Matthew Wrather hosts with Peter Fenzel and Mark Lee, kicking off Year 3 of the Overthinking It Podcast with a detailed examination of the many tentacles of meaning in Roger Corman’s modern classic, Sharktopus. Also, Lee is a French TV star.
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Haven’t listened yet, but just feel that on the next podcast, Wrather should announced himself as being from Laramidia – the island continent that once was the West Coast when a sea of water rather than cultural differences
separated the West and East Coasts. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laramidia
East Coasters, for reference, are from Appalachia. They are also good for putting right-handed drinks on.
One aspect of the sharktopus creature that was not noted in the podcast: it has no anus. The creatures are joined pushme-pullyou style, with a mouth at either end. This makes the final disposition of all of its victims even more puzzling.
Regarding the blood sp(l)atter on the camera, I’m not sure that this should be taken as a Brechtian distancing mechanism — I think the contrary may be true, that it is intended as an invocation of cinéma vérité, to give a documentary sense that the events are actually happening physically, despite the digital nature of the effects. This use of the camera as a “character”, depicting it and its limitations, is often used in other works to add a sense of realism and “grittiness”.
For example, Battlestar Galactica notably used what seemed to be “handheld” cameras in depicting its space battles, complete with lagging focus, framing problems, lens flare, etc., in what were completely digital environments (in the pilot episode, a piece of explosion debris actually “hits” the “camera”). One also sees these elements, especially focus issues and lens flare, in other digital works (it’s hard to find any space film that doesn’t use lens flare). One even sees this in purely and obviously animated works (such as Despicable Me, and even various computer games, which are clearly not filmed).
I think that these effects, even the blood sp(l)atter, are just examples of how internalized the elements of filmmaking have become for audiences. Far from being distancing, these things make the film seem more real. A movie with a locked-off camera shooting perfectly focussed, perfectly lit scene with no flare and no other extraneous elements would, to a modern audience, seem the height of artificiality (like watching a major studio film from the ’40s does).
Being a former canal plus watcher (while I speak french I’m in quebec so watching require of me considerable bandwith) I couldn’t help but have my curiosity pique by the whole terminator buisness and try to do my home research
“I’ll be back : la saga Terminator” by Didier Allouch seem a bit ellusive at the moment, I was able to go in the schedule up september 14 to early october without much luck (however I have reason to believe only a partial schedule was available to me) might have to wait a couple of months before even scheduling it.
Although I believe you would be happy to know Crank 2 is on this month.
As I was listening to this, I wrote the single note: ‘Mujahideen = Shark’ i.e. that we funded and created insurgent groups in Afghanistan that otherwise wouldn’t have been as violent/expansive, then found ourselves unable to rein them in. But it wasn’t for our own amusement. I think this is a more current metaphor of military creating something it can’t control than biological weapons etc. though.
I have only seen the trailer for Sharktopus, but after listening to you guys I have feeling I have already seen the relevant stuff. Almost all the scenes you talk about in the Podcast are in it.
Hi, guys. First time, long time! I just wanted to let you know that The Sharktopodcast is my new favorite episode! I’m recommending it to my podcast listeners: http://chronicrift.com/node/1087
Keep up the good work!