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In what may be considered a cinematic equivalent of a high colonic, I achieved a not-so-little tactical miracle this weekend. In hindsight, the experience could have, should have, ended my life on this planet. Alas, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and today I own the kind of invincible feeling one attains after surviving a terrifying wreck with but barely a scratch.

I watched the Humphrey Bogart classic Casablanca on TCM... then followed it up IMMEDIATELY with the Deborah Gibson classic, Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus on SyFy.

My Facebook status update three-quarters into my experience?.... "It's like munching a raw sardine after devouring a pint of Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream".

Truer words, never spoken!

In an age of horribly awful direct-to-video films, this one stands alone as the zenith of how NOT to make an action flick... or a film of any other type, for that matter. After enjoying a movie most critics consider one of the greatest American films of all-time (usually just behind Citizen Kane and The Godfather), double-tapping it with a flick that uses what appears to be locker room as both a destroyer command deck and a Japanese sub interior just screams fatal aneurysm. Add Deborah (Debbie) Gibson and a perpetually-inebriated Lorenzo Lamas to the mix, toss in a sprinkling of garbage effects -- some reversed and used again, pretending to be a completely new and exciting effect -- and top with the kind of script that offers an amazing workout for your neck and arms (due to confusion-induced head-shaking and baffled shoulder-shrugging), and you've got a classic for the ages.

Former teen pop icon Deborah Gibson stars as a brilliant marine scientist....*.

Really, MUST I continue after that?!

Former teen pop icon Deborah Gibson stars as a brilliant marine scientist...........*. Shit.

One more time.

Former teen pop icon Deborah Gibson stars as a brilliant marine scientist............... and Lorenzo Lamas portrays, apparently, the head of a covert government agency, though it's never made clear exactly WHAT agency it might be. The only clues are that it functions out of what appears to be a basement, its employees all wear Dickies work clothes, and Lamas seems to possess a direct phone line to the White House.

Maybe FEMA. I'm not 100% sure.

There's the wise old scientist/father figure/hero character, played by somebody who could easily pass for a Dennis Hopper/Christopher Lee love child. There's a world-renowned Japanese scientist who has sex with Gibson no sooner than two seconds after meeting her.... and bears a striking resemblance to a Chinese fella. The soldiers all wear Foster Grants... even indoors! American submarines all look like the Red Oktober, and no ship (it seems) is owned by a particular nation, the subtitles describing them as "U.S. led" or "Japanese led".

But, the Coup de Blech is when mega shark bites off a chunk of the Golden Gate bridge (perhaps the best effect of the film), which signifies a sudden dejection and utter failure to all of the principle characters because "thousands of people" are now dead. Funny, I didn't seem to notices a marathon being run across said bridge. How, with one bite of one section of one bridge can "thousands" of San Franciscans suddenly die?? Perhaps the shark destroyed the spirit of the city by attacking its great landmark? Or, perhaps it's a really crappy film? Thinking.... I'll choose the latter.

A close second to the above plot point is when Gibson conjures up a brilliant idea (since, naturally, she's a "brilliant marine scientist"). While trying to devise a solution to this mess, her eyes light up with a manic anticipation. She turns to the father-figure old man scientist and yelps "Thrilla in Manila. We'll get them battle each other!" Of course, there's two inherent issues with this dialogue:

1) SyFy viewers might not know what "Thrilla in Manila" means. A more appropriate sports analogy might have been "Lakers/Celtics. We'll get them to battle each other".

2) Debbie Gibson doesn't know what "Thrilla in Manila" means. A more appropriate pop analogy might have been "Britney/Insanity. We'll get them to battle each other".

When the plan succeeds, we find ourselves at the bottom of the ocean on a "U.S. led" submarine, it's interior a combination of Atari joysticks and painted cardboard (high tech cardboard, no doubt). The creatures battle each other to the death, and plummet to the bottom of the ocean abyss. The problem? We're already on the ocean floor! Apparently, there's a "special and super-secret" floor designed especially for dying supercreatures who just battled to the death at the bottom of the ocean right in front of a U.S.-led submarine.

I love bad films.