Hacker Cinema
Sharknado
2013 · Film · 87 min
Directed by Anthony C. Ferrante
ActionComedyHorrorScience FictionTV Movie
A freak hurricane hits Los Angeles, causing man-eating sharks to be scooped up in tornadoes and flooding the city with shark-infested seawater. Surfer and bar-owner Fin sets out with his friends Baz and Nova to rescue his estranged wife April and teenage daughter Claudia.
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24 comments on Hacker News
For the Modern American version of that—last time I was in an Urgent Care, they had a tv playing one of the Sharknado movies. The security guard there was excited to show everyone the bit where he was an extra in the film.
I'm not sure I needed to know that multiple sharknado movies had been made, but I do now.
> Jaws is the only movie (within reason I guess) that I don't let my 13 year old watch.
On the other hand, I totally forgot about Sharknado until just now; that's my next movie night pick and my kid's gonna love it.
"High concept" doesn't refer to the elevator pitch being interesting or unique. The less interesting or unique the movie is, the more high-concept it is.
"High concept" refers to the elevator pitch being a complete description of the movie. Nothing in the plot that might take more than a couple of seconds to describe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_concept
> High concept is a type of artistic work that can be easily pitched with a succinctly stated premise. It can be contrasted with low concept, which is more concerned with character development and other subtleties that are not as easily summarized.
> Extreme examples of high-concept films are Snakes on a Plane and Sharknado, which describe their entire premises in their titles.
Interestingly, this is exactly the opposite of what everyone assumes the phrase must mean, based on the ordinary meanings of "high" and "concept". Such is life.
Kitsch feels easier to understand as just guilty indulgence. Some people do look at the calendar at the mall featuring cute babies playing jazz instruments and want to buy it for what it is: a series of cute images to delight you and your desk mates. I would personally buy it ironically, but still get a lot of enjoyment out of its genuine attempt. It would definitely make me smile by making me laugh inside every time I see it. FWIW I think both views validate the concept of kitsch.
Not covered in this article strangely, but kitsch is the most powerful when its genuine. I see the calendar of cats doing yoga poses and it only brings me fleeting joy, its trying to be kitsch, and it doesn't feel like the "artist" really put the effort in. When they do I can feel it, and for some reason I'm weirdly inspired by it (probably because if I really tried, I'd put out something like that).
I know movie examples way better than attempts at painting or sculpture. I watch bad movies weekly and its one of my favorite indulgences. When we watch a Neil Breen movie I can feel the genuine attempt to make a movie that says something...and failing spectacularly at it. When I watch Sharknado I see a pretty cheap attempt at a gag that might delight me for a bit, but feels empty in its attempt to make real entertainment. Ed Wood movies have that sort of charm, they score F's in every department from acting to sound editing, but you can feel the energy of the cast and crew as they try to make something special and fail. Hallmark Christmas movies are probably the best analogous thing to the sort of kitsch we think of when we use the word, they're ostensibly pro-Christmas spirit with a middling cast and plot line, but usually there's an element of genuine attempt to make something your 50-year old aunt would enjoy while she sips on egg nog. Personally, I love that shit.
If you make art in postcards, then maybe you will be replaced. Diffusion based AI image generation is limited to a little over 1 megapixel, or double if you use an expander, or you can infinitely grow an initial image with more of the exact same sort of thing. 1 MPx printed at 300 dpi is similar in size to a postcard. Diffusion being able to generate meaningful printed images at 50-200 Mpx is impossible. My art is made at that size (that's 7200 to 14400 pixels per side approximately @ 300 dpi). I don't use AI. I do use my own code.
Try making a Jackson Pollack using AI, AI can only effectively make objective images, given it requiring linking similar images via limited text descriptions.
Making headers for newspaper articles or blog posts on the web might be OK if you don't care much. Check out https://www.quantamagazine.org to see how real artists do things. Their header images are really imaginative given the subject matter, something AI today can't do. It might be instructive to take their articles and try to make header images for them.
If you make videos, then its 1080p which can be done by AI. But video has its own issues with video diffusion generators having limits on continuity. They are getting better, but the longer the clip, the less control you have and the longer it takes to fiddle with the prompt(s). It won't ever replace real movies unless you enjoy the SciFi channel or Sharknado. That would require an entire new kind of AI which we don't have today.
Markoff and Shimomura received $750,000 for their book rights and $650,000 for the film rights. The most sensational parts in the book or the movie had absolutely nothing to do with the truth.
Sharknado is closer to reality than Track Down. The cringest part is Tsutomu's fictional gf.
Opinions on Sharknado movies?
If your going to ditch science, may as well go all in.
This is the take that Asylum Films takes. (the studio behind 'Sharknado') Their business model is: Whatever big block buster film is in theaters, they make the cheapest, low budget, knockoff that they can [1] (e.g. "Planet Dune", "Top Gunner", "Ape-Monster vs. Giant-Lizard", etc...)
"our films tend to be shitty mostly you know not to be taken too seriously a lot of people talk about wanting to watch quality cinema but we found that most people ourselves included usually just want to come home from a hard day of work you watch it you have a good time you never have to think about it again the technical term in the entertainment industry is actually called a drafting title I mean if you go into your pharmacy you'll see the brand-name decongestant and you'll see the stores version which looks exactly like it but it just calls it decongestant that's - a mock buster" [0]
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svRHb9ayVd8
[1] http://www.theasylum.cc/index.php/titles/
The point is that nonsense "multiverse TV" has been a thing since I can remember watching TV.
Endless entertainment it's already there, you can't watch it simply because most of the content you're talking about is not on air and streaming platforms don't buy it, because it's shit.
Not that I don't like shit, I've watched more troma/SyFi/random low budget Asian movies (I am a huge fan of ninja movies) than necessary, but if we stop to think that there are already 6 or 7 sharknado movies (that are exactly the kind of endless entertainment you talk about, they are probably generated in some way), maybe it's not the volume of content that's missing, but probably content that's worth watching.
In one exit interview I said to HR: "Working in this project is like watching a bad movie. I wouldn't watch a bad movie even if you pay me because I cannot un-see it." She responded: "Like watching Sharknado" "Yes!" I replied. Best-exit-interview-ever.
I don't know... you probably haven't seen Sharknado. The real mystery is why does this film even exist
>Think you hate poetry? Roller coasters? Banjo music? Thai food? Maybe you haven’t discovered the good 10% yet. Keep looking.
Maybe liking something means appreciating the average.
I like steaks. I mean, I really like dry aged t-bones, but I also like a simply seasoned sirloin. I wouldn't even turn down an well done hockey puck if it came with a baked potato.
I don't like movies. You would never find me indulging in the latest Sharknado nonsense. But I can enjoying myself while watching a critically-acclaimed film.
This is irrelevant because a large portion of Netflix's catalog is filler trash. My favorite example of one of Netflix's suppliers is https://www.gq.com/story/sharknado-atlantic-rim-pacific-rim-asylum-movie-spoof
Apart from their first party content (of which Disney+ has more to draw from), most of Netflix is whatever they can get on the cheap of the cheap.
To my mind, the Sharknado movies are a better example of "intentionally bad". Though I would definitely grant "intentionally campy" for AoD.
> A subscription to Netflix already grants me access to way more than I can reasonably watch. If my tastes were perfectly aligned with what Netflix offers
Your primary issue here is referring to volume. Netflix has their own content, then pays for a small handful of extremely popular/valuable titles (see the recent Seinfeld and Big Bang Theory streaming deals, as an example), and then the rest of their content library is cheap trash they got for pennies on the dollar. Entire markets now exist for making cheap movies just to fill out streaming catalogs. (Check out the business model of a company called The Asylum[1].)
Most of the value you're getting is in a very small portion of the overall library of any given company. People aren't going to stay subscribed to Disney+ because it has some old Disney shows which are $10 one-time to own on DVD. They're going to stay subscribed because it has the very latest handful of Disney titles.
[1] https://www.gq.com/story/sharknado-atlantic-rim-pacific-rim-asylum-movie-spoof
My aunt, who was a forensic doctor, would be driven up the walls by the absurdity of the CSI screenplays. I'm an engineer and they manage to trigger me into laughter.
A bit is suspension of disbelief when some inaccuracy is needed by the story (like the sandstorm in The Martian) is tolerable, but completely messing up innocuous stuff you should have hired a field specialist to help you (physics, astronomy, police, medical, anything) with is inexcusable with the kind of budget even a lowly Sharknado has.
Seriously: I love movies. I was torn between engineering and cinema in college. Let's join together to never again have a cringe worthy moment on TV (unless it's there for the comedy value).
> the same reason we don't have cat and snake hybrids in nature
I think you've just created the film series that will succeed Sharknado.
It's symptomatic of the general decline in television across the last couple of decades.
MTV - when was the last time you saw a music video?
History - Apparently "History" now includes bizarre religious crackpottery, ancient aliens, and idiots buying and selling things in Las Vegas.
A&E - "Arts and Entertainment" is apparently all about terrible people and Honey Boo-Boo.
Discovery - Remember science and wildlife documentaries? Neither does the Discovery Channel.
TLC - ugh. Dwarfs and tattoos and people with way too many children.
SyFy - We can't even spell anymore, and SHARKNADO!
> There still are some good foreign and indie films being made, and I find I don't mind the lower production values after getting used to it.
Funny thing is, stuff like Sharknado sucks when compared on the visual effects, but it's at least an original story compared to all the stuff currently in cinemas.
> (I'm a native American English speaker, and I had to look up "subvention". I think "subsidy" would be a better translation.)
I'm a German, thanks for the hint :)
It's interesting to note where the real creative action is nowadays: TV. Specifically, long-form serial format that people can binge watch.
In the recent Terry Gilliam interview posted on HN, he made the point that mid-level movies are out. You can find financing for the super-huge Spiderman 47s, and you can go indie with a Red One and shoot your own stuff. What you have a really hard time doing is finding 10-20M for a mid-sized niche film.
I'm a movie fan, and I've lost what little respect I've had for Hollywood over the past few years. Too many times I've been sitting in theaters for some nth version of a comic-book movie and thought: really? Is that what the writers and directors really think of my intelligence.
Best thing I know to do is to stop watching them, even if I do love movies. I'll happily go pay to see another Sharknado before I'll pony up for the next 17 versions of whatever the Star Wars franchise has to offer.
You need to understand that software developers aren't like factory workers. The difference between a factory worker putting in 1500 hours of work in a year and 3000 hours of work in a year is maybe that 2x more widgets get made or something. It's easy to just get another shift of workers to come in and get the same total widgets made, no big deal. But software development isn't manufacturing, it's a creative, even artistic venture. Making software is like making a movie. The difference between working 1500 hours in a year and 3000 might be the difference between making "Sharknado" and "Citizen Kane", meaning, the difference between making an incredibly compelling product that has a huge social and economic impact or just some throwaway crap that will fade in relevance quickly over time.
Making great software tends to require extremely talented developers who are extremely engaged in their work. And that tends often to result in devs working long hours as a natural consequence, though that's often not strictly necessary to produce good results (despite what I said above, though it is often strongly correlated). Regardless of how many hours are put in, when there's a collision between the passion and engagement in the work from the individual on the one hand and the rewards, recognition, and guidance coming from management and the rest of the company the result can easily be burnout. Burnout can happen even if you're only working 20 hours a week, it's not about some trivial reaction due to overwork. It's about traumatic interpersonal experiences. It's about being engaged strongly and passionately and either being overused or misused.
Alternately, think about it in relationship terms. A passionate dev has fallen head over heels in love with the project their working on. So much so that they dedicate a lot of their life to it. If they don't see that love reciprocated, or if that love is used in service of an abusive or dysfunctional relationship then it will cause the individual significant emotional trauma and heartbreak which is manifested in the form of "burnout".
Again, burnout isn't necessarily overwork, it's the equivalent of heartache and emotional trauma in business relationships.
Just think of the opportunities for marketing promos with the next "Sharknado" movie!
Syfy determined that the same number of people would watch a movie no matter how much money they spent on it. Now all of their movies have a budget of only $1 million each, and they're still pretty popular. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharknado#Production