31 Days of
Drafts and Darkness: VOL 2!
"Sharknado" (2013)
Okay "Sharknado", I think I get you.
Much like
"Snakes on a Plane", your hook is self-explanatory.
Shunning subtly via a rocket launcher, you've no intention of being anything
but an over-the-top cheese fest. You are practically daring your audience to
mock, knowing your level of absurdity renders all criticism pointless. Crappy
dialogue? Goofy effects? Doesn't matter. Your blood-splattered heart is worn
proudly on a fishy sleeve. Audiences can roll their eyes, but at the end of the
day, they're still watching a movie called "Sharknado". They knew
damn well what they were getting into.
Ever hear someone describe a movie as a 'check your brain at the door' feature? "Sharknado"
doesn't even let your brain into the theater parking lot. But mindless fun is still just that. Fun.
The Plot:
We begin our heartwarming tale at sea. On a small fishing
boat, captain and crew negotiate a shady exchange with a
businessman. It seems these fishermen have been illegally poaching sharks just
for their fins, planning to sell them on the Asian black market for shark fin
soup. Seeing as we're watching a film titled "Sharknado", you can
practically see the Grim Reaper hovering overhead. When the boat plunges into a storm, the winds are so powerful they actually pull live, angry sharks out of
the water.
The crew lasts about as long as you'd expect.
We then cut to the movie's central story, which has
absolutely nothing to do with crime or illegal fishing. Why bother with the
opening bit, then? No idea!
In Santa Monica, former surf champion and divorced dad Fin
(Yea, I know) owns a small tavern along the waterfront. The place is a dive,
but has its collection of regulars. While Fin is past his glory days, his bar
is close enough to the shore to allow an occasional surf break.
At the moment, Fin is especially excited about a hurricane
that's making way up the Western U.S. The storm began off Mexico and has
been getting progressively worse as it moves Northward. Hoping for some killer
surf conditions, Fin grabs his board and hits the waves.
Unfortunately, the
approaching storm has carried a whole host of sharks along with it. What starts
as a string of shark attacks along the beaches grows worse as Santa Monica begins flooding, filling the streets with hungry sharks in addition to water. The
toothy fellows begin bursting out of sewer drains and flying through windows, the storm literally throwing them at victims.
With Santa Monica under siege, Fin must
gather his friends and family and move
inland to escape the chaos.
The Flavor:
I often call good-bad movies cinema junk food. Tasty, but
completely unhealthy and you'll feel bad later on. Where does
"Sharknado" fall? Somewhere in the vicinity of
Mountain Dew-flavored Cheetos. "Sharknado" revels
in lunacy, inviting you to take its cheesy, orange-coated hand along for the ride. It knows it's bad and couldn't care less.
When the sharks start flying, terror will the furthest thing
on your mind. Bloody as the shark attacks are, they are the stuff of comedy
gold. With the hurricane turning each fish into a torpedo, sharks literally fly
out of nowhere. A character can just be walking down the street, minding their own business, when BAM! Eaten a flying
shark. Now picture that concept applied to the entire film. Sharks rain
down from the sky. People get eaten along the way. The heroes fight
back with bar stools and shotguns.
If you haven't yet realized, this is a comedy.
My favorite part of the film are the sharks, themselves. They're
the strongest joke, taking every Hollywood shark stereotype and
blasting it to the extreme. No matter what scenario they find themselves in,
the sharks are only thinking eat!.
Even when violently pulled from the ocean and flung across land, these fish
have nothing but food on the mind. Sure, out of water, they can't breathe, but
who cares when there's all these tasty humans running around! Chomp! Chomp! Chomp!
The filmmakers don't try to make them look realistic.
Each shark looks like it was programmed with the most advanced computer imagery 1994
had to offer. But taking the film's tone into account, I wouldn't be shocked to
learn this was intentional. Making the sharks fake-looking imbues them with a great deal of charm, much like the puppet-based monsters of 50's
sci-fi films. There's also a good variety of sharks. Of course great whites are flying about, but equally airborn are
hammerheads, tiger sharks, and many other species.
Best Paired with:
Corny as "Sharknako" is, it makes absolutely no
effort to hide the fact. It's a cheeseburger coated in high fructose corn
syrup, begging you to take a bite. You know right off the bat whether or not the film is for you.
No, "Sharknado" isn't scary. Did you expect it to be? There's
plenty of gore, but like the sharks
themselves, it's incredibly fake-looking. The actors practically wink at
the camera while waving around a bloody stump where an arm or leg used to be.
Most of the human victims actually turn into CGI creations themselves while
getting eaten, and even then, there's so much splashing water that it's hard to
see much, aside from bloodspray.
Accompanying Brew:
"Sharknado" should come with a disclaimer that says "Must consume minimum two alcoholic beverages while watching." As such, let's go with a brew that's light and easy to drink in quantity.
Name:
Pumpkan
Brewery:
Wachusett
Where
Brewed: Westminster, Massachusetts
ABV:
5.2%
Style:
Pumpkin Ale
Color: This brew has
a deep golden color, closer to a typical ale than the more orange-hued shade of other pumpkin beers.
Aroma: Pleasantly, the scent is rather mellow on the Fall
Trio of spices. They're present, no question, but the aroma doesn't clock you
over the head with spice. There's just as much of a malt and slight
hop character to the scent as there is spice.
Taste: You're first greeted by cinnamon, nutmeg, and slight malt. There's a toasty
quality to the malt flavor (caramel malts?) which goes nicely with the spices. Malt aside, there's little in the way of sweetness. It's milder than most other pumpkinheads I've tried. This allows more of
the hop presence to shine through. Too often, the hops are drowned out by the sweet/spice combo, but Pumpkan features a crisp, dry
hop quality that goes very well with the malt taste.
Aftertaste: Towards
the end of each sip, two main profiles emerge. At first, a rich malty
flavor appears at the middle/back of the tongue. Moments later, a
slightly-spicy hop character appears and begins to mellow the malt down. The
spices from the Fall Trio stick around with the bitter hop character, finishing
the beer with a very dry, light flavor on the tongue.
Body: The body is very light, very crisp, and easy to drink.
Though hop flavor is noticeable, it's mild enough to not intimidate anyone
opposed to bitterness.
Pair: Like tonight's feature film, Pumpkan calls for a
Friday-night junk food fest. A gathering of friends alongside buffalo wings and
pizza will work wonders with this brew. Salty foods would complement the
beer's dry character.
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