Wait, that’s a trick question, isn’t it? Because I’m not sure we did. Instead, we explained why we liked it. Those are very different things.
Seriously, though, sorry you felt we steered you wrong. My suggestion is that you should watch more crappy horror films so you’ll be better able to triangulate what you’re getting with Piranha 3D, which is somewhere between The Exorcist and whatever that no-budget Serbian zombie movie I just watched is called.
-Tom
Since you didn’t like Prianha 3D, graller, Adam Scott has offered to come over to your place and act out scenes from the movie for you and your friends. You just need to provide a few props.
I agree that the wet tshirt concert was a unique scene in the annals of creature features. I did love Ving Rhames and the outboard engine as an example…but…
Spoilers…
Let’s just break down the laziness of the boat crash…
Its lazy filmmaking. Turn your stupid boat around? Have it sink stern first with a jammed door so he has to swim in the hatch? My two year old could have handled that from a shooting and scripting point of view better and less insulting to the audience. I won’t even mention the udderly retarded underwater pr0n scene.
ha!
(oops, 4, 5)
Wait, this movie has a story to spoil?
See graller, I think many of the things that you are complaining about were placed there on purpose. I mean, I just know that the kiss/escape and the endless naked swimming were completely self-aware. The story equivalent of the 3D vomit on the audiance effect as it were.
Ooooh! I like this game!
Oh wait, I liked all those things!
I know you know this, because you listened to the podcast, but at some point early on I uncrossed my arms and stopped thinking this was a ‘Jaws’ film. I’m not being snarky. I literally uncrossed my arms. Unfurrowed my brow too. And that’s not easy for me at the movies. I went in thinking this was going to be a competent thriller aspiring to that level, and when Sherf Shue immediately threatens the spring break assholes with her tazer “you’ll be pissing lighting bolts for a week”, I thought, “Uh-oh. This is gonna be crap.” But when she just as knee-jerkedly jumped to closing the lake upon finding one single body, I started to unclench. By the time we got to the douche protagonist leaving his brother and sister alone to go on a porn shoot and the ass-attack I was totally on board.
So, it worked for me.
-xtien
“Twenty dollar deception surcharge.”
Hey, stupid question, where did the other porn guy on the boat go at the end of the movie? I honestly do not remember him being eaten at any point. Did he fall over at the same time Jerry O’Connell and the blonde did?
This movie was great… but it didn’t have shit on Piranha 2.
I had this thought as well.
xtien you left out shooting under water fish with shotguns.
Yeah, I kind of feel the same way. Even though I like bad (sea) creature features like Deep Blue Sea and Deep Rising, I had no interest in seeing this movie until it got reviews that I couldn’t ignore.
If I hadn’t known anything about it I might feel more kindly towards it because of the surprising amount of nudity and over-the-top carnage, but with people raving about it, calling it the first masterpiece of 2010 (!), etc. - I didn’t think it could possibly be bad, yet it’s pretty terrible.
I guess if you’re a “gore fan” there’s lots for you, but I just find it, well, gross. Yet I love r-rated violence as in the last Rambo, and wished the Expendables had been as violent – but seeing women scalped by outboard motors or split in half, blah. Didn’t really need to see the 3D barf or penis regurgitation scenes - just not as entertaining to me as seeing Stallone explode a jeep driver with a 50 caliber, or Lundgren blowing a pirate in half.
Basically the only things I liked were the 3D nudity, the cameos, and Jerry Connell’s performance (and anti-Girls Gone Wild subtext). Knew it was just intended as goofy fun so I didn’t care at all about plot holes or bad dialogue, but when boobs weren’t onscreen it was generally just lame and dull until the gorefest finale. Those kids and the lead actor, Steve McQueen’s grandson, really couldn’t have been less interesting. Elizabeth Shue has finally be relegated to the types of pictures she never should have graduated beyond,
They could have done a much better job with the creatures - at times there were hints of a better movie, like the scene with the cave exploration, and a couple of others where you could see shots of the school lurking in the distance or silhouettes that were kind of creepy. Shots of the school in motion or attacking from a more distant perspective would have worked better and established a better sense of menace than the constant close-up NOM NOM NOM chaos.
I miss the sound of the attacks from the original Piranha, heh. Actually, the original Piranha was pretty decent (at least better than any of the Jaws sequels), and was probably the first movie I ever saw in a theatre that had nudity, so I have some nostalgic goodwill towards it. Probably just as well that I haven’t seen it since though.
Nothing to do with this movie but there are three things I will never tire of in these podcasts. All three are super cheesy but make me smile. Tom mispronouncing the name at the beginning, the rlrlrlrlrlrlrlrlrl sound when talking about hot women and “racist”.
Please always do these things.
I didn’t intend to ever actually write this, but since Jeremy brought it up – I have to disagree at least on the gag with Tom mispronouncing Xtien’s last name. That joke was tired the second time I heard it. OK there, I said it, I feel better. I also feel like a cranky old man, but that seems to be par for the course these days.
I think a lot of this movie’s accolades can be zeroed in on that it scratches an itch long neglected. Namely, by tons of shitty The Asylum and Sci-Fi channel features, which all promise high concepts and stunt delivery, yet turn up as bland and stale as dry, week-old toast.
One of these studios is producing some Megasharktopus vs Ultra-whateverthefuck feature that highlights some sort of catfight between Debbie Gibson and Tiffany, and wow, is that piece just fucking sad. That they would even promote such a segment as a teaser and have it turn out so horribly lame speaks volumes. If Roger Corman were dead, he’d be doing half-gainers in his grave over this crap.
Piranha 3D promises titties and gore, and totally delivers on both accounts, and then some, all with a nice comic flair. Calling it a masterpiece is pretty silly, but if you’ve been getting by on a steady diet of bugs and dogshit, a can of seasoned tuna fish will seem like a gourmet meal.
Today on “some other podcast” we’re watching Piranha-thon… Piranha 1979, Piranha 2 1981, and 2010’s Mega Piranha. Then we’re going to get out microphones and laugh a lot, and talk about Piranha 3D.
I would invite Desslock to my parties, but he just fails to understand why the worse a movie is the better it is. The entertainment is in the wink and nudge. So, we don’t let him in our magical kingdom.
This.
Why do you think the 80s are so incredibly rife with cheesy B grindhouse movies?
It used to be that you’d make a movie, it would make some money, and you’d make another movie. Not every movie was a swing for the homerun fence all-out blockbuster attempt. I think that blockbuster mentality is really clobbering movies. Why should you take 6 years and 300 million to make a movie, when you can knock out something reasonably entertaining that will double your money and can be shot and over with in 2 months? That’s what they B movie greats do. Corman used to shoot 2-3 movies at once, so he could reuse the sets and locations.
Entertainment doesn’t have to be Star Wars epic, with a 30 year legacy behind one film every time, ya know. Or Avatar box-office. You could have made 10 movies in the time and budget of Avatar, that would have had just as shitty a story.
Maybe such easy access to CG effects is to blame? I see the same issue in the gaming world. Why does it take a team of 200 people and a 100 million budget to crank out a game? Remember when this used to be done by a team of 1-3 guys and sold in a ziplock bag? We still talk about and play those classics today too… Ultima comes immediately to mind.
You will take these words and you will put them back into your mouth and you will swallow them and you will turn and you will walk away or there will be issues and those issues will include you being punched in the mouth.
Yeah! Take that, Oscar-winner!
On another note, this was by far the worst 3D I’ve seen a movie. I didn’t see Clash of the Titans though. Was that actually worse than this? It felt like such an after the fact, hacked together implementation that I have a hard time believing you guys on the podcast when you suggest the director was doing anything intentionally with the 3D. Is it just always that bad in live action movies though? Now that I think about it, everything else I’ve seen since the 3D craze started back up was either completely animated or Avatar.
Maybe someday she’ll be as good as fellow superstar actors Mira Sorvino, Mercedes Ruehl and Marisa Tomei. She needs a couple movies with hobos and giant cockroaches to hone her craft.