Oceans Rising (2017)

Hi sweeties! I have nothing but great news for you today. After my extended stay at the hospital, I am glad to say that I have returned safe and sound to Casa Maine. I am still somewhat shaky on my feet, but nothing some barre work and high protein energy shakes can’t put back in line thanks to my wonderful tap therapy instructor, Lulu Pigg. (I wanted to use insect protein supplements to market a line of health foods and nutritional supplements which claimed to provide American women with my physique, but the FDA was not kind to us and turned us down). I have also managed to secure my next film role. It will be a live television musical for one of the top four numbers on my cable box. This genre has become so popular recently that everyone is trying to cash in. This network, I think it’s called OWL or maybe it’s OWED, has a brand-new concept – The musical mashup where they take two classics from the genre they want and merge them in a creative and innovative way. I am overjoyed to inform you that I will be portraying Maria in what guarantees to be a magnificent production of West Side Story.

In what promises to be an outstanding film, we see teenage Tony falling head over heels for the beautiful Maria during the holidays as he dreams of a Red Ryder BB Gun to bring to the fight. Maria works at the local elementary school where Ralphie, her number one student, is determined to have the gun despite strong objections from his mother, Anita the dressmaker, and his father who runs the soda shop in town. The story comes to a head when the entire cast gathers at the gym for the big holiday celebration of Chinese turkey while desperately trying not to aim and fire at each other. Personally, I cannot wait to film the comedic song, Dear Santa Claus Krupke. So, for the voice issue, I will have to get down to work with Madame Mimi, my vocal coach, on the soaring high trills they’re adding for me in the Tonight, tonight, my Santa comes tonight quintet. I have no doubt that the finished product will be, like Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, played to death every holiday for all time.

I was met with nothing but pleasant news so I pulled Normy out of his studio for an early family dinner and some time in the home theater. We were both in the mood for an amazing disaster movie. So, we browsed through Netflix until we came across a title, Oceans Rising, which had a poster art of a drowning statue of liberty. We both decided to give it a go, however, I had never heard of the movie. My original thoughts on the movie were to turn it off once the logos of the studio appeared, they were all low budget productions I had never heard of. However, we both decided to just dive right in. We could tell it was despite the poor production value, this movie was unintentionally humorous. It was a how-not-to-make-a-disaster film.

Oceans Rising is the creation of self-appointed auteur Adam Lipsius, who was working as a sound editor on popular films of the 90s and ‘returned’ with direct here to cable late night features some twenty years later. What led him to believe that he was able to function as a writer and director on the basis of manipulating MIDI sound files is somewhat of a mystery. It has me wondering whether there was some sort of family trust that dispensed with him needing to earn money in something he seemed to have been good at. If he did, he must not have had very many benefits, as I suspect the total budget for the film is less than the port-a-pottie rental bill on a standard Hollywood feature. Time and again, scenes are compromised by such elementary issues as out of focus characters, exposed mic packs under costume, and boom in shot. This indicates that they didn’t have much more than a single take from which to select.

Indeed, Oceans Rising brings the idea of sudden and unexpected ways of sea level increasing as a result of Earth’s magnetic field reversing that can supposedly only be solved by using the Hadron particle collider at CERN to create a miniature blackhole. Now, I know this sounds utterly insane – and trust me, it is. And so, comes into the picture USGS scientist Josh (Jason Tobias) and member of NOAA Pam (Summer Spiro). As the scrutiny of these events unfolds, we see Josh attempting to open Pam’s eyes to the ideas of a no-nonsense president that the world is coming to an end. To which, he decides to storm out of the meeting. In doing so, fast forward three years where we see Galveston, where Josh is trying to prepare a boat with a ton of freeze-dried beef stroganoff. Sure enough, the sea levels have risen to the point of flooding Los Angeles. Knowing the flooding is coming, Pam shows up out of the blue right when Jash is preparing to GTFO. This leads to them frantically escaping through a wall of water that suddenly comes from out of nowhere. Sadly, this frantic escape does come with cheap effects of what seems to be a fake boat being floated in a swimming pool.

Their ship begins to get increasingly more and more packed as they fish out different ethnic day players from the waters, while the crew has to set off towards Brookhaven Labs, which is their first stop on the electromagnetic tour. No, actual Brookhaven labs are located in Long Island, while they are on the Gulf of Mexico and somehow they always manage to not come across the tallest parts of the US, the Appalachian mountains, or the New York City metro. Even with the poster art, there are a few day players who look like complete fools to include there. And somehow, The SS Minnow crosses the Atlantic Ocean and sets feet in CERN, which seems to be placed into the mountains, rather than on plains like it is. There is such a baffling amount of Alaska gobbeldy gook, and poor computer effects, and somehow mankind makes it out alive. Typically, I don’t inform viewers of the entire plot which a film contains, but in this case I will make an exception so that none of my admirers feel the urge to view this movie.

The one and only upside to Oceans Rising is Mr. Tobias has the ability to act as our hero and is eye candy too (his on-screen partner Ms. Spiro is not so lucky). He requires a more competent agent because he could make it big with much better work. Now, while he seems to be aware that he’s starring in rubbish, that doesn’t stop him from reciting his pseudo-scientific monologues in a tone that is jovial and sincere, almost convincing us that what he’s saying isn’t total crap. Other than our two main characters, everyone else has a scene or two before disappearing in order to facilitate the plot. All that can be said about them is that they do not spend too much time looking into the camera.

So, if you feel like watching the finest (?) in amateur film making, then perhaps Oceans Rising is for you. I recommend a drinking game. Drink each and every time you spot a camera blunder, a plot issue that makes zero sense, or any other form of dialogue that doesn’t make sense and all your worries about the ending will be a non-issue. You’ll instead have passed out long before.

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