"Sharknado 5: Global Swarming" Makes Us Ask Why.

Please stop making "Sharnado's". I can't stop watching.

So, my wife and I watched "Sharknado 5: Global Swarming" yesterday, and all I have to say about this pile of garbage is why? That is the universal why? Why are they still making these? Why are Ian Ziering and Tara Reid getting work when they are horrendous actors? Why are the "celebrities" that cameo doing this? Why does the Syfy Network continue to allow this? Why do they keep airing these? But most importantly, why do I feel the need to watch all of these? I'm going to try and answer all of these why questions today.

First off, why is there a 5th "Sharknado" movie? I'd venture to guess that they made the first one as a goof, but it got a ton of social media buzz, and everyone was talking about it. They struck while the iron was hot. I do not blame them for this, but each new "Sharknado" seems to get worse. The acting gets more and more terrible and the writing, directing and everything else, it is so terrible. They have bought into the fact that it is a farce a bit too much. They tend to take these ridiculous roles a bit too serious.

Which leads me to Ian Ziering and Tara Reid. My god are they atrocious actors. The "Sharknado" universe is the only place I know of Ian Ziering. Maybe RD, the generation Xer of the group could tell me why he is famous (Ed Note: I actively rooted against Steve Sanders on 90210). But, his acting in these movies is straight trash. He takes it way, way too serious, and I feel like he thinks these movies have been a rebirth of his stardom of sorts for him. I think he genuinely thinks that he is a star. He is not. He is a horrendous actor. And Tara Reid. My goodness, what happened to Tara Reid? I loved her in "American Pie", and thought her small role in "Big Lebowski" was great. She did a very good job with these roles. Then, she went off the rails. She thought she was more famous than she truly is. She did the whole plastic surgery thing and took it way too far. My wife kept saying, "look at how bad her surgery looks", and I have to say, I agree. But her acting is so awful. She shows no emotion. Her yelling was some of the most uninspiring yelling in a movie I have ever heard. It sounded like my daughter when she fake cries. As far as facial expressions, Reid's never changed, no matter what the scenario. She has fallen so far off, it is kind of sad. This is all she has, but I think that she thinks this will lead to other, bigger stuff. It won't, she is a bad actor.

The cameos only seem to get worse with these movies. In this one, I kept asking my wife, who is that? She then had to look it up, and for the most part, neither of us knew who the people were. When we did recognize someone, it was just sad. Bret Michaels looked horrific. He needs to fully embrace his baldness because the bandanna and fake blonde hair are rough. Olivia Newton John does not need to lower herself to this level. She was once a respected actor and singer, so why show up in this nonsense. Same for Dan Fogler. He was only in a 15 second scene, but come on man, you are a respected comic actor. I love the ping pong movie he's in. He doesn't need this shit. Greg Louganis played an art thief. I mean, what the hell. You are a respected Olympian, and if you want to get into acting, I can almost guarantee that he could get in something better than "Sharknado". Clay Aiken, try as he might, was so poorly miscast all I could do was shake my head at the bad acting. Chris Kattan has fallen so far off, that getting his name in the opening credits was the biggest thing for him since "SNL" I bet. When I saw him I said to my wife, "he and Will Ferrell were co leading men in "Night at the Roxbury", now look at their careers". She responded with, "poor Chris Kattan". It was a mess of terrible cameos. They also bring on reality TV "stars", and there is a reason that they only appear on reality TV. These people cannot act.

Syfy keeps airing it for all the reasons I already mentioned. It gets a ton of social media talk, I'm reviewing it today, and people talk about it for weeks afterwards. I do not blame them for doing this. I wish they'd stop, but I understand why they do it. Same thing for the constant repeats. We did not see it on "opening night", but we recorded and watched it later. That is why they constantly show these movies.

Finally, and this is the most important question for me, why do I continue to watch, even though I have a vitriol hatred for them. I think it is part OCD, part fear of missing out(FOMO). I have OCD big time, so with most things I feel like I have to watch them all to feel complete. I hate that my mind works like this, but if they continue to make them I will probably watch them, just to see how far they take this thing. I wish I could stop, but unfortunately, I can't. Then when it comes to FOMO, it is not enough for me to read about the movie, I want to see it so I can talk about it with supreme confidence. I want to see all the nonsense so I can judge it and make fun of it. Isn't that one of the main reasons there are so many "Sharknado" movies? They want people to make fun of it? I assume so. I wish I could stop, but I can't. I will probably watch the next one of they make another one.  

If you watch it or not, all of these "Sharknado" movies are dreadful, and the fifth installment might be the worst of the bunch. It is awful, and unless you want to torture yourself like me, do not waste your time. These movies stink.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He is looking forward to the day he watches "Sharknado 63: A Sharknado for All Seasons", and then dies once it ends. Then he will be free from the curse.

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Great Movie Comedies Vol 1: "Caddyshack" & "The Big Lebowski"

The greatest jokes ever live on the reels

As you all know by now, I'm a fan of comedy. I've written and talked about it a ton both on the site and podcast. I love stand up comedy, television comedy and, today's topic, comedy movies.

Today I'm going to talk about 2 specific comedies that I adore, but there's so many others I could talk about. Movies like "Billy Madison", "This is Spinal Tap", "What We Do In The Shadows", "Napoleon Dynamite", the list could go on for days. Those are all great and all classics. I really love a good comedy. A movie that makes me belly laugh and doesn't take it self to seriously, it gets no better than that. A great example of that, "Anchorman", but that's not one of the two I will talk about today, but it deserves mentioning. There are also older, classic comedies that still hold up to this day. Movies like "Some Like It Hot" or "Duck Soup" or "Kentucky Fried Movie". All older, but all still absolutely great and worth checking out. But, the two I want to specifically talk about today are "Caddyshack" and "The Big Lebowski". Not only are these two of my favorite comedies, they're two of my favorite movies of all time. They're both timeless, hilarious and just flat out well made movies. Everyone involved with both movies really hit a home run. The actors, writers, producers and directors really struck gold.

Let's first talk about "Caddyshack". This has to be one of the most quotable movies ever made. Talk to anyone that's seen it and I guarantee they will quote something from "Caddyshack". There is so many famous lines and speeches in this movie. Bill Murray has multiple moments that are absolutely splendid. Take any scene, be it when he is pretending he's at the Masters and smashing flowers or when he is ogling the older women and telling them to "bark like a dog for me" or when he cleans the pool after what is believed to be feces floating around and he picks it up, smells it and takes a bite and exclaims that everything is okay and the rich lady passes out. Bill Murray is the star of this movie by far. But, we get excellent performances from Chevy Chase, Ted Knight, Michael O'Keefe, Sarah Holcomb and Rodney Dangerfield. Chevy Chase and Rodney Dangerfield are phenomenal in this movie. They too, much like Murray, have equally quotable lines and moments. Chevy Chase's scene when he is putting and talking to Danny Noonan(O'Keefe) about life and handing him lessons is very, very funny. And everything Dangerfield does in this movie is comedy gold. Rodney Dangerfield truly did not get the respect that he deserved. He is one of the greatest comedy actors of all time. "Caddyshack" is a classic.

"The Big Lebowski" is almost the exact opposite of "Caddyshack", but that doesn't make it less funny. Where "Caddyshack" had great improvisers and great comic actors, "The Big Lebowski" is one of the best written comedies of all time. The Cohen Brothers dabbled in comedy, with the excellent "Raising Arizona", but they're more known for their more dramatic stuff. What makes "The Big Lebowski" great, they blend drama, action, and most importantly, comedy to perfection. This has to be one of the weirdest, yet most hilarious movies I've ever watched. It is so good. It starts out great and continues to be great for two hours. It's also very weird, but that adds to its charm. Any scene involving Jeffrey Lebowski(Jeff Bridges) and Maude(Julianne Moore) is absurdist comedy gold. The scene when the two of them are talking about sex and her weird roommate is just sitting there listening, reading and laughing is genius. It's so bizarre, yet hilarious at the same time. John Goodman and Steve Busecmi are spectacular in this movie too. Goodman is the loud and obnoxious ex Vietnam vet and he is so good. When he pulls the gun on the guy for going over the line and forces him to mark it 0 is awesome. Also, when he talks about "the Jesus"(John Turturro), and his troubled criminal past, absolutely hysterical. Busecmi is great as their quiet bowling buddy that just wants to be involved. The arguments he and Goodman get into are great. Phillip Seymour Hoffman is also very good in his limited role and so is Tara Reid. But, Jeff Bridges is the star and he totally nails this character. He's so good, I associate Bridges as "The Dude", no matter what role he's playing. Everything he does is memorable and he is very believable as this stoner stuck in a crazy situation. And what makes is so well written as I wrote earlier is, everything that comes out of the actors mouths was all written. There's no improvising in a movie that seems it's almost exclusively improvised. That's some next level writing and the Cohen's are some of the best. "The Big Lebowski" is a terrific and bizarre comedy that everyone should see.

These are just two of my favorites, but I wanted to single these two out because they're different, yet equally hilarious. If you haven't seen either of them, stop what you're doing and watch them now. When you are done laughing, you will be thanking me.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. Tomorrow you can hear Ty talk all about great comedy movies on The X Millennial Man Podcast. Ty is on twitter, go follow him @tykulik.

Ty loved Sharknado 3. Wait, no he hated it. Wait I think he liked, liked it.

I ain't afraid of no sharknado.

Last night my wife and I decided to watch "Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No" against our better judgment.

We'd seen the first two, and we are completists, so we had to watch the third one. The problem with or completionism (i think that is cromulent word), is that SyFy will continue to make these movies because they get huge ratings and it's the talk of the internet for the next week or so. I'm included with these people, now that I write my own blog and I'm reviewing it today. "Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No" was exactly what I expected it would be. It was trashy, poorly written, terribly acted and I was completely engaged the whole time.

Let's get things straight, this was by no means a good movie. Even by SyFy standards, it was pretty bad. But, I think the writers and actors relish this type of movie because they know they can dick around on set and get a decent paycheck. And, in the case of Ian Ziering and Tara Reid, they're relevant for a few weeks. People actually remember that they are actors. The first "Sharknado" came out of nowhere and was received with great fanfare at how bad and hilarious it was. SyFy has always put really bad movies on their network and the first "Sharknado" took it's craziness to a whole new level. With all the internet talk and buzz surrounding the first one, naturally they made a sequel. "Sharknado 2: The Second One" (what a lazy title) was, unfortunately, not nearly as ridiculous as the first. I think they took the response from the first one, and tried their best to make the second one not as goofy, but a little more serious. That was terrible mistake. "Sharknado 2: The Second One" was a shell of its predecessor and I think a lot of people thought the "franchise" would die.

Boy were we wrong.

With little noise and not as much fanfare, at least through my eyes, "Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No" was released this past Wednesday and was over the top insane. This time, the writers said, "to hell with anything making any sense whatsoever, we are going to put the craziest, most insane shit we can think of, and the idiots that watch this movie will eat it up". We had tons and tons of sharknados in the third movie, sharks in space, human babies being born inside a sharks stomach, sharks destroying the White House, Tara Reid's fake arm being super strong and having an attached chainsaw, and cameo after cameo. People like Ray J and Adam Lambert played NASA engineers. Yep, the writers felt that these two morons could pull off being NASA employees. Penn and Teller were hanging out at a diner with Fin's(Ian Ziering) dad, played by David Hasselhoff. Haselhoff was an astronaut by the way. Jerry Springer got eaten by a shark while posing for a picture under another shark. Michael Winslow was also a NASA employee. Former pro wrestler, turned "musician" Chris Jericho played a theme park employee. Frankie Muniz was a shark hunter that met his demise at the top of his truck. Before he died, four separate sharks ate off each one of his limbs. It was pretty hilarious. George RR Martin, the writer of the "Game of Thrones" books, was eaten by multiple sharks while watching a movie about sharks. The Today Hosts were all brutally murdered by sharks. Crazy ass republican nut cases Ann Coulter and Michelle Bachmann played just random people on the streets being attacked by sharks. Bo Derek played Tara Reid's mom. And Rick Fox was part of the presidents security.

Which, brings me to the best cameo in the whole movie, Mark Cuban. Not only was he cast in the movie, he played the President of the United States. You read that right. Not only was he the president, he delivered the two "best" lines in the movie. The first, "I always considered myself the top shark", obviously in reference to his show "Shark Tank". The second, and absolute best and most ridiculous, "I always considered myself a maverick", referring to the fact that he owns the NBA team, the Dallas Mavericks. The third "Sharknado" was by far the most violent of all three and easily had the highest body count. This movie is not for the faint of the heart. The kills are brutal and very bloody. When I look back at the hour and a half it took to watch this, I'm really torn. I was engaged the whole time, but it was a real shit show of a movie. It was really, pretty awful.

I'd say, if you've seen the first two, go ahead and watch the third, but don't expect a good movie, just expect a crazy movie. If you haven't seen the first two and you're thinking of starting with the third one, stop yourself and don't waste your time.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture Editor and The X-Millennial Man Podcast co-host. There are tornadoes where he lives, but no sharks. Yet. Follow him on twitter @tykulik.