Is your attention sufficiently grabbed? Because it should be. An opportunity to discuss something this important comes along very rarely in life. So drop everything you're doing (which can't be much because you're glued to the internet right now anyways) and listen here! The greatest movie in the history of forever just came out. No, it's not Pacific Rim or The Lone Ranger, nor is it a sequel like Red 2, Despicable Me 2, or Grown Ups 2. No, this movie never even made it to the big screen. I'm talking, of course of the B-Movie sensation that's sweeping the nation: Sharknado (for the record, I included spoiler alerts, but it's not like I'm spoiling a Spielberg, so get over it).
Never heard of Sharknado? Do you live on Mars or something? Either that, or you are not effectively using the internet to waste your time. Here's a quick summary for you: a bunch of tornadoes pick up sharks from the ocean and dump them all over Los Angeles, and a fractured family is in a race against time to save their lives, all the while finding that all they ever really needed was each other.
Unimpressed? Well don't be. Because what makes this movie so great is that it is perfect in its imperfection. It is the prototypical B-Movie, executed flawlessly. Don't understand? I've got precedent.
How many of you own or know somebody that owns a Snuggie? The Snuggie is the perfect television advertisement. It has everything that makes up an infomercial: catchy name, horrible rhyming to setup the problem, images of people struggling mightily with the "alternatives" (in this case, a normal blanket), the exuberance and ease of using the product, a bevy of uses in which you definitely won't get made fun of (like at a football game), the exorbitant cost of similar products, the low-low price of the product, and let's not forget the bonus gift if your order now!
See what I mean? Snuggies in and of themselves are nothing revolutionary, it's basically just a backwards robe. But that perfect advertising made for a huge seller. It was so cookie-cutter, so true-to-infomercial-form that it became cool to have one so that you could "make fun of it" like everybody else. And now millions of people have fallen for the marketing ploy, because advertisers don't care why you buy their product, just that you buy it.
Now we return to Sharknado. It falls in the same category: the powers that be who made this movie don't care how it is received, just that it gets people watching and then talking about it. This is what a B-Movie is all about, and a perfectly crafted one neither takes itself too seriously nor makes light of itself too much. Don't understand? Well, that's why Brilliant Observations exists. For you see, if a movie knows it's a bad movie, it will contain too much stuff which makes fun of itself. But that's our job! We, as movie watchers, need to be the ones making the jokes about how bad it is! On the other hand, if a bad movie takes itself too seriously, it's almost too sad to make fun of it, especially when some people actually liked the film. This happens more often with big box office movies than low-budget films, though (Battlefield Earth, The Last Airbender, 10,000 B.C., and the list goes on). Actually, in this case, we tend to make fun of the people who liked the bad film more than the film itself, but I digress. Sharknado, however, perfectly finds the balance between an unabashed bad movie and an unknowing bad movie. Throughout the movie, you wonder whether the filmmaker can be so oblivious to what is (or isn't) going on, sometimes thinking that he is laughing all the way to the bank and at other times thinking he has suffered brain damage. And the simple fact that you don't know where it stands makes it so much more enjoyable. You are left to debate back and forth whether those plot-holes are intentional or not, and you get to laugh all the while.
Speaking of plot-holes, Sharknado is the Swiss Cheese of them. In fact, it is what keeps the movie going. This is, of course, another hallmark of the perfect B-Movie. It's almost like a "choose your own adventure," where you get to fill in the back-story and character traits of the people with whom you are supposed to be connecting, because the writers, actors, and director sure aren't going to. Like, for instance, when *Spoiler Alert Begins* the protagonist decides to stop running from the storm to check if a school bus he passes is full of kids. The ex-wife, who is an unwilling yet unavoidable member of the party in the first place, protests and asserts that the protagonist is always thinking about others rather than her and her family. *End Spoiler Alert* Now, this could be an interesting sub-plot, but it is neither further elaborated on nor revisited later in the movie, so the viewers are left to make it up on their own. Now, amplify this one plot hole with about eight dozen more and you've got a very disjointed movie that you can't help but keep watching to see where it goes next, whether it makes any sense or not!
B-Movies are also merciless on their killing of non-primary characters. This is probably due to lack of budget, because it's costly to carry a bunch of characters throughout the whole movie. However, as the movie progresses, you can instantly tell which characters are going to die and how quickly it will happen. The more important the character is, the later in the show they make it. However, if a character reaches a level of super-importance, they will not die. That's just how it goes. Sharknado stays true to form with it's use of characters. There are the instant-deaths (people whose names you don't know) who get eaten by sharks, the pretty quick deaths (characters who get a couple lines and then a more dramatic death), and the semi-main character deaths, which are usually more heroic in nature. Not to spoil anything here, but let's just say you know when every character is going to die before it actually happens (kind of like a sixth sense).
Another aspect of B-Movies is that they have to flirt with the realm of absurdity. This will be touched on further, but I'm talking about action scenes where characters should die, for reasons physical, mechanical, or otherwise, but for some reason the characters are not bound by the laws of physics. The movie 2012 is a perfect example. Among the more amazing feats therein is that a engine on an airplane flies directly through a volcano's ash cloud (where there is no oxygen) and escapes unharmed on the other end. That is either one amazing and magical air filter, or somebody doesn't know how combustion engines work. Sharknado is no exception to this rule. The biggest example revolves around a single character, who, *Spoiler Alert Begins* falls out of a helicopter and directly into the mouth of a shark flying in the tornado (this actually caught me off guard because I thought this character was too important to die, but there she went, right into the shark's belly). Now, this isn't too absurd yet, but about 10 movie minutes later (I'm guessing a half hour or so of real time), a shark falls out of the sky right in the direction of another character. The protagonist then grabs a chainsaw, starts it up, pushes the other character out of the way, and dives into the belly of the falling shark all in one quick motion. A few tension filled moments ensue, and eventually the protagonist cuts his way out of the shark. To make matters more unbelievable, it is the same shark that ate the girl who fell out of the helicopter, and they both emerge unharmed! Well, the girl is unconscious, but she is of course quickly revived. You can take your pick whether you want to take issue with the chainsaw working without oxygen inside the shark (see above comment on how engines work), the fact that the girl had no oxygen for a very long time and also fell several hundred feet to the ground without getting her fall broken except for the belly of the shark, or that the man jumped chainsaw-first into a shark and didn't hurt the unconscious girl inside, it is an absurdly outrageous way to get the viewers laughing in disbelief. *End Spoiler Alert*
Finally, a good B-Movie should also teach you things you didn't previously know. For instance, *Spoiler Alert Begins* that water spouts and tornadoes can form in the ocean; that sharks can actually possess qualities of flight in said spouts (as evidenced by the protagonist shooting a shark in the spout with a handgun and it subsequently falling to the ground); that every variety of shark lives right off the coast of California (there was evidence of Great Whites, Makos, Hammerheads, Tigers, and more); that all sharks are man-eaters (as was their sole prerogative throughout the film); that sharks can live a long time out of the water; that sharks are super agile in the air (they repeatedly maneuver to land with their mouths open directly on people); and perhaps, most importantly, that one can blow up a tornado by simply throwing a 1-liter propane tank bomb into the heart of it. *End Spoiler Alert* How many of those fun facts did you know? Are you ready for Jeopardy! yet?
There are several more aspects of a great/terrible movie that could be discussed, such as horrible puns, cliche catch-phrases, etc., but it suffices to say that this movie hits on all points. Throw in a bunch of celebrity twitter endorsements, thousand more regular tweets about it, and a rumored Sharknado 2 coming to your televisions next summer (this is really happening, by the way), and you have yourself one perfectly executed B-Movie. So if you haven't yet seen Sharknado, find it and enjoy. It is the Snuggie of B-Movies.
