The effects are so realistic, it’s uncanny!

Shark Fin Stupe.

THE LAST SHARKNADO: IT’S ABOUT TIME is about the first sharknado, and how Fin the shark hunter travels back to prehistoric times to stop it, thereby negating all further sharknadoes and saving the planet from having to witness the bombastic mindlessness of any SHARKNADO movies.

He fails. Because obviously this is the sixth SHARKNADO shit sandwich. And whether it’s the first or last, it’s about time they stopped cheapening the human species with SHARKNADO releases, and put a bullet through the head of this exploitative, intelligence-depleting franchise.

Ian Ziering continues the burial of his film career by starring once again as Fin, who jumps across time to fight sharknadoes, while pursuing his lost son Gil through wormholes. I find it precious how Ziering tries to pull out an “acting” performance amongst this stable of rank amateurs, gimps, douches and bushpigs.

Somehow, through unbelievably lazy screenwriting, all Fin’s asinine ‘nado buddies are in the Mesozoic too, while feckless CGI dinosauria stumble around them – Nova (Cassandra Scerbo, so vapid I forgot to look at her tits), Bryan (Judah Friedlander, who can’t out-act the dogshit in his beard) and Fin’s lost wife April (Tara Reid, still undeniably untalented). Bryan explains that the first sharknado caused the others “like a game of dominoes.” Which totally explains nothing.

Tara Reid surprises us by sinking her credibility LOWER than zero, reprising her vacuous role as wife/mother/cyborg/non-actor April. After her cutie-pie turn in AMERICAN PIE (1999), she could have become another America’s Sweetheart, but these days her acting is like a caveman’s idea of what “acting” is. Truly a sight to behold, she is such an expressionless, talentless moron, it’s amazing she knows to keep her hand off the stove.

So Fin’s gang of stupes succeed in stopping that first prehistoric sharknado… Then they continue to jump forward through time to stop other sharknadoes. But didn’t Bryan just say that stopping the first one will stop ALL of them? If you’re looking for logic, you came to the exact opposite place.

Directing – pathetic. Editing – atrocious. Effects – horseshit. It is NOTICEABLY lousy. In each scene, if there is more than one cutaway, we lose all sense of where objects are situated in that scene: they are shooting fireballs into a sharknado way over there, then Fin dives off the Pteranodon he is riding with his gang, and lands – on a shark – one of those sharks that is way over there in that sharknado they are shooting fireballs into. The gang shouts DOWN to him on the shark, then two minutes later, Fin is jumping off the shark DOWNWARDS to land on the Pteranodon again. I mean – what the–? Rookies with cellphones would do a better job than director Anthony C. Ferrante.

Can Tara Reid’s clones be even more expressionless than the real Tara Reid?
Answer: No.

I’m not one of those people fooled into the groupthink that “it’s so bad it’s good.” SHARKNADO 6 – like all its entries – is a joyless, cynical exercise in how far into unwatchable un-quality something can be driven before the mongoons stop buying it.

Desperate to attach itself to anything of quality, there are numerous references to BACK TO THE FUTURE. Doesn’t help. Just annoys.

Scotty Mullen screenplays as an 8-year-old child would write an adventure story, making rules up as he goes along about time travel, history, characters, eventually resolving in a sharknado-free world where so many of the writer’s own rules were broken to get to that point, he might as well have dispensed with all the painful explanatory dialogue and squeezed in 20 more downward-spiraling-career cameos.

Dee Snider is a sheriff, his frosty locks on full stun. He tells Fin, “I think I know who’s twisted, mister!” and “I’m not gonna take this anymore!” I am in such pain. Darrell Hammond does his Clinton impersonation as George Washington. The great James Hong makes an asshat of himself. Vivica A. Fox appears as a fat version of herself– no wait, uh, that’s just herself. And Neil deGrasse Tyson is Merlin – !?!… no… NO!…. NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Fuck you, Sharknado!

To balance the insidious demolition of talented personalities, there are also those people who are a waste of space on planet Earth – Kato Kaelin, La Toya Jackson, Marina Sirtis, Ben Stein, Tori Spelling, all mixed in a big jumbled scrotum of cameos.

So come one, come all, you morons who made the 2013 film debacle SHARKNADO a success; come, all you lowbrow, oleaginous imbeciles who derogate learning and elevate ignorance to the point that America is led by a congenital idiot; come, all you preachers of dogshit and low information voters and low-bar dung-eaters who don’t know or care about quality in this life or in your work, who tear down people of learning and give Flat-Earthers and Moon-Fakers and Astrologers and Psychics equal time. This LAST SHARKNADO is for all of YOU.

Oh, and fuck the human race.

END

Just when you thought it was safe to get blown…

Yeah, it sucks – but it was meant to suck.
— Jon Stewart, THE DAILY SHOW.

SHARKNADO 2: THE SECOND ONE is one of the stupidest movies you will ever see. Yet from a moviemaking, storytelling point of view, it is actually better than its original. My God! Does this mean it joins the ranks of THE GODFATHER, THE TERMINATOR and MAD MAX?

SHARKNADO (2013) was about a tornado that rained sharks down on Los Angeles. SHARKNADO 2: THE SECOND ONE is about a tornado that rains sharks down on New York–

Before we take one more bite out of this insult to the human brainstem, let’s talk about that title. Just wanted to point out that the same untalented douche that wrote the first one, Thunder Levin, actually titled his sequel “The Second One.” No really, he actually typed that in English on the title page of his screenplay. And then some bigger douche, Anthony C. Ferrante, directed it and had the ‘nads to call it a movie.

Ian Ziering returns as Fin Whatsisname and Tara Reid returns as Talentless Blonde (who never gets her knockers out, so I’m wondering how she ever retained her role). And who do we bitchslap for Mark McGrath‘s and Kari Wuhrer‘s characters being named Martin and Ellen Brody? (JAWS, 1975). Vivica A. Fox has let herself go, and Judd Hirsch (from TAXI, 1978) is a taxi driver. A slew of cameos, from people who were fooled into thinking it would be “cool” to be a part of this cult vomit (Robert Klein, Andy Dick, Perez Hilton, Robert Hays (from AIRPLANE!), Billy Ray Cyrus, Kelly Osbourne, even Jared from Subway!, with reporter Matt Lauer making an assface of himself with Al Roker).

SHARKNADO 2 actually possesses a meager storyline that we care nothing about, but at least it proves that Thunder douchebag was minimally using the thinking part of his mind. Again, there are zero production values, the effects are anything but “special” – they didn’t even bother to change the poster, simply Photoshopping the first SHARKNADO poster with the Statue of Liberty.

Fin and Sugar Ray try to keep their families safe by battling sharks on the subway, in the streets, and on the tops of buildings, with chainsaws, bats and execrable direction. Eventually New Yorkers get in on the act, machine-gunning and slicing flying sharks because – they’re just so tough and cynical, yeeah booouuy! The apex of two superstorms meets at – where else? – the Empire State Building, and Fin is there to chainsaw sharks with his dynamic posing and red-headed shouting.

If you want to tweet about how much you love SHARKNADO, go right ahead, but I suggest you stop voting and driving, because it’s obvious you can’t be trusted to comprehend policy issues or stop at red lights.

END

Emotional Pounding.

Well I’m frustrated, outdated,
I really wanna be over-rated.
I’m a finder and I’m a keeper;
I’m not a loser and I ain’t no weeper.
I got the boys to make a noise
Won’t ever let up – Hope it annoys you!
Join the pack, feel the crack!
Well now you’re here – There’s no way back!
— Quiet Riot, Bang Your Head.

Director Darren Aronofsky bodyslams us for a three-count with THE WRESTLER, a modern masterpiece; controlled, poignant, inspiring, funny, ultimately heart-wrenching with a Ramjet dive off the turnbuckle.

The Poff off the turnbuckle!

All that wayward talk about Mickey Rourke winning Mr. Oscar is well-founded. His performance as The Wrestler is music sweet music – specifically, 1980s hair metal. Not only does he pull the shameless Oscar Moments (“I’m a broken-down piece of meat… I don’t want you to hate me” – you’ve seen the trailers), he also does the most natural onscreen acting since the 1970s (think: JAWS or THE EXORCIST) – and that’s him in the ring, 100%, having spent four months drilling the discipline of the bodyslammer, performing all his wrestling stunts himself.

A triple-threat performance so remarkable should be rewarded – even if it’s just the political hokum of the Academy Awards. At the time of this writing, he has already walked off with the Golden Globe for Best Actor.

THE WRESTLER opens with posters of wrestler, Randy “The Ram” Robinson (Rourke), in a montage of his glamorous, storied career, while Quiet Riot’s Bang Your Head slams at the soundtrack; some posters feature his watershed bout with “The Ayatollah” at Madison Square Garden.

Crash-cut to 20 years later in a lonely dressing room after an exhibition match, with Randy accepting a light pay packet (the usual managerial excuse “Not as many people as I thought”). He is down but not out, long dyed-blond locks, long in the tooth, long past his Use By date, yet punishing his body in small matches for small pay.

“Well I’m frustrated, outdated…”

With a Steadicam following so close behind him we can hear his labored breathing and count the wrinkles on his puffy, battered face, our first intimate adventure with Randy is him being locked out of his trailer (for late rent) after returning from a match, eventually sleeping in his Dodge van.

Some glamour.

“I really wanna be over-rated.”

Aronofsky is intent on showing us the side of this vocation farthest from the bright lights and the crowd roar, following Randy so closely we almost get a steroid high from breathing in the stank of his sweaty, bloody tights; blonding his hair, tanning his hide, doping on painkillers, buying a sweater for his estranged daughter…

He makes time at a strip club with stripper Cassidy (Marisa Tomei) who – ironically – doesn’t treat him like a slab of meat, and though they share a few tender moments, she forces herself to regard him as “just a customer.” And though we know he feels for Cassidy – not least because she spends so much time rubbing her firm naked ta-tas against his brickhouse biceps in private dances – he keeps up that tough man-facade…

“I’m a finder and I’m a keeper;
I’m not a loser and I ain’t no weeper.”

Mickey Rourke has always had a body carved from unyielding rock; a background in boxing and self-abuse has brought him this wrestler’s meat-muscle frame. Though he was not Aronofsky’s first casting choice, The Wrestler IS Mickey Rourke – it is futile trying to imagine anyone else fitting this role as snugly. Rourke is not acting, just being. Though something seems very “wrong” and misshapen about that mountain gorilla frame, like it is being driven by will alone and one misstep will implode it.

Randy is obviously the oldest still on the circuit, yet the camaraderie of the wrestler brotherhood is apparent – backstage, they all give him the respect he has earned. But in this “fake yet real” “sport” he is not fighting these young man-mountains anyway – he is battling his own failing body.

“I got the boys to make a noise;
Won’t ever let up – Hope it annoys you!”

Wheels go into motion for a 20th Anniversary Rematch against The Ayatollah, but after an exceptionally gruesome match (“You okay with a staple gun?”), Randy is felled by a heart attack and doctors warn him “never to exert himself again.”

“But doc, I’m a professional wrestler.”

“Join the pack, feel the crack!”

Faced with potential death if he steps into the ring again, Randy reassesses his stagnant life and bleak future. He tries to stomach the nostalgic sludge of a reminiscence tour, but seated behind conference tables, selling memorabilia and his autograph for $8 a pop, putting on fake smiles for photos with redneck fans, won’t sustain his spirit.

His day job behind a deli counter becomes intolerable (his dweeby boss denigrating him at every turn); his stilted reconciliation with his daughter (Evan Rachel Wood) goes awry; his uncertain courtship of stripper Cassidy falls flat, and Randy realizes that for all the battering he has taken in the ring, “The only place I get hurt is out there.”

“The world don’t give a shit about me.”

He is a Wrestler, only alive in the ring. Neither doctors nor time nor his body nor his heart can make him stop being one.

“Well now you’re here – There’s no way back!”

As Bang Your Head is his theme song, Quiet Riot’s career arc exactly defines Randy’s career. The band’s 1983 release Metal Health was the first metal album to hit Number 1 on the U.S. charts, followed by arena tours; twenty years later, Quiet Riot were playing small casinos and nudist colonies, and late 2007, founder and lead vocalist, Kevin DuBrow died from a cocaine overdose.

THE WRESTLER is a tragic commentary for those who chance into the insular world of stardom; we have made no place in our shallow, blitzkrieg society for them to graciously decompress.

Streetfighter Jack Wilson warns Philo Beddoe in ANY WHICH WAY YOU CAN: “You’re fast and you like pain. You eat it like candy. I’ve seen a few cases like that in my time. The more they get hurt, the more dangerous they become. But you gotta be durable, too. Real durable. Most ain’t.”

“Bang your head! Metal health will drive you mad!”

KAPOW!

END