re being analysed by the hardest critics in the world: your peers. If that weren’t stress enough, you have exert as much energy in your regular classes (math, English, etc.) as you do in your speciality (dance, singing, acting). This film tapped into something that is universal with all teenagers --the desire to live forever.

College
Animal House: I’d be the biggest idiot in the world if I didn’t at least mention one of the most influential films of all time, Animal House --truly the greatest college focused film to ever hit the big screen. John Landis, along with some of the most promising talent in film John Belushi, Kevin Bacon, Karen Allen, and Harold Ramis (as one of the principal writers), made their mark on cinema history by showing the raw, unadulterated nasty of the college years --some of the best of life. One of the most memorable scenes ever place on celluloid, the toga party where everyone, drunken and full of vigour, parties with the house band (the fictional Otis Day and the Knights). The song “Shout” became the official party song of any college frat throw down. It remains one of those songs that can easily start a party riot. Jumpstarting the “gross-out” comedy genre, Animal House did more than introduce the film industry to unabashed raunch, it gave the world a paragon of frat life and the craziness surrounding the most ridiculous four years of any young person’s life. If you’re looking for a symbol of college guts, gore, and grossness, you won’t find anything more elegant or articulate than Animal House as a beacon of the college experience.

This is in no way an exhaustive list; however, there are moments in each of these take me back to some good memories. Animal House, for example, touches me personally as, not a mirror image, but certainly a reminder of one of my most treasured memories in my freshman year at university: sitting in the lobby of one of the main dorms and singing familiar childhood songs until 7 am, then walking to the McDonald’s on campus for a Saturday breakfast. It’s moments like these that make up the best moments of my life.


Article writer by day, renegade poet by night, Camiele White loves any and everything film. She chases only the original (or incredibly funny) and has been known to talk for hours about subjects that most people just don’t care about. Right now, she gets her jabberjaw jollies writing for Star Costumes. If you want to give her a buzz, she can be reached at cmlewhite at gmail [dot] com.

My first guest post!!

Just thought I'd share this fun news.  An article I wrote about The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus was reprinted over at Movie Fanfare.  Check it out here.