Starting Five
1. “Look! Up in the sky! It’s a Shark! It’s a Tornado! It’s…Sharknado!”
“No! No! No! I want sharks with frickin’ laser beams shooting out of their heads!”
What happens when you don’t over-promote something but instead let Twitter do all the work for you? When the sports calendar is in its doldrums? You get Sharknado, starring Ian Ziering and Tara Reid. Brilliant, SyFy. You have to believe they’ve already greenlit “Sharknado 2” and that Andrew Shue’s agent is begging the producers to cast him alongside Tiffani Amber-Thiessen, and who the hell would have a problem with that?
Perfect for a Sharknado sequel.
This morning we woke up to learn that Kevin Durant had pledged $1 million to sharknado relief.
Expect similarly so-awful-they’re-awesome films to appear on TV in the future. In tehe age of Twitter, these movies are terrific because we all get to be the three dudes from Mystery Science Theater 3000.
2. Yasiel Puig and his .394 Batting Avg Not Good Enough for All-Star Game
Because who’d want to watch the most exciting player in baseball, after all?
Here are your American League and National League rosters. All of these players have been in The Show longer than the Dodger right fielder. But few of them put on quite the show that he does.
3. Ilya Kovalchuk Sets New Standard for Loathing New Jersey
Kovalchuk reacts to knowing he won’t be spending the next 12 years of his life in New Jersey.
Stolen from a Fred Armisen sketch in which he portrays David Patterson… Yesterday New Jersey Devils winger Ilya Kovalchuk, 30, abruptly retired. He announced that, in effect, he’d rather walk away from the remaining 12 years and $77 million on his contract and live in Russian than remain in New Jersey. Presumably, Venezuela will soon be offering him asylum.
Sports writer Jane McManus made the point that Kovalchuk’s maneuver reminds you of the money that Dave Chapelle once walked away from, and he cannot even skate.
Speaking of Edward Snowden –oh, were we? — I’d like to see him make an official visit to Venezuela before having to commit. When do they play USC next season, anyway?
4. Tough Crowd
Daleste
Brazil, the nation that brought you decapitated referees, also produced a rapper murdered onstage last Saturday night. Rapper MC Daleste had just finished a song when someone fired a shot that struck him in the abdomen (George Zimmerman: “Hey, don’t look at me!”) and mortally wounded him. Music aficionados will recall that this happened in Ohio in 2004 when guitarist Dimebag Darrell of Damageplan was shot to death during a show.
Elton John once released an album titled “Don’t Shoot Me! I’m Only The Piano Player.” But–and this is important to remember– he was joking.
5. China, the Toronto of the East
Widespread flooding in the Chinese provinces of Fujian and Zhejiang has produced at least 200 deaths in the past week, assuring that SI’s Richard Deitsch will be receiving few tweets in Mandarin (or Cantonese…or Szechuan) this week regarding his inquiry as to “The Best Moment In Your Life”. The flooding is the product of Typhoon Soulik, which officials report is not a shark-bearing weather system. So there’s a bright side.
Stock update – it may be raining outside, but it’s a Sun Powered day in Amazonia. No flying sharks though if I don’t count the Chinese smallcraps.
The premise of SHARKNADO is more believable than YOU watching that “movie”. I, ahem, missed the broadcast debut but thanks to Comcast ‘On Demand’, I viewed it Saturday. If YOU had actually watched, the critiquenado would have been written here for all to read. And why would you forsake us so?
Anyway, 2 of my many fave parts – when the female TV broadcaster (whose role is to report on the ongoing chaos & carnage) announces herself, not just once but on 2 separate broadcasts as “Jonni with an i”. And when describing the sharks swimming up the streets in LA & flying the now decidedly unfriendly skies, boldly states “this has never happened before”.
I have watched many of SciFi/Syfy (whatev)’s disaster-shark-octopus-monster mashup TV movies over the years as well, how can you not, but this is the 1st one that made me worry if out-of-control laughter could provoke a heart attack.
Here’s where I think your head would have exploded – when the one female lead (not Tara) stated “we’re gonna need a bigger chopper” OR when the same character detailed the history of her gnarly leg scar & wrapped up said shark story with “6 went into the water & 1 little girl came out”. I mean, come ON, John! For umbrage over the blatant Speilberg plagarism if nothing else!