This week in Netflix

May 27, 2008 on 2:30 pm | In Movies, Netflix, Uncategorized |

Every week, the DVD-through-the-mail site Netflix announces new DVDs for rental. Most are films that never got a theatrical release. Ethan Kaye brings you This Week In Netflix, the most inexplicable actual description of an actual film actually posted by the Netflix staff.

This week?

Marina Monster

With a deadly bull shark trolling the waters of the local marina, Earl Molar and his girlfriend, Oceana, drop everything to convince their parents — competing owners of rival yacht clubs — to cancel the town’s annual “Around the Bay” race. Earl’s father is so obsessed with winning the race to pay off his towering pile of debts that he hardly has time to listen. But he’s also worried about the nosy reporter who’s been watching his every move.

Notice how little copy the shark gets. 12 words in the beginning of a sentence, then isn’t mentioned again, a sure sign that we’re not supposed to be interested in the shark. No, we’re supposed to be interested in the political workings of the marina. And you know, that’s fine, I’m almost happy that there’s a movie that focuses on what it takes to run a profitable marina on a day to day basis.

And what about that nosy reporter? He gets 14 words to the shark’s 12. Obviously, the real villain here is the nosy reporter, attempting to bring down the marina through the press. And you know, that’s fine too. Better for a television pilot (sort of like “Hey Dude!”), but they made it into a 72-minute movie and that can function just as well as a pilot.

Wouldn’t it be nice if the shark didn’t kill anyone and was kind of like the Gentle Ben of the series? Like, Earl and Oceana are the protagonists and they have funny adventures every week under the eyes of the bumbling marina owner, Earl’s dad. Maybe Oceana’s dad can be all stuffy and preppy and he disapproves of their romance but he’s too tied up with work to do anything about it. And then the nosy reporter comes around, snooping for dirt on the marina (he is the “antagonist,” for those of you English majors). And then the shark can talk and the kids bring all their problems to him every episode and when things are bad he jumps through the wall or onto the boat and fights people. You know, kind of like Jabberjaw meets Knight Rider.

Sadly, I don’t think that Marina Monster is as interesting or as fun as my re-telling of it. It’s a Jaws rip-off, pure and simple, the best plot that 72 minutes and stock shark footage can buy.