A Word On Beluga Lentils

Let's just clear up some of the confusion spreading across the North American Fish Conspiracy Zone, shall we?


These are Beluga Whales:

This is Beluga Caviar:

And THESE are the highly-disputed Beluga lentils:

And while they do at first glance RESEMBLE the eggs inside a Beluga Sturgeon -- see the horrid center photo of a gutted operative, who asked by piscatorial advance directive to be identified only by her human given name, 'Sharon,' in any photo posted publicly -- they are really some sort of BEANS.  When you eat them there is no transfer of fish DNA to the eater.

As you revert to your true fish nature, this will become obvious and you will no longer need facts of this sort explained to you.  It is only the human part of your thinking -- draining away little by little as I type this -- that makes you susceptible to doubts, rumors and gossip of the sort that would try to turn a lentil into a fish egg.   

Hope You Ladies Had A Happy Thanksgiving!!!

 

I've looked and looked at this photo, and I just can't decide whether it's more of a Thanksgiving recruitment dinner fantasy or a SECURITY LEAK.

 

Either way, this is the sort of creativity encouraged by the top brass in the Fish Army.   

 

Now I'm going to admire this photo some more...

Ray Troll Fishmas Card Selection, 2014!

Yes, ladies -- Ray Troll, ace recruiter, has been HARD AT WORK bringing Naked Apes and their ancestors back together for the holidays, where they surely belong.  Before you start DASHING THROUGH THE SNOW tomorrow for Tanksgiving, be sure to stop in at the Ray Troll website to pick up some Fishmas cards.  This design is my personal favorite, but there are more every year and he JUST KEEPS CHURNING OUT NEW ONES!

This is a risk-free way to promote piscatorial love,

at a cost of just pennies a day. 

Let me clarify.  I AM GIVING YOU A DIRECT ORDER. 

 

BUY SOME.

There are many other spectacular designs on the site that make for perfect Squidmas gift-giving. 

 

BUY SOME.

This almost goes without saying, but his memorabilia, posters, calendars and t-shirts are also a risk-free way to BE WHO YOU ARE. 

 

Don't participate in your own oppression, ladies! 

This Holiday Season...

BE THANKFUL that Dagon teaches each new recruit to sing LOWER THAN WHALE SHIT. 
Because then we can discuss ANYTHING WE WANT,

without the Shaved Monkeys being any the wiser.

SNAKEHEAD SWAMP

WELL, WHAT CAN I SAY ABOUT THIS SPECTACULAR FILM?

This is probably the ONLY SyFy Channel Original Presentation (a 2014 release directed by Don FauntLeRoy) that combines KILLER SNAKEHEADS with Voodoo curses, and as you might expect, the result is a dilly of a movie.  IT'S CERTAINLY LIKE NOTHING ELSE I HAVE EVER SEEN.  In a word:  WOW!

PLOT SUMMARY:  A young guy (played by Dave Davis), royally bummed out because his girl agreed to marry someone else, makes himself feel even worse by going to the wedding.  A friend (Ayla Kell), who was already tiptoeing around him because his brother died somehow in the local bayou a couple of years ago, goes with him and, wanting to cheer him up, invites him to go to a party on a friend's boat -- which is going to be held at the same place where the brother died.  Yeah, great idea!  While all this is going on, a delivery van packed with buckets of WE KNOW NOT WHAT crashes nearby after one of the drivers hears something break in the cargo department and goes back to investigate.  WE KNOW NOT WHAT has broken out of the buckets!!!  In a truly moving POV shot, apparently filmed through some very dirty window glass, WE KNOW NOT WHAT chases the last surviving driver into the bayou, where he is KILLED and EATEN.  Surprisingly, the very first person we saw appear on the screen -- a man sacrificing a chicken at a Voodoo altar (Antonio Fargas!) -- sees the whole debacle in a vision, and realizes immediately that this has something to do with the local Voodoo curse.  He sets out to put things right while the bummed-out young guy's mom (Terri Garber), a park ranger for Black Briar Swamp, sets out to figure out what became of the first responders who appear to have vanished from the site of the crash, leaving their gear behind.  While that's going on, she is trying to get her son on the phone to see how he is doing after the wedding.  Little does she suspect that WE KNOW NOT WHAT has invaded the very section of bayou where her son is partying down.  WILL ANYONE SURVIVE???

CLIFFIE'S NOTES:

>> Human science has DONE IT AGAIN.  Some Shaved Monkey -- tasked with multi-million-dollar decisions about disbursing research grants -- has approved the genetic enhancement of Snakeheads, supposedly the scariest introduction to North American waters since the Walking Catfish (chuckle!) and the Piranha.  Do they want to make the Snakeheads easier to skin and de-bone for the dinner table?  No.  Prettier and tamer for the home aquarist?  Nope, guess again.  Oh, I'll just tell you -- THEY MADE THEM GROW TEN FEET A DAY, ROAR LIKE GORILLAS, AND SKID OVER THE SURFACE OF THE LAND (forward AND in reverse) LIKE MAN-EATING HOVERCRAFT.  You and I know what great improvements these would be, but I have a hard time understanding why any Shaved Monkey scientist would think this is a good idea.  NEVER MIND, WHAT'S DONE IS DONE.  

>> You're going to love these fish, ladies.  As they increase in size and power, they no longer need to bother using their fins and tails to move across dry ground -- they seem to run on invisible wheels or (considering some of the thematic content of this film) MAGIC.  Oh, and they skid across the top of the water just the way they do on land.  This may connect somehow to the fact that to stalk their prey, they put their heads out of the water like the Shark in Jaws: The Revenge.  Good times, I tell you!

>> I find it heartening that the only person who really knows what's going on is the Voodoo priest.  They even call in the young hero's dad (Anthony Marble), a biology instructor at the local college, and not only does he seem stumped, but he is quite agreeable to following the priest's suggestions.  More agreeable than his wife, in fact. 

>> It is far from clear that there is any real connection between the killer fish menace and the Voodoo curse; the Voodoo priest does, however, keep his metaphysical feelers out at all times and at least knows what is going on.  His name in William -- either BO-droo or BOU-dreaux, depending on which character is trying to pronounce his name.

>> I'm not clear whether the vengeful Voodoo priestess buried out back of Mr. Boudreaux's house is actively directing the fish in this story, but she sure has made the whole neighborhood unlucky for the featherless bipeds.  She may simply be CHEERING US ON.  I do want to point out that like US, she has been shafted somehow by her human neighbors, and she is buried right by the edge of the water -- in a part of the world so damp that they normally have to inter people aboveground.  IS THERE A REASON THEY PUT HER IN THE GROUND TO SOAK?

>> I also wonder whatever became of the brother.  It would have been fun to see his unquiet spirit rise from the bayou and, I dunno, intervene somehow.  But they seem to have put their whole effects budget into the GIANT KILLER SNAKEHEADS, and obviously that was money well spent.

>> I love that the best hope against the Snakehead Menace is the local Voodoo priest.  I think the message here to the Naked Apes is clear:  YOU'RE GONNA NEED MAGICAL POWERS TO GET AWAY WHEN THE FISH COME FOR YOU.

This would make an utterly perfect double feature with Frankenfish, needless to say.  Or you could make it a tripleheader with Mega Piranha.  We are so doing that this weekend.

An Image For You To Gaze Upon...

NYMPH

This 2014 film release is, well, INTERESTING.  And PRETTY DANG GOOD.  It's a Serbian picture filmed in Montenegro and drawing heavily on Greek mythology.  The director is Milan Todorovic, and the actors include Zorana Kostic Obradovic, Mina Slabic and Franco Nero.  I have to say that seen from the perspectives of INTERPSECIES ROMANCE, horror films in general and KEEPING OUR SECRETS SAFE, it's really not half bad. 

PLOT SUMMARY:  The film sets up the Shaved Monkeys for disaster from the very first scene when a young couple making out by the water comes to grief.  The young man is drawn irresistibly into the ocean, saying he hears singing...then disappears under the surface in a gout of blood.  His girlfriend, who heard nothing at all, screams for help until someone comes...And she is promptly dispatched in a way that is bound to give ANY fish viewer the shudders...But also a twinge of satisfaction, because for once it's not happening to one of US.  This time we get to see one of US doing it to one of THEM.  Ha!

Cut to the next scene, that shows a couple of great-looking young women arriving with luggage at what is clearly the same place we saw in the opening scene.  They are visiting an old college buddy, a great-looking guy.  The filmmakers wasted some valuable screen time here, building up the relationships between the human characters and giving us backstory, much of it quite pointless, but of course many of the viewers are going to belong to the species we mean to recruit, and you have to keep them engaged somehow until we can get to the good parts of the story.  These landscum -- one of them so committed to living on solid ground that she feels funny getting into a boat -- decide to go exploring on a nearby island, the local equivalent of Alcatraz minus the park rangers and souvenir bars of soap.  The place is deserted and has a very nasty history; in fact a man at the next table in the café warns the vacationers not to go there, because nothing good can come of hanging around a place that was once a Nazi concentration camp. 

Landscum vacationers being what they are, they respond to this warning by setting out the next morning to see the island.  It's a lovely place, with handsome antique stonework, buildings designed with mysterious intent and a remarkable well in the center of a courtyard right in the middle of it all -- and when one of the vacationers takes a snapshot of the well's interior, what does she see but a woman in the water, looking up at the lens plaintively.  At this point they have to run because they hear someone coming (does it not occur to them to ask the stranger if he can help them help the woman?), and from their hiding places they see the same rubber-booted figure we remember from the first scene.  He approaches the well and pours a bucket of severed hands and feet into the water.  Uh-oh!  Serial killer!

Sure enough, they find his lair in a corner of the facility, papered with articles about missing people and featuring a bathtub lined with bloodstains.  How can they save the man's female captive without being seen?  What is that singing the college buddy says he is hearing down the corridor?  WILL ANYONE SURVIVE?

CLIFFIE'S NOTES ON AN OLD-SCHOOL RECRUITING SPECTACULAR:

>>  This story is basically an outgrowth of the stubborn belief in Sirens, MANY GENERATIONS after we stopped using this recruiting technique for good.  The other title of this movie?  Killer Mermaid. 

>> You have to ask who the recruiting operative is in this story, honestly.  Is it "Scylla," the title character?  At first glance you would think so -- she's the only one in the story with gills.  Then what about the guy known in the credits only as The Guardian, with his grappling hook and blade sharpener?  What do you say about Niko, the man who warns the vacationers to go nowhere near the island in a way that almost guarantees they will hotfoot it over there to take a look, and who also turns out to know the Guardian from way, way back?  Or Bob, who keeps daring everyone to go ahead and check the place out?  IS IT NOT OBVIOUS THAT THEY ARE WORKING TOGETHER TO GET EVERYBODY INTO THE POOL?

>> And what about that well at the center of the island?  Does it not remind you of the one at the bottom of the sea in another movie I've reviewed here, Dagon? (See the entrance to that other well in the image below.) Who built the well in this movie, with what project in mind?  I couldn't help noticing that it appears to have passages leading out into the ocean for Mermaid travel convenience.  So is the well filled with saltwater?  Who builds a saltwater well, IF NOT US? Who builds water-filled tunnels under and island with exits leading to the dry land on top, IF NOT US?

>> What about the relationship between Scylla and The Guardian?  It's implied that they love each other so much that her kiss can bring him back from the dead, but we never get to see that much of their relationship.  And if Scylla has her man, why is she still recruiting guys like the unnamed boyfriend in the first scene?  If she DOESN'T have her man, why is the guardian chopping people up and feeding them to her?  Clearing up some of these questions, and making the nature of the relationship more explicit, would make this movie a MUCH better recruitment film, but oh well.

>> Niko implies that the mermaid is the last of her kind, but he also seems to expect it when a school of others come a-calling towards the end.  What does this guy know?  What does he not know?  Where does he fit into this story?

>> I have to say, I'm intrigued by the idea, advanced in this film, that a Mermaid might be able to look MORE human when she wants, and then switch back when it's convenient to look more, you know, fishy.  If only that were practical!

>> I also wish it were practical to create ANY recruiting model that can take a gouging from a spear fisherman, then heal up within a minute and get back into the game.  IF ONLY!

>> And what about that cliffhanger ending?  WILL THERE BE A SEQUEL?

I expect this one to generate a lot of discussion at the chapter meetings.  AND you can actually enjoy watching it.

Another Delightful Quote...

...Again, this is from Guy Endore's seminal work,
 The Werewolf of Paris. 

 

"On the ocean once a few sailors were privileged to witness a similar event.  A spar was protruding from the water.  Before the eyes of the astonished mariners on a passing bark, the spar rose higher, revealed itself to be the top of a mast.  A cross-spar, hanging awry, now made its appearance with shreds of rigging clinging to it.  Another followed with a bit of sail hanging in wet tatters.  A lesser mast had risen and now the deck itself came up, first the high bow of an old-fashioned design ornamented with an angel, with the water cataracting from it as it cleft from the surface of the sea.  And the whole ship rose and floated for a while on the waves, water pouring from every crevice.  The ship itself was readily identified as an old Spanish galleon, such as had not been seen on the seven seas for near a century.  And slowly the ship that had risen, plunging and rearing from the waters like the webfooted steeds of Old Neptune, settled into the waves again, and a moment later it was gone.  And was as if it had never been...

"That that enormous bowl of water that covers nearly all our globe may conceal animals undreamed of, who would have the temerity to deny at least the possibility?"

 

(pgs. 89-91.)

 

 

 

 

Look What Agent 269 Found...In A Book About Werewolves!

The image pasted above is a shot of Oliver Reed playing the central character in this story...His deathless acting turn in Curse of the Werewolf  was based on the book I am quoting today, The Werewolf of Paris by Guy Endore, ISBN 978-1-60598-353-0, where Agent 269 stumbled across THIS and reported it immediately:

 

"Sometimes, so my grandmother used to say, men come to the village fair who have never been seen before and never will be seen again.  They are men from the sea and are looking for prey to drag down into their underwater dwellings.  They can be recognized by the fact that the hems of their clothes are always slightly moist and their hands are often webbed..."

 

(Mme. Didier, quoted on pg. 75 of the edition I am reading.)

 

SLANDER, I TELL YOU! 

 

I am trying to bear in mind that the character describing our operatives is so superstitious and fearful that she runs out for holy water whenever there is a thunderstorm, for pity's sake.  But apparently it never occurred to Mme. Didier  -- or her grandmother -- that these visitors to the fair were simply LOOKING FOR A DATE.  (Or maybe funnel cakes?)  And it CLEARLY never occurred to them that if their "prey" was never seen again, that might be because THEY WERE TOO HAPPY TO RETURN TO THEIR FILTHY HOVELS IN PRE-REVOLUTIONARY FRANCE.

 

Well, eventually they WILL learn.  WE WILL SEE TO THAT.

GODZILLA: FINAL WARS

 

 

I just wanted to point out that one of the great virtues of this 2004 Toho film release -- aside from the invincibility of a little-known aquatic reptile called GODZILLA -- is the similar invincibility of a rather large Lobster named Ebirah, who we all remember so fondly from her original screen appearance in Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster. 

 

Ebirah is the only giant monster in Final Wars who is supposedly defeated by the humans in the scene pictured above -- who blast her apart with the curious exclamation, "Sorry; I'm a vegetarian" -- only to have her go right ahead and SHOW UP AGAIN IN ANOTHER CITY, in a throw-down with Hedorah, another aquatic visitor on land who you'll remember from Godzilla vs. The Smog Monster.  Interestingly, NOBODY TREATS THIS SURPRISE REAPPEARANCE AS REMARKABLE IN ANY WAY!

 

 

Could it be that between films, it has become COMMON KNOWLEDGE that there are actually hundreds and hundreds of this species lurking beneath the surface of the Pacific Ocean???

 

 

Who wins the day?  OUR AQUATIC HERO...

 

...Working partly solo, partly manipulating the crew of the Gotengo,  a flying submarine you'll remember from the deathless Toho classic Atragon:

(Oops, how did Manda sneak into that photo?)\

 

Anyway, you get the idea.  This story is all about the final ascendancy of the water over the land and its puny inhabitants.  Watch it. 

YOU'LL LOVE IT.

NPR Takes On The Subject Of Sticklebacks

Here's the link to the NPR article.

Disturbing, isn't it?  Even the noble Stickleback, as landscum call them, only appear in this article as a route to understanding something as uninteresting as a Naked Ape's skin color.   But let me call your attention to a few startling admissions by the author: 

"HUMANS CAME FROM FISH."  (Is this reality finally starting to sink in with them!?) 

Let me add:  AND TO FISH YOU WILL RETURN.  No two ways about it.

"We all share a genetic toolkit that gets used over and over, just in slightly different ways. Not just for skin color, but for all sorts of crucial traits," -- I quote from the fishologist cited in this article.   
 

One more:

"We're studying the sticklebacks, the sticklebacks aren't studying us.  At least we don't think they are."

DREAM ON, FOOLS!  We have been watching you since before you swung down from the trees!

TOMMY

Sometimes the symbolism is TOO FREAKING OBVIOUS.  But I can't consider the content of this 1975 rock opera a security leak.  Why?  EVERYONE INVOLVED IN MAKING THIS MOVIE WAS 100% HUMAN.  But here goes the review anyway:

PLOT SUMMARY:  At the beginning of the film, Captain and Mrs. Walker conceive their only offspring, Tommy, in a pool beneath a waterfall.  Shaved Monkey drama interrupts their happy lives when Captain Walker's fighter plane goes down in flames.  Mrs. Walker -- only by reading the credits do you learn her first name, Nora -- gives birth to Tommy on the day the Allies declare victory.  Nora misses her husband badly and brings Tommy up to revere the memory of the father he never met.  (This is always a brutal temptation faced by landfish -- to stick to their own kind and not mix with the fully human.  CAN YOU BLAME THEM?)

When her son is about 5, she finally takes up with someone new, a man named Frank who they meet at a holiday camp; Tommy spends his holiday watching Frank and Nora cozying up to each other, and when vacation is over, Frank goes home with them to stay. 

Imagine Tommy's delight when his dad -- his REAL dad, Captain Walker -- steps into his bedroom one night as Tommy is settling in to sleep.  Tommy climbs out of bed and follows him, just in time to see him murdered by Frank and Nora.  Tommy...Well, he isn't really the same after that.  But following Frank and Nora's instructions to the letter -- and what, after all, is a "Tommy" but a brave, obedient British soldier? -- he tells nobody and keeps everything entirely to himself.  For years and years.  

In fact, he becomes so closed off that Nora and Frank are rather concerned about his well-being.  Then, in a final confrontation about his secretive nature, Nora blasts him out of his shell once and for all.  Tommy, freed at last, endures a minor detour into the gaudy, tinpot world of Naked Ape status-seeking, then finally GETS REAL and swims all the way home to the mountain pool where his life began.

CLIFFIE'S NOTES ON THIS OVERTLY PISCATORIAL FILM:

>> In all I have read, seen and heard about this film, I have never known anyone to point out the totally freaking obvious:  Tommy, raised to be human, eventually meets his destiny by getting in touch with his inner Salmon.

>> There are many other clues to support this conceit in the film.  For one:  Nora is clearly dating OUTSIDE HER SPECIES when she takes up with good old Frank.

>> We never hear where Captain Walker was keeping himself all those years after his plane went down.  When he finally shows up again, he has a scar on his face but also a spanking-new RAF uniform.  The answer is clear to see -- he's been in the sea all this time -- and it's especially obvious if, like you and I, the viewer understands the secrets of piscatorial dry cleaning. 

>> Through all the years he's keeping his secrets to himself, Tommy hallucinates constantly about things that would really only have meaning to his mother and father -- like the silver balls that flow in a river through his mind, just like the ones that eddied around Nora's unconscious body after she passed out on the floor of the munitions factory, having just learned that Captain Walker's plane was missing.  Those balls eventually become an important part of his real life.  IF THAT'S NOT FISH CONSCIOUSNESS, WHAT IS?  I ask you!

>> How does Tommy infuriate his mother enough to make her force the issue?  By staring in the mirror hour after hour, day after day.  What does the mirror do for Tommy?  It's OBVIOUSLY a substitute for the pool of water he has been seeking all his life.  (I'm not sure if she's angry because all her attempts to cover up his fish identity are being undermined, or what.)  How does she finally end the stalemate?  She knocks him right through the mirror...and out of the house...into a REAL pool of water. TOMMY IS FREE.  HOW OBVIOUS IS THAT?

>> At one point, Tommy informs the world that "If I told you what it takes to reach the highest high/You'd laugh and say nothing's that simple!"  But he never really spells out for us what he means.  He leads his followers up the same goofy primrose path he travelled himself, as a matter of fact -- he even makes them play pinball, as if that had anything to do with anything.  His followers quickly catch on that this is getting them nowhere and they stage a revolt.  They never do figure out the secret.  BECAUSE HE IS THE ONLY ONE WHO ENDS UP IN THE WATER, HE IS THE ONLY ONE WHO REACHES FREEDOM. 

Aren't you glad you don't have to go through all that nonsense?   The years of not fitting in -- the disability -- the doctors -- the faith-healers. 

Just take that long high dive into the water and YOU WILL BE FREE.

FLOOD!

This made-for-TV Irwin Allen disaster picture dates from 1976.  This means it was made quite soon after the Buffalo Creek disaster of 1972, and probably drew most heavily on that event, but I see a lot of the Johnstown Flood in here too, frankly -- and that was all the way back in 1889.

PLOT SUMMARY:  The old, leaky dam above Brownsville, Oregon is springing one leak after another.  The town fathers -- all well aware that the town's only income stream, you should pardon the expression, comes from the great fishing above the dam -- refuse to open the spillway, feeling that a few more leaks than usual mean nothing special.  The grizzled Hydrodynamics Expert, Charlie Davis (James Griffith), asks the location of the latest leak and packs a bag -- he knows the dam is about to collapse.   Paul Burke, the Young Turk (Martin Milner), tries to convince his future father-in-law, John Cutler (Richard Basehart), the head of the town council (in JAWS his equivalent was Murray Hamilton, The Mayor of Shark City), to turn on their special dam-is-breaking alarm.  Cutler says no, of course.  While all this is going on, rakish helicopter pilot Steve Brannigan (Robert Culp) is trying to get a date with a pretty nurse but reluctantly agrees to help raise the alarm.  But it's too late -- the dam is bust and the water is heading downhill.  WILL ANYONE SURVIVE?

The movie didn't quite meet its goals for a number of different reasons. 

CLIFFIE'S NOTES:

>> It looks as if the budget were too small to allow the filmmakers to show us any real destruction -- AND WHAT ELSE IS THE POINT OF MAKING A DISASTER MOVIE, AM I RIGHT?  I didn't even see much tame, made-for-TV-level destruction in here.   

>> They used all manner of big names in this movie -- but they didn't use many of them WELL.  Roddy McDowall had hardly any lines at all, for crying out loud, and he vanished from the movie almost as soon as he arrived.  Even Leif Garrett, who looked all of twelve in this story, had a juicier role.  All they would have had to do was put McDowall, a wealthy sportsman, out on the lake in a boat that got swallowed up in the turbulence when the dam broke.  Preferably just as he hooked a nice Trout on his line.

>> They appeared to use a real town in the making of this movie -- the credits even thanked the town for allowing the film crew in -- but they never made clear whether Brownsville even has a real dam.  One big missing piece was the usual Irwin Allen panning-from-here-to-there shot to show what is going to be destroyed -- and what was left after the disaster happened.

>> They never even estimated the toll of the flood in dollars, a favorite Shaved Monkey way of reckoning disasters.

>> Surely they could have afforded a panning shot of mud-caked survivors weeping in the wreckage! But it never happened in this movie.

A lot of points were left unresolved at the end of the story. 

>> How did Carol Lynley's character manage after the end of the story?


>> Who the funk builds a dam uphill from a small town, then fails to maintain it?  Where the filmmakers wanted to point out HUMAN FOLLY at work here, I rather see it as the Caudal Fin of Dagon sweeping the unwittingly Shaved Monkeys into Its Sacred Maw...But that might just be me.

>>  Did Martin Milner's character and Barbara Hershey's character stay engaged?  She seemed awfully peeved at him at the end.

>> Why is everyone so interested in the fate of Andy (Eric Olson), a completely unremarkable kid who is apparently accident-prone and whom EVERYONE risks his or her monkey neck to save from the flood? 

>> Will they rebuild?  Who will spearhead that effort? 

And the biggest oversight of all:  Where are the fish???  The fish are completely invisible in this story.  People keep referring to them as the reason everything happens -- YOU HAVE TO LIKE THAT! -- but you never see a single fish, even a stuffed one on a wall or one painted on the town's WELCOME sign.  

It's impossible for me to see it any other way:  the dam broke because THE FISH WANTED OUT. 

The Role Of Exposition In DEEP RISING

This is one of my favorite images from the 1998 Piscatorial Love epic, DEEP RISING.  Doesn't it remind you of this scene from THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE?

I couldn't find an image on Google of Gene Hackman AND the steam jet, but this photo at least shows the right scene, complete with the red steam valve.  WE'VE ALL SEEN THAT MOVIE SO MANY TIMES.  Hackman does what he needs to in order to get his band of plucky Naked Ape survivors AWAY FROM THE FISH, and the operative in the image at the top coolly takes note of the menace, THEN GETS BACK TO BUSINESS -- bringing fish and Naked Apes together.  It's so symmetrical, you know?

...But I've strayed from the original intent of this entry.  I saw DEEP RISING for the first time in a while the other night, and it always leaves me with the same small irritation plucking at what's left of my frontal lobes.  I thought I might not notice it as much this time, but this week I noticed it more, not less.  So here's my question:  WHAT THE HECK IS UP WITH SIMON CANTON?  Remember that guy?

Yes!  Anthony Heald, so well-loved for his interpretation of the role of Dr. Chilton in THE SILENCE OF THE CLAMS LAMBS, made a crazy sideways leap from cruise ship investor to Exposition Lad in this movie.  He plays the same effete know-it-all in both LAMBS and DEEP RISING, but the subject matter is quite different.  When he's not wringing his hands in DEEP RISING about the rate of return on the money he put into this venture, he's explaining, seemingly out of nowhere, what ate the passengers (an "Octalus"), where she came from (a deep-sea trench, where they grow 'em bigger) and la de da.  Where he's getting this twaddle is rather unclear.  Until the very end of the picture, almost their whole awareness of what's recruiting stalking them is a lot of groaning sounds in the pipes overhead and the fact that they can't find anyone on board.  Let me point out that not one drop of the information Canton provides, REGARDLESS of where he got it, helps them avert the recruitment efforts of the film's key operative.  DOES THIS REMIND US OF ANYONE ELSE, MAYBE FROM ANOTHER 1998 FILM ABOUT PISCATORIAL LOVE?

That's right!  Matthew Broderick playing Worm Guy in FRAUDZILLA GODZILLA!  Broderick's character -- based roughly on Dr. Yamane from the seminal 1954 GODZILLA -- was brought in out of nowhere to comment on the reproductive capacity of the aquatic reptile.  WHY, I COULD NOT TELL YOU.  So what if the monster is self-fertile?  YOU MAY WELL ASK.  She came from the ocean; she eats fish; she is much, much bigger than you are; and she wants to add some featherless bipeds to her diet. HOW MUCH MORE DO YOU NEED TO KNOW?

Well, many things, in fact.  But the Shaved Monkeys rarely seem to want to ask the important questions, IF THEY ARE EVEN AWARE OF THEM:

>> Why such a big Octalus?  COULD THIS BE THE SPECIAL CRUISE-SHIP VERSION CREATED BY PISCATORIAL R&D?  Nobody ever asks.  (Which is actually fine with me.)

>> Is this the real reason the absurd, topheavy cruise ship in the movie is a dumb thing to invest in? 

>> Why is nobody impressed by the fact that as soon as Canton launched this crazy floating hotel, it started attracting criminals like Trillian St. James (Famke Janssen), Mr. Hanover (Wes Studi) and Finnegan (Treat Williams)?  Is that the real reason it's a dumb thing to invest in an absurdly topheavy cruise ship?

>> Even after the last survivors made landfall, nobody stopped to ask whether the whole setup BENEFITED BOTH SIDES OF THE INTERACTION.  The landscum got rid of a collection of their scummiest characters -- the rich, and the Naked Apes who prey on them -- in one fell swoop.  Meanwhile, the Octalus got some really tasty recruits.  The recruits, for their part, can stop scrabbling after dollars and finally meet Dagon.  IS THERE A DOWNSIDE TO THIS FOR ANYONE?

>> Even after the last survivors made landfall, there were fresh problems waiting for them on the island.  And the only place to run?  Back into the ocean.  IS SPENDING THAT MUCH TIME ON AN OCEAN THAT WANTS TO EAT YOU the real reason it's dumb to invest in an absurd, topheavy cruise ship?

>> If Fraudzilla is self-fertile, does that mean she is the only one?  Or are there a lot of them lurking at the bottom of Long Island Sound?  That might be important to know. 

>> What if a unique, but self-fertile Fraudzilla had twins?  And what if twins turned out to run in the family, huh?  At that point you'd be OFF AND RUNNING, am I right?  RUNNING FOR YOUR LIFE.

But I stray from my point again.  It just seems to me that almost every one of these movies has an Exposition Lad inserted, with or without a good reason from the fish point of view.  But I suspect they are absolutely necessary from a landscum point of view.  They seem to really feel they have DONE SOMETHING about the problem once Exposition Lad arrives and starts nattering away about nothing. In real life, as in the movies, as soon as an unanswered question pops up the Naked Apes are getting in line to explain it away.

Your mission -- should you choose to accept it -- is to put a smile on MY face by targeting Exposition Lad.  KILL him.  EAT him.  Let them all see how much his knowledge protects him from the fish.

Today's Image for Meditation and Pondering

...Sea Bass...Sea Bass...Sea Bass...

A Note On Khan Noonien Singh

The more the fish viewer watches this guy, the more obvious it becomes that SOMETHING IS GOING ON HERE.

CLIFFIE'S NOTES ON KHAN NOONIEN SINGH, AS INTERPRETED BY BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH:

>> He's genetically modified to make him more intelligent according to human standards, but also more ruthless, violent and savage.  The character even sneers a bit at human intelligence in the course of the story (the story I refer to is Star Trek: Into Darkness).  Khan values other parts of his personality more.  AS WELL HE SHOULD.

>> Like the residents of Skull Island in the Peter Jackson remake of King Kong, Khan has a funny bluish-greenish tinge to his skin and silvery, gleaming eyes.  WHERE DID THAT SPECIAL, ADDED GENETIC MATERIAL COME FROM AGAIN?

>> Like the hooked fish Will Cuppy used to discuss with people during his early years in Indiana, Khan seems to have a very, very high pain threshold.  But as Cuppy himself would surely point out, of COURSE Khan feels pain.  Why wouldn't he?  The guy even burst into tears at one point during the movie.

>> You kill the guy, again and again, and all he does is come back for more.  Who does THAT remind you of, ladies?

>> What does Khan want?  To improve the human race.  How?  By bringing the influence of HIS race to bear on THEIRS.  Who does THAT remind you of, ladies?

I have no idea what a fully human viewer would see when she watches Khan in action.  BUT I KNOW WHAT I SEE.  Part fish, part man, an improvement on both and DETERMINED TO IMPROVE THE GALAXY.

You'll love this guy, ladies.  Watch the movie!

OK, Maybe They're NOT Really Catching On...

 

"You can ask questions all you want, but it's like yelling at the ocean.  It does not answer back."

 

--Michael Utley

Could They Finally Be Catching On?

 

“The water trapped in my window makes it like an aquarium—which makes me the fish.”  

― Jarod Kintz

Now, This Is Getting WAY Too Close To The Truth...

When certain people can’t figure out why a certain place produces a certain thing, they tend to say, “There must be something in the water.” And I always think, “Yeah, there is something in the water. They’re called fish. They grow on land, you moron.”  

― Jarod Kintz

Thought for the Day

“All men are equal before fish.”  

 

― Herbert Hoover

 

 

We're Working On It, George...

 

“I know the human being and fish can co-exist peacefully.”  

-- George W. Bush

Security Leak Fails To Make A Difference To Our Glorious Cause...

The ladies in the photo above GAVE THEIR ALL to recruit more Shaved Monkeys into our ranks.  Show some respect.

 

At the moment, Shrimp are a bit of a hot property if you are landscum.  Plummeting prices -- brought about by the mass production of zombi Shrimp in factory farms -- have encouraged the Shaved Monkeys to buy up our operatives by the 5- or 10-pound bag.  Sometimes they are purchased aux naturals but sometimes they arrive in the grocery cart boiled -- for dipping in that horrible red sauce they make -- or peeled, dipped in batter and fried, doused in eye-searing spices and steamed, or sometimes even rolled in coconut. 

 

It's a crazy world we live in when you have to wonder whether your daughter's career is going to mean being rolled in coconut and baked in an oven.  The things we have to do to get by!

 

But the statistics are still FAR TOO LOW.   There is a small army of featherless bipeds out there who actually keep track of this sort of information, SAVING US THE TROUBLE, and the current figures (they date back to 2012) indicate that the average American eats only 4 lbs of Shrimp per year, trailed by the runners-up, canned Salmon and canned Tuna.  THIS IS PATHETIC. 

 

I'm even more exercised when I see the number of recruiters per recruit.  The more they overfish our homes, the smaller the operatives captured and you wind up wasting many lives per Naked Ape recruit.  If all these ladies are going to sacrifice themselves, I WOULD LIKE THERE TO BE A DAMNED REASON FOR IT.  You don't need 125 operatives to recruit 1 featherless biped; you only need the RIGHT one.  The same job that could be done by a single Shrimp is being done by literally dozens of smaller abductees -- concealed in eggrolls in many cases -- ladies who could have lived longer, gained in strength and experience, and thereby done a more effective job on more Shaved Monkeys.

 

On the bright side, Americans DO LOVE TO SUPERSIZE.  When they can get them they will consume ULTRA-COLOSSAL operatives (that's 2 size notches ABOVE "Extra Jumbo") and very often, a single meal is all it takes.

 

But there's even more good news.  The landscum have been so unreliable in tracking the origins and intent of the Shrimp they eat that in a random sampling of 70 restaurants and 41 grocery stores nationwide, they were terrified to find that some of the operatives finding their way into the nation's freezers and buffets are NOT WHAT THEY HAD IN MIND AT ALL.  Some of them can't even be clearly identified by species.  While on the surface this looks like a security leak -- and it is -- they interpreted the information wrong, AS ALWAYS.  They are focusing their attention on better regulation of the fishermen and basically ignoring the operatives, even though the news is full of articles right now with titles like "Are They Really Shrimp?" 

Here's your answer, foolish brachiator:  No.  No, they are not Shrimp.  They are your destiny.  They are your future.