SHARKS IN VENICE

Well, I just saw this one last night and I HARDLY KNOW WHAT TO SAY.  This ASTOUNDING 2008 release was directed by Danny Lerner, who also brought us Shark Zone and Raging Sharks as well as Shark Attack 2 and Shark Attack 3:  Megalodon.  This man is truly a friend to the Cause and I won't hear a word said against him.

I have yet to see ALL of Lerner's piscatorial epics, and the task is going to be even harder to face now that we've lost him.  He truly is irreplaceable.  But as recruiting films go, this one has to be one of the hardest to beat EVER.  Where do I begin?

CLIFFIE'S NOTES ON THIS UNIQUE RECRUITING FILM:

>> Almost every human being in this film looks like a real person, not an idealized twentysomething fashion model.  The hero/recruit, for instance, is a doughy middle-aged college instructor (Stephen Baldwin); his girlfriend (Vanessa Johansson) has limp hair and bad posture. THEY'RE THE REAL THING.  JUST THE SORT OF PEOPLE WE WANT TO TURN INTO FISH RECRUIT.

>> The bad guy in this film thinks he is in control of what he calls "the bambino sharks," but the Sharks end up LAUGHING IN HIS FACE and going about their -- our -- business.

>> The hero/recruit starts out deeply concerned that his dad has disappeared while diving in Venice.  The police inevitably call it a run-in with a boat propeller.  He flies immediately to the scene to tell off the police (he never actually says "This was no boating accident!" but we get the message) and to begin a search for dad.  But he also keeps forgetting the dangers of the Shark-infested canals, mentioning it to the authorities and then quietly dropping the matter.  He underlines his own lack of concern by suiting up and swimming in those same canals again and again.  His girlfriend keeps saying she won't let him take the risk -- then casually stands back and lets him plunge into the canal.  WHAT DO YOU SUPPOSE THAT'S MEANT TO CONVEY, LADIES?  You got it.  He knows his dad is safe in the Roiling Intestine of Dagon.  So does she.

>> All the landscum skin-divers complain about how murky the water in is this film, which is about what you can expect when you're trying to navigate in water being crapped in by well over 250,000 Shaved Monkeys.  But I want you to notice that whenever the Shark operative (what the Shaved Monkeys call a Great White) appears, he appears in a luminous halo of perfectly clear water.  I can't imagine a better metaphor for WHAT HE IS DOING THERE.  And only a fish viewer will know how to interpret THAT clue.

>> Lerner cleverly fills the movie with what look like MISTAKES, but which are actually brilliant, sleight-of-fin MISDIRECTION.  A fully human viewer will not suspect what it means when the American woman visiting Venice translates some Italian she heard on the radio into English, for the benefit of an Italian listening over her shoulder.  It's meant to DISTRACT the Naked Ape viewer from noticing when the hero, minutes later, is bitten across the midsection by a Shark twice his size, viciously shaken, then RELEASED without a single rip in his wetsuit.  The human viewer thinks that's just another dumb mistake by the filmmaker.  A fish viewer will instantly know that Baldwin's character has been granted SAFE PASSAGE by the Shark operative.

>> There are other clues to Baldwin's true identity.  How many landscum viewers will notice when Baldwin reports that his air tank is completely empty, shows us the wrist indicator to prove it, but then swims around with it for several more minutes and grapples with a Shark along the way.  Then he takes the whole kit off, crawls around in a cave, puts the empty scuba tank back on and swims a long, long way underwater, back to the waiting boat.  HOW DID HE DO THAT IF HE'S AN AIR BREATHER?

>> And what about all the yip-yap?  Team after team of divers hold long conversations underwater despite the fact that they're using those regulators that you grip with your teeth and seal shut with your lips.  Same "mistake" you remember from Lerner's immortal Shark Zone.  Obviously, to talk they had to remove the regulators and speak underwater.  LIKE FISH.  And what about the fact that in every scene, we see them keep the regulators in their mouths?  MORE MISDIRECTION.

>> I don't want to ruin the whole movie for you, but I do want to point out just one more thing.  It's clear to any viewer  -- fish, half-fish, or 100% primate -- that there's only ONE Shark in the canals of Venice.  As Matt Hooper said at one point in Jaws, those proportions are correct.  We only need about one Great White to about 350,000 Shaved Monkeys.  Of course, Lerner slyly left out all the Makos, Blues, Tigers and other Shark operatives on the team in real life. 

The film was also released under another title:

 

Because it really only takes one Great White to get the job done.  See this movie.  You'll never regret it.

The Shaved Monkeys Take Issue With Brown Algae

The image you're seeing is of the BODIES OF OUR SLAIN CATFISH SISTERS, floating in the Indian River Lagoon along the coast of Florida.    That of course is far to the south of here, but still part of our North American Recruiting Zone.   This entry was prompted by the arrival, in my e-mail inbox, of a Change.org petition reacting to this sport-fishing and sight-seeing CRISIS, precipitated by a brown algae bloom.   All it really says is  "Governor Scott -- Representative Posey -- DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS, WON'T YOU?"  The petition suggests no course of action at all, but notes with horror that the bloom has also killed Pelicans, Dolphins and Manatees by the hundreds.  And of course the underwater effects are not limited to Catfish.  More than half the Seagrass is on strike, and they took most of our fully aquatic, mobile operatives with them, IN THEIR THOUSANDS.  Quite a moving show of solidarity.   

I want you ladies to compare that photo to this one:

These operatives died quite differently.  The landscum deliberately suffocated them by dosing the pond they were living in, at some sort of exclusive Palm Springs gated living enclave, with a pourable crud (Rotenone -- remember the stuff they used to bring the Gillman to the surface in the first Creature From The Black Lagoon movie?) that forced our sisters to the surface, a few at a time, gasping miserably until they died.  Why?  Because one of their yard apes, Jake Duchene, found an unexpected species on the end of his fishing line:

This operative -- I have her permission to tell you that before she joined Our Glorious Cause, her name was Ruth Brodie -- was living in peace with her sisters and, I have to say, doing an admirable job as a maintenance operative.  Her unexpected capture -- DO NOT BELIEVE THE RUMORS YOU'VE HEARD!  SHE DID NOT BITE THE LURE! IT SNAGGED HER ON TOP OF HER HEAD! -- caused a typical Shaved Monkey panic that led to the piscacidal onslaught.  Even the yard ape's father, Darrin Duchene, complained about how heartbreaking it was that his son's find led to every fish in the pond being MURDERED.

But that's the way the Naked Apes do it.  THEY THINK IT'S ALL ABOUT THEM.  The news articles described poor Ruth as a man-eating fish from the Amazon Basin.  Well, ladies, let me point out that she never hurt a hair on a human head -- QUITE THE REVERSE -- and that she never saw the Amazon Basin in her life, but came to Palm Springs from Elkhart, Indiana by way of Cincinnati.  It was a Naked Ape that released her into that pond, and in all the time she and her Piranha sisters lived there NOBODY KNEW A THING ABOUT IT.  They tended to their own business, as fish do, and made a point of disappearing whenever a Naked Ape invaded their territory -- as fish do.

I merely want to point out that there is NO REAL DIFFERENCE between the content of the Change.org petition about the fish strike in Florida and the decision to murder hundreds of our sisters, a continent away, in California.  They simply DON'T GET IT.  The point they always seem to MISS is the fact that when Dagon makes the decision to kill fish (as in the first example I've given you today), it's done RIGHT, and when the landscum decide to do it, THEY CAN'T FIGURE IT OUT.  Even before they poured the Rotenone they were talking about restocking the pond with operatives of their own choosing.  EXCUSE ME, STUPID, BUT THOSE ARE OUR OPERATIVES -- NOT YOURS.  We will decide who lives there and in what numbers.  YOU HAVE NOTHING TO SAY ABOUT IT.

They Just Can't Seem To Figure This Out!

One of my operatives, who's keeping up on ecological issues, overheard some Shaved Monkey hand-wringing the other day about what a radio announcer called "the failure of the Salmon fishery in the Great Lakes."

Would anyone like to hazard a guess as to why the Salmon fishery is failing?

BECAUSE THERE IS NO SALMON FISHERY THERE.

The blame fool landscum keep trying to introduce different species into the lakes for "sports fishermen."  The mere presence of monkeys in hip-waders seems to make it OK in their minds to introduce species who have NO DESIRE TO BE THERE, in this case the species they call Coho and Chinook Salmon.  They do not appear to notice the contradiction: when someone notices a Sea Lamprey, a Round Goby or a Zebra Mussel they all start WEEPING AND GNASHING THEIR TEETH, but hey, let's not hold back on introducing OTHER foreign species JUST BECAUSE WE WANT OUR PICTURES TAKEN WITH THEM.  They spend MILLIONS of monkey dollars researching the reasons WHY the Gobies are doing so well when the Chinooks are committing mass suicide.

Here's the reason.

DAGON DOESN'T WANT THEM THERE.  I DON'T WANT THEM THERE.  AND WE DON'T CARE WHAT YOU WANT.

An Image For You To Gaze Upon

The Day Of the Prawns

Today we celebrate the selfless sacrifice of our Imperial Prawn sisters!  Fully aquatic operatives will celebrate in a way that landfish who have just started their transformation will find HARD TO UNDERSTAND; never mind, ladies.  It is perfectly all right to celebrate in a more human way.  IT'S THE THOUGHT THAT COUNTS.

(Candles optional.)