Monday, March 21, 2005

we're gonna need a bigger boat...and budget

As fully expected, Spring Break Shark Attack was the greatest event of my life. I was BY MYSELF giggling and shrieking on the couch. I'm not kidding. It was fantastic for all the following reasons:

- Main Character Girl wants to go to spring break with her friends, but her dad says no. She screams that he had an affair, which is apparently supposed to be her argument for going. It doesn't work.
- Brilliant foreshadowing: Dad says she can't go to Florida because the guys down there are all SHARKS. Oh snap.
- Coincidentally, MCG is supposed to leave the next morning for Habitat for Humanity and instead goes to see her friends. We know this happens because they show her waving goodbye to her loving, cheating parents, then they do a close-up of her smirking, and then the next shot is Florida. That's editing, baby!
- MCG's Brother is also down there but he's doing marine research. We know he's smart because he's a good-looking guy who they threw some big glasses, bad clothes, and greasy hair on.
- Brother warns MCG about the "ecosystemic consequences" of an artificial reef they've built and how it's riling up the tiger sharks. But because Brother tells MCG to stay out of the water, she screams that he can't tell her what to do, that no one can control her. Because that's what you're really trying to do when you tell a member of your family to avoid a flesh-eating monster.
- A Sleazy Guy Who You Know Is Going To Die First is dancing at a club with his girlfriend, who is MCG's friend. Then he turns around, sees another girl, and drunkenly picks her up with, "Hey, wanna hook up later?" Hot.
- Dad shows up to bring MCG home. She again screams that he had an affair. Irrelevance abounds.
- MCG meets the only non-drunk guy on spring break. We know he's supposed to be intelligent and sensitive because he storms out of the club to go to the bookstore next door. He's also a poor local, and when you're poor you're sensitive. If you're rich you wear hair gel and put roofies in soda.
- After a huge shark attack on a boat during which everyone almost dies, MCG's friend complains that her fake ID is ruined.
- In the brilliantly downplayed final scene, a bunch of spring breakers are dancing on some floaty thing when 900 sharks begin to swim over. MCG and Sensitive Boy immediately set sail to throw vats of chum out the back of their boat in order to draw the sharks away. They don't bother telling the lifeguard about the situation, although she maybe could have helped by blowing her GET OUT OF THE WATER whistle.
- Roofies Guy gets eaten. Shark gets indigestion from hair gel.
- MCG can not only drive a boat, but drive a boat after its engine has been bitten off.
- It turns out the whole thing was a ploy by the owner of another beach who tried to divert the sharks over to his competitor's beach so that all the spring breakers would come party at his beach. He didn't really want anyone to die, but he was also really concerned about his snack bar losing business. Now that's living the American dream.

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