The Five Spot: There Should Be One Stupid Shark Movie Every Summer

[Kendrick Lamar voice] CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP

The Five Spot is a weekly Friday roundup where I rank and riff on my five favorite things from the week. Most of the entries will be about film and TV, but there might also be ones about weird local news or sandwiches I ate or anything else, really. The whole thing is an exclusive for paid subscribers, so if you want to read the top four entries, you can do that…

Off we go.

FIVE: It’s a reasonable request

First, a confession: I have not seen Under Paris, the silly French Netflix movie about a shark that terrorizes the sewers of Paris and eats a bunch of people in the name of… ecology, I guess? I don’t know. Again, I have not seen it yet. This is my fault, not anyone else’s. I will remedy it soon. I mean, how could I not with an official description this beautiful?

To save Paris from a bloodbath, a grieving scientist is forced to face her tragic past when a giant shark appears in the Seine.

Lady, we’ve all been there.

Anyway, there’s a reason I’m opening a column people are actually paying to read with a blurb about a movie I haven’t seen. It actually gets to something I believe with all or at least most of my heart: there should be one stupid shark movie every summer. Just one. Preferably in early June, right as school is letting out and people are getting spring out of their minds. I do not want shark movies straight through until September. I especially do not want a good shark movie, like a legitimate blockbuster that kicks off a feeding frenzy where even non-shark franchises are shoving sharks into their seventh or eighth sequel. I do not want to see Tom Cruise wrestle a mako in the ocean for reasons related to impossible missions.

Actually, wait. No. I do want to see that. He can use the mask machine to make himself look like a different shark. That could be the whole movie for all I care. Tom Cruise undercover as a shark while Ving Rhames sits in a submarine saying things like “Ethan, you have to think like a shark.” I would see that movie today. I would see it right now. I would stop typing this paragraph mid-sentence and go straight to the movie theater. I still have some parts of this theory to hammer out.

But my original point still stands. Give me and the people one dumb shark movie every June. Multiple sequels of The Meg, the movie where Jason Statham fights a monstrous prehistoric shark? Yes, sure. Streaming movies with a budget of 75 dollars and the worst CGI you’ve ever seen? Of course. A reboot of Deep Blue Sea where Ludacris plays a scientist who discovers that sharks have become hyper-intelligent and are out for blood about it? Absolutely, and he should do the soundtrack. Not “a song on the soundtrack.” The whole thing. Give the people one year where the song of the summer is Ludacris rapping about sharks. Ariana Grande can sing the hook. And star in the shark movie, too. This is a good idea.

Or maybe it isn’t a good idea. I don’t know. It is very hot outside. My brain can’t handle anything complicated right now. Which, again, is why we need a dumb shark movie. Thank you.

FOUR: Jordan Peele has an opportunity to do something hilarious