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.