Thursday, March 26, 2009

The Somechance Film Festival #3: Fish Cinema

As far as I’m concerned, there can never be too many films about fish:

Moby Dick: The Wilderness Years

In the original, of course, Moby meets his nemesis Cap’n Ahab and dispatches him to Davy Jones’s locker. Good finally vanquishes Evil, whatever, in what must have been the high point of his life. So what does he do now? Spend the rest of his days pottering round the ocean sucking up plankton with the rest of his fat-arse family? I don’t think so. History has shown time and time again that “special” personalities tend to fall apart once their glory-glory days are over. I reckon he’d hit the cider, take a job as an orderly in an aquatic mental hospital while he gets his head together, be seen thumbing through the pages of remaindered copies of his (ghost-written) autobiography Whale of a Time in the Baffin Island branch of Bargain Books. Think Frank Bruno, think Gazza, think Keith Chegwin.

Jaws 5: I’ve Found Nemo

From a shark’s point of view there were never enough sequels of the 1975 blockbuster: a shark doesn’t stop feeling hungry just because audiences have become bored with watching it eat. However, the franchise probably does need a shot in the arm, and what better way than by referencing a more recently popular film. Mr Great White has eaten all the suckers on the beach and is now looking for dessert, a little extra something, something wafer thin to take away the taste of factor 15 and swimming trunks. Because he fancies himself as a connoisseur – and because he’s an arse - he tracks down the world’s most famous fish, imagining this will be the culinary experience of a lifetime and a straight-to-video smash hit to boot. Like tiger penis soup – I’m guessing – a disappointment.

The Prawn Identity

A conspiracy thriller. It turns out that prawns are not really shellfish at all but bits of chicken with added fish flavour, and the CIA has been covering this up. On the other hand, their animal scientists have disseminated rumours that crab sticks are fish and that tiger prawns are actually bits of tiger. The Agency just doesn’t have enough to do these days. In a flashback, Keiko the orca from Free Willy appears in a cameo role as J. Edgar Hoover. Only for real enthusiasts, frankly.

17 comments:

  1. Crumbs...
    The Dodo from The Goodies reinvented himself to become Orville the duck... the downside of his lucrative career was having Keith Harris's arm stuck up his arse.
    Sx

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  2. I'm a sucker for a good fish film; 'The Piano Tuna' is my favourite.

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  3. "prawns are not really shellfish at all but bits of chicken with added fish flavour"

    With some of the processed foodstuffs one finds in supermarket freezers, I've often thought it was the other way around.

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  4. Ray - Biography of the blind piano playing invertebrate famous for killing Steve Irwin. The childhood scenes drag a bit, and frankly the viewer's ability to suppress disbelief is severely tested by the suggestion that the film's hero attended an inner-city comprehensive school in Stoke-on-Trent. The scenes surrounding the Irwin death and the subsequent fishhunt and lynching by aquatic posse are harrowing and well worth the admission price though.

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  5. The Silence of the Lamphreys was always a personal favourite with those looking for chills and gore.

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  6. I'm astonished nobody's picked up on The Cabinet of Dr. Calimari.

    Skipping lightly over Barnacle Bill and Tiddlers Three; The Blue Lamprey and Angelfish With Dirty Faces I'm at a loss.

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  7. Moby Dick was not a fish, of course. He was actually Mobius Dickus, the Roman patrician and clever brother of Biggus Dickus. The fish was the symbol of the persecuted Christians, whom Mobius swallowed whole to save the lions from indigestion.

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  9. Whoops spelling malfunction

    Just saying that I'm planning to make a biopic of that punky boy Sid Fishes

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  11. Fine. I set up this film festival to show works of artistic merit which highlight with sensitivity and honesty the real issues facing fish today. I just threw the 3rd one in as a joke. But you want to go with the puns. Ok.

    Scarlet, lots of Goodies episodes are animal-related, and it was a pleasure to revisit them on YouTube. What a career decision that must have been: stay in the pond for the rest of your life or get money, fame and Keith Harris's arm stuck up your arse.

    Brother T: 'The Piano Tuna', nice one!

    It probably is, Dr Francis. I really think it's about time we were told.

    Andy, yep, that would work well cinematically. (Did you attend inner-city comprehensive school in Stoke-on-Trent?) A fish lynching is an interesting twist, and I'd like to see how they bring it off.

    Welcome, Madame, lovely to have you have here! Silence of the Lamphreys - superb.

    And Kevin too, The Cabinet of Dr. Calimari indeed; you lot are wasted in, errr, whatever jobs you are currently doing.

    Ha! I placed side bets with www.888bigtimeloser.com about who'd be the first to point out that a whale is not a fish. I lost, of course. Any fwend of Biggus Dickus is a fwend of mine.

    Oooh, "Sid Fishes", Lulu, that's one from the far side. Like it.

    I'll just add another myself to keep the ball rolling. A modern Shakespeare adaptation set in the North sea: Trawlers and Cressida.

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  12. Or better, Crill Brill?

    OK, I'll go and send a letter to Private Eye under a ludicrously contrived fake signature.

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  13. Were you thinking of something more along the line of The Day The Bowl Stood Still with Michael Blennie?

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  14. Very very good.

    Or how about 10 Rillington Plaice.

    Anything featuring Jack Lemon in a supporting role.

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