For reasons unassociated with my personal viewing preferences, we have been watching movies on the Syfy channel of late. This is the outlet where up-and-coming actors and screen writers practice as they wait for a big break that will earn them recurring roles on Lifetime, thus winning them fame and respect for their craft.
The two big blockbusters we watched recently were Sharknado and Snowmageddon. Sharknado was a tornado made up, or at least consisting largely, of sharks. Rather than sucking things up, as might be expected of your garden variety tornado, Sharknado spit things out, namely sharks. It is possible that it may have originally sucked them up from the ocean, or SeaWorld, but I missed the beginning and I don’t want to make assumptions, as I am not a trained Meteorsharkologist.
Too much said?
In spite of the shocking nature of the material, the acting was outstanding. The sharks nailed all of their lines. I think many of them did their own stunts. If not, the stunt doubles were made up perfectly; I couldn’t tell the difference between the stunt sharks and the lead actors.
Snowmageddon was about a winter storm that, beyond hurling wind and snow at innocent folks, also shot at them. I’m not talking about real bullets; that would be ridiculous. This snow storm shot flaming chunks of ice that exploded into fireballs on contact, just as you would expect to see any bad winter storm do.
I knew I should have bought a snow blower this year.
At first, I thought this was Mother Nature’s revenge for our cavalier use of fossil fuels, but then Snowmageddon appeared to take special pleasure from attacking a bus. Well, Mama N., if you insist on destroying our means of mass transit, I guess there’s nothing we can do to please you. We might better learn to take our flaming ice beatings like men, or add extra horse power to our vehicles so we can run away faster.
Incidentally, all of this wacky weather was caused by an enchanted snow globe. Maybe it’s time to stop worrying about carbon footprints and start questioning our need for dangerous souvenir collections.
Shortly before we switched the TV over to the Smurfs movie, my son asked me about Snowmageddon, “Daddy, is this fiction?”
“Yes.”
“Because it’s not real?”
“Yes.”
“Was the shark tornado movie fiction?”
“Yes.”
“Then what about aliens? Are they non-fiction?”
This wasn’t so easy. Though I’ve had conversations with space aliens online, I’ve never met one face to face. Still, the universe is a big place.
Before I could begin to formulate an appropriately wishy-washy reply, he answered for me. He pointed his finger directly at me and exclaimed, “Yes! Aliens are real!”
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“Because there was a show about them on the History Channel.”
I’m not sure which channels to get my news from anymore.
Let’s just watch the Smurfs. They’re good, honest folk. Salt of the Earth. Real people.
Snoozing on the Sofa 
Aliens are totally real!! History channel is my favorite channel. 🙂
If you and a kindergartner agree, who am I to argue?
Hilarious! We watched Sharknado, mostly because I don’t like people talking about things in pop culture and being in the dark. It was brilliant! The worst best movie I’ve ever seen. I literally fell off the couch laughing in the final scene. Can’t say that happened watching anything else this year. But now I have to watch Snowmaggedon. I didn’t know that existed.
Yes, that girl will have quite a story to tell about her time “on the inside.” I’d almost forgotten about her until she popped out at the end. Very heart-warming.
I can’t believe, that after all those years in retail, you never encountered a space alien (customer or staff). And, what about all those zombies that use to plop down in the overstuffed chairs. Waking them up at closing time was a risky proposition.
I never thought they were space aliens because I always figured aliens would be better behaved than that . . . and smell better.
You’re right. Bullets would have been totally ridiculous.
You have to draw the line of credibility somewhere.
Totally agree about the smurfs. Plus, they have that catchy, little song that really sticks with you …
Yeah, but the fact that there’s only one girl, gives me concerns about their ability to sustain their race.
The FCC needs to review the names of networks and make sure they reflect reality. The Learning Channel? The only thing to learn there is that some people don’t need cameras following them.
So it’s pretty much Mission Accomplished for TLC, right? Sounds like they lived up to their name to me.
Ahh, now I see it. TLC is a network devoted to what not to do. For some reason I thought it should be more like PBS, but nobody watches PBS, so this is a way to get people to learn without making their brains hurt. Brilliant.
Except it sounds like it makes your brain hurt. So they may still have some tweaking to do with their business model.
These movies sound very scary. I remember seeing a sharknado once on my home planet of Burkina Faso. It wasn’t pretty, I assure you.
They are the scariest films since Alien vs. Predator. You were awesome in that one, by the way!
You are a better man than I am if you can watch not one but two movies like that. Actually you are a better than I am in everything you do. I just don’t make a good man.
And your husband thanks you for it.
Yes, let’s watch the Smurf. Also another way of diverting their attention from that thing-that-only-married-couples are supposed to do and all the uncomfortable question related to that topic.
I like Smurfs. And Superhero’s off course.
The Smurfs do live in a simpler world, don’t they?
Yes. They only have that dufus and the cat. And only one female Smurf. Life must be so damn easy for them!
I bet it gets complicated for the female now and then.
No, you think?