2023, Week Two: Sharknado and Banshees, Slim Pickings Edition
Slim pickings this week, friends. Life happens Wow, we’re only in the second week and I already have to make excuses, huh? Well, I got sick with that type of fever where highly medicated sleep is the only respite, so I don’t have much in terms of intellectual or erudite pursuits. I did adopt two kittens, though. Their names are Pasta (as in David Pastrnak, the Bruins player) and Cher (named after the singer, not like the Clueless character)
Obligatory PSA: Given my line of work, my days are thus split: 30% reading, 30% watching, 30% listening to music, 9% writing, 1% publishing. This is not an L posting, but the non-romanticized version of how a yarn is spun. I like to think that all the information I absorbed will come in handy at some point.
The Wholesomeness of Sharknado
I am naturally drawn to all those movies that are too bad to be actually bad (side note: the worst movies are the ones with a 40-60% approval rating. When they dip below that, you’re about to watch a rare gem, friend).
After binging some 90s disaster movies (Dante’s Peak, Volcano!, Twister, Deep Blue Sea) I finally committed one evening to Sharknado. I kept hearing about it the first years I was living here and, honestly, it’s quite endearing and heartwarming the way 90s disaster movies are. Sure, the premises are implausible: how do the sharks survive once they become airborne?? Why are they so hell-bent on just chomping onto everything, wouldn’t they be overwhelmed by their surroundings? At least, in 2006’s Snakes on a Plane, the snakes were made to be aggressive thanks to a lot of artificial pheromones, and in Deep Blue Sea, the Mako sharks had been rendered supersmart during some Alzheimer’s related research. Whatever. There’s a sense of kinship and camaraderie between the characters— I love the barfly George and his stool, I don’t mind the videogame-heroine-like Nova, or Tara Read as the lovestruck ex wife. Their backstories feel very 1990s in that they’re an organic part of the movie’s worldbuilding, much like the interpersonal drama in Twister. Bonus points for the implausible, Nintendo 64-like CGI.
As an aside, I recommend you (re) watch Snakes on a Plane as well.
The Banshees of Inisherin
There’s an Irish pub in Somerville called Tavern at the End of the World that I really love, and the setting of Banshees does feel like some place at the end of the world as well, with its sharp cliffs looking over an endless ocean. Due to the setting, the conflict between the two friends also has a mythical, almost surrealist overtone. Rationally, it’s unclear why folk musician Colm wants to cut ties with his oafish friend Padraig, yet, if you’re somehow tuned into the myths surrounding the making of any art form (be it music, poetry, visual art, and the likes), you’ll see that they hardly follow a straight cause>consequence, or hoc propter hoc pattern. As a former graduate student in Germanic Philology, I thought that a lot of the imagery was, in a way, Eddic. Ms McCormick, one of the village elders, wears a black robe and carries a staff: critics saw her as a personification of Death, but she reminds me of the seeress of the Voluspá, the one who gives Odin a set of prophecies. The character of Colm himself does remind me of Odin: both wear a big hat and flowing robes as they morosely wander around, and Colm has an idea of making art that is more tied to a rapturous, all encompassing frenzy than to sheer discipline. I think this is just my association-prone mind playing games, though.
In addition, I realized I started this log because I feared I was becoming dull, so Colm’s dilemma really resonated with me.