Mega Shark versus Giant Octopus

My dear friend Christine has been harassing me regularly to cover this movie, which is absurd, since obviously I was going to. I mean, it’s called Mega Shark versus Giant Octopus. I think that translates in Gaelic to “C-List Actors Save Us All.”

But, looking at this poster having now seen the movie, all I can feel is disappointed. The poster is like the box for sea monkeys. You think you're getting a totally sweet sea monkey kingdom, but in truth, they're just brine shrimp.

Maybe my expectations were set too high, or maybe they weren’t low enough. Regardless, it was just bad. Really, really bad. And boring. And nonsensical. But not even in the good way. In the lazy way, bad, boring way.

The movie stars serious actress Deborah Gibson. No, not singer Debbie Gibson. You must have confused the two, since their names are so very similar. But, if you’ll notice, there’s no way they can be the same person, since serious actresses spell their names with “-orah,” not “-bie.”

2012

The first thing you need to know about 2012 is that it is 160 minutes long – 2 hours, 40 minutes. So, brace yourself, because apparently, the end of the world happens in real time. Then again, if they had edited it down at all, Roland Emmerich would have had to cut out at least one “running in front of a natural disaster” sequences, and we all know how much he loves those.

The Day After Tomorrow - The Freeze | Movies & TV | SPIKE.com

The second thing you need to know is that humanity sucks. No, really. We suck. If there is one lesson that you can take away from this movie, it’s that mankind sucks, hard.

Warning – spoilers ahead. No, seriously. I’m spoiling this movie like Veruca Salt’s daddy.

2012 Photoblog

So, last night I went to see the seminal "Mayan Apocalypse" movie of our time (and no, Mel Gibson, I'm not forgetting Apocalypto).

I was so excited to see it, Scott and I dressed up in costume as our favorite natural disasters. I was a volcano, he was a hurricane.



His costume was just a sign that said hurricane with a cloud drawn around it. I told him that hurricanes aren't just a bunch of clouds, but he said, "Whatever, I look like a jackass, you owe me."

Surface, Episode 2

Where last we left off … eh. It was the pilot. We met people. There are sea monsters. They don’t eat people … yet.

The show opens at a lighthouse near the Cape of Good Hope. Inside, an old guy watches rugby on the TV. Little does he know that he’s about to die. Or, if he were on any other show, about now is when he would die. Lucky for him, he’s on Surface, where nothing actually happens. The old guy sees his water glass rattling on the table, and even he thinks he’s in a better story, because he looks like he knows he’s about to bite it. No good comes of water glasses rattling. He goes to the window, peers into the fog, and hears a roar that blows out all the glass in the lighthouse. And then … that’s it. We see the sea monster dive below the waves, satisfied with his destruction.

Really, people? We’re in the second episode and no one’s been eaten by a sea monster yet? These sea monsters kind of suck. Apparently, they’re more into property damage than actually being threatening. What are they going to do next, egg a house?

The episode picks up where it left off last week, with everyone except Aleksander Cirko being remarkably uninteresting, despite having alternately wacky hijinks and perilous government run-ins. We’ll get to them later. Let’s check in with Dr. Cirko.

Dr. Aleksander Cirko, dramatic Serbian evolutionary biologist, is en route to see a fully-grown mystery creature when he’s stopped by a handsome Asian man in a suit. You know he’s evil because he’s really friendly and amicable while throwing around his power. Government agents are never that friendly unless they have some serious power over you.

Surface, Episode 1

Back in the fall of 2005, the three big networks (ABC, NBC, and CBS) all premiered shows about mysterious water-related creatures: Threshold, Surface, and that other one. If you don’t remember any of these three, don’t worry – neither does anyone else. Apparently, most of America just wasn’t ready for mysterious water-related creatures.

Fortunately for all of you, I was one of the few who not only watched Surface religiously, but bought it on DVD the day it came out.

The show opens with three teenagers taking a boat out for a joyride at night, towing a fourth teenager behind on water skis. He wipes out and his friends ditch him. Because this show is already bucking convention, the water ski boy – or, as we’ll come to know him, Miles – does not get eaten. He sees something slide off a nearby buoy and proceeds to freak out, but he’s fished out of the water by the Coast Guard before he can be devoured.

Kids, I want you to listen to me very carefully when I say this: never, ever go into the water at night. In the event that you do decide to go into the water at night, make sure your friends aren’t assholes. If your friends are assholes, you will get eaten by something big and mysterious. Miles is an exception to the rule, because he’s a main character on a television show. But, I can promise you, you’re not a main character, no matter what you write in your LiveJournal. So don’t go in the water after dark unless you want to feel something brush up against your legs, then pull you under. You can thank me for that bit of advice later.

The Core

The Earth’s core has mysteriously stopped spinning which is weakening the magnetic field and wreaking havoc across the globe. First, a bunch of people with pacemakers all drop dead at the same time. Then, the pigeons in Trafalgar Square start flying into things. You wouldn’t think either of these things would lead to mass death and destruction, but they do. Apparently, when pigeons lose their ability to navigate by the magnetic field, they freak the fuck out and fly at high speeds into cars, store windows, and people. Who knew?

Ruggedly handsome scientist Josh Keyes, that’s who. He quickly figures out what the nation’s best and brightest couldn’t – that the Earth’s magnetic field is weakening, probably because the core has stopped rotating. And, as Josh dramatically says at the Pentagon, “Everybody on the Earth is dead in a year.” Sure, it doesn’t look all that dramatic on paper, but when it’s coming from the chiseled jaw of Aaron Eckhart, even I was concerned. Then, he lit a peach on fire using hairspray, and it’s kind of hard to take a man seriously when he’s igniting fruit.

Loch Ness Terror

Let's get this out of the way first: the main conceit of the movie is that there is a tunnel from Loch Ness to Lake Superior, a distance of over 3,300 miles. Not only is there a tunnel 3,300+ miles in length, but Nessie swims that regularly, as she likes to summer in Lake Superior.

Oh, and she can walk on land.

Yeah. You heard me. She can walk on land. And she does. Often.

So, just to be clear: Nessie can swim 3,300+ miles through an underwater tunnel and she can move quickly on land.

I, for one, welcome our new Plesiosaur overlords.

Wait, what’s that? Apparently, Plesiosaur attacks are rare? They’re not overrunning the world? But, Nessie had at least seven young running around near her nest, and several more eggs. How have they not taken over and harvested us for food?

I don’t know for sure, but I’d like to think it’s at least in part thanks to James Murphy, Cryptozoologist.