Shark Week 2015 and AGFA

Well Here We are Kiddies it’s Shark Week 2015 and it is off with a bang…Literally with the week being moved from August to July one day from Independence Day appropriately naming the date of Kick off as Findependance Day.

There has been some changes for the annual seal chomper and some of them are bittersweet.

With the new management of The Discovery Channel comes the end of the Shark Week Found Footage Mockumentaries which I have to say that I am happy about.

While Megalodon and Submarine were entertaining I feel that they are not appropriate for Shark Week and the Discovery Channel where audiences will be led to believe that the films were real and misleading.

Megalodon was okay I felt that Submarine was too far-fetched and scientifically inaccurate for the specials that we are accustomed to from Channel’s programing which has worked diligently in the past 20 plus years to change the image of the shark.

I also want to give credit to Spawn of Jaws and the tribute to Paul Walker who had loaned his talents to one of his many passions in the preservation of sharks in the oceans of the world.

Spawn of Jaws follows scientists and documentary filmmakers who are keeping track of a pregnant Great White hoping to film the birth of the Shark’s Pups.

While the film was in production Paul Walker was killed on Thanksgiving Weekend 2013 in a car crash and his death is acknowledged in the film and tribute to him is paid in the opening by his Fast and Furious co-Star Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

My Favorate Flicks on this year's line-up is Bride of Jaws and Lair of the Mega Shark

One of my favorite additions to Shark Week is the inclusion of Shark After Dark to the line-up. 

Gone this year is Josh Wolf and Taryn Southern as they have gone on to their own endeavors.  Wolf can be seen on CMT with his own show and Southern can be found hosting Movie Therapy  on www.movietickets.com

Remaining to pitch Dunkin Doughnuts and Red Apple Ale is none other than Bob the Shark who remains in commercial capacity.

Taking the reins of Shark After Dark  is Horror director Eli Roth serving as host. With guests including Kevin Smith and Greg Nicotero.

The Discovery Channel is not the only place to celebrate Shark Week anymore! While other networks make it a point to have Shark related programing in their own right there are also Shark Week Themed gatherings at many beaches across the country as well as other Shark Week events in non-oceanic areas.

On Monday night Scarface and I headed over to the Alamo Drafthouse where they are having their own Shark Week Line-Up which began on Sunday night with Jaws 3D and other programing includes a gimic showing of Sharknado with flying Sharks in the theatre and one of my favorite Shark films Deep Blue Sea which I reviewed on a previous Shark Week entry here on the Video Creep.

The screening that we attended was the monthly secret screening of the AGFA.

Now there was much speculation on this film and while many of us predicted that the screening would be the 1981 Jaws mockbuster Great White which was sued by Universal Studios because of too many similarities to its 1975 inspiration that the United States release was halted and remains a collector’s item among Genre Fans.

While our speculation continued and included Jaws the Revenge and Cruel Jaws James Wallace took the stage with his Jaws t-Shirt and informed us that the film was 1969’s Shark.

Now this was another flick that I had seen in my childhood that followed Burt Reynolds as Cain, a gun runner who finds himself stuck in a small village by the Red Sea where he soon takes a job working on a boat with a mysterious woman and her partner.

What Cain soon discovers is that his employers are actually treasure hunters that are trying to retrieve gold from a sunken ship that happens to be in the prime feeding grounds of many killer sharks.

I have to say not too many Sharks in a film titled Shark but I am willing to look past that because the film was not too bad.

The film is what is and it reflects the time that it was made and the audience reacted much to the events in the film that were common back in 1969 but not accepted in today’s films.

The production was marred in controversy when director Sam Fuller fought with the producers to have his name removed from the film due to both their editorial fails as well as the marketing of the film using the actual death of a stunt diver during production of the film.

3 Dead Bodies

0 Breasts

3 Sharks

1 Runt

1 Drunken Doctor

1 “Fatso”

3 Betrayals

2 Stars

Check it out. 

Shark Week: Top Shark Movies

Well it’s another Shark Week and I feel that in tribute to the annual tradition of Sharks on film I feel the need to give you a listing of my top 5 Shark films.

Currently the big hype is the film Sharknado that has played on the SyFy Channel and I have seen the flick and it’s not as bad as I thought that it would be and yes that is a cheesy flick.

Now I am going to do this list in reverse. Most sites will play the list as a countdown but there is a simple reason that this is just a list and not a countdown.

That reason is that the #1 Shark movies is also one of my favorite movies of all time. As a matter of fact this movie ranks on the top of many lists.

You guessed it that flick is the original Jaws.

I would like to go on a detailed review of the film but I did that last year when the film was released on BluRay.

Here is the review.

http://caseycorpier.blogspot.com/2012/08/jaws-bluray_23.html

That being said I have to include the sequel Jaws 2 on the list.

Stephen Spielberg and Richard Dreyfuss were off shooting Close Encounters…Or they just didn’t want to do the movie, and Roy Scheider  had dropped out of The Deer Hunter and he was told that Universal would let him out of his contract if he did Jaws 2 so Chief Martin Brody is back on Amity Island to battle another Great White Shark that has come to munch on teenage day sailors and water skiers.

Joining Scheider is the rest of the returning cast of Murray Hamilton as Mayor Larry Vaughn, Lorraine Gary returning as Brody’s faithful wife Ellen, and Jeffrey Kramer as Deputy Jeff Hendricks.  

After two divers are killed by a Shark but no bodies are found and then a woman on a water ski and the driver of the boat are attacked causing the boat to explode destroying all evidence of a Shark Attack.

While all of this is happening Amity Island is in the middle of a summer real estate sale and Mayor Vaughn who is under the influence of Lynn Peterson who is buying up the entire island to cover up all evidence of the Shark.

Brody becomes crazed trying to prove the fact that there is a shark eventually costing him his job however Brody’s son Mike and his friends take their sailboats out and Brody has to retrieve them before they become the Shark’s main course.   

Now I do enjoy this flick after all it is on the list. I find it a nice touch that after the attack on the water-skier the shark's face is burned giving him an even more sinister look. I call him Freddy the shark.

I do also have some issues with the flick such as one part where I have to admit that I am no Marine Biologist but I don't think that a shark's mouth bends like it does.  

I feel the need to point out that after Jaws became the first Summer Blockbuster many other studios began with the rip-offs. Soon after Jaws 2 was released an Italian film was released with a plot all to similar to Jaws.

The film was titled Great White.

The plot of Great White was so similar to Jaws that Universal sued the makers of the film preventing the film from receiving a release in the United States market but the film can be found online.

Another of the films that were released in the aftermath of Jaws was Orca: The Killer Whale.

To what I feel was a joke in the opening of Orca the titular whale kills a Great White Shark making the statement that the Killer Whale was better than Jaws.

Jaws 2 responded to this shot by featuring a dead killer whale early in the film that had a bite taken out of him implying that this was the fate of Orca.

Another film that was released that makes the list is Tintorera: Killer Shark.

A Mexican/British film Tintorera is far more a drama than a horror film.

The plot follows a man that moves to a Mexican fishing village looking for a life of leasure soon finding himself in competition for a woman’s affections with a local shark hunter. Soon the two become friends and begin hunting for Sharks together eventually beginning a threesome relationship with a woman.

While all of this is happening a giant Tiger Shark is going around the village killing swimmers eventually crossing path with our main characters.

The most interesting aspect of Tintorera is the fact that a real Tiger Shark is used in the filming and not a mechanical shark.

Definitely a movie recommended for the Drive-in crowd.

One of my guilty pleasures that came along long before the SyFy corny shark films is the Shark Attack film series. The third entry to the saga is Shark Attack 3: Megalodon.

The plot follows John Barrowman and Jenny McShane as they are battling a baby Megalodon that has been forced out of his part of the ocean where they have survived for millions of years by geography. A series of oil drills has released the Megs into the open ocean and our duo must hunt it and eventually kill it.

It is after they kill the beast when they discover that the shark that they were hunting is just the baby and that the Mother is also out there.

Trust me that this flick is cheesy and fits the line of so bad that it is good.

The creation of the giant Megalodon was done with stock footage of a Great White added to the images of people in the water. Spielberg would be proud.

The movie is also infamous because of John Barrowman improved line to McShane with the best pick up line in the history of pick-up lines.   

I guess that when you are looking death in the face you just want to get down to business.

Also to mention in Shark films is one of the more frightening shark movies to be made since Jaws is the Reef.

 

When their boat capsizes a group of vacationers are stranded in the middle of the open ocean four of them choose to make a swim for land because the boat is going to sink. Along the way the group begins to be stalked by a giant Great White Shark.

Filmed in Australia the film features beautiful scenery and ironically the use of the open ocean to give the film the claustrophobic feel that the movie needs as well as real footage of a Great White Shark and CGI and clever editing for the attack scenes.

The fact that the film follows the characters the whole time gives us the suspense that the characters are feeling in the movie.

Definitely a must see for shark fans.

The final flick on my list of Shark Movies is one of my personal favorites and that is Deep Blue Sea.

Directed by Renny Harlin and featuring an outstanding cast Deep Blue Sea is a flick that I never tire of seeing.

Some issues I'm willing to let go such as the fact that the Tiger Shark dosen't look like a Tiger Shark. Speaking of which the Lisence Plate in his mouth is the same plate found in the belly of the tiger shark in Jaws, The owner of that car has some problems. 

After a scientist discovers the cure for Alzheimer’s in the brains of Mako Sharks a scientist alters the shark’s brains making them larger so that they can experiment with their brains. As a side effect the Sharks gain intelligence.

Visiting the facility is Samuel L. Jackson, the billionaire that is there to inspect the experiments and the crew that is performing them.

Thomas Jane is the shark wrangler that has been brought in to handle the sharks and notices the shark’s suspicious behavior, and LL Cool J as the religious cook Preacher who honestly steals the movie.

The two best scenes in the movie are the scenes where Samuel L. Jackson meet’s his demise in the Jaws of the shark.

The other scene is LL Cool J’s prayer before they have to face the sharks.

Many others will point to the scene with Saffron Burrows killing a shark and the fact that she does it in her underwear.      

I also like LL Cool J’s music video for the film.

 Honorable mention goes to these flicks

Open Water from 2004 featuring a couple that was left stranded in the ocean by their scuba diving boat and having to make it through the night among the sharks and the elements.

Megashark vs Giant Octopus from 2009 which the title explains itself.

12 Days of Terror, The dramatic movie about the infamous Shark Attacks in the Jersey Shore during the summer of 1916 that served as the inspiration for Jaws

Finally Lucio Fulci’s Zombie that features the famous Zombie vs shark scene.