The Discovery Channel´s ubiquitous annual event, "Shark Week," comes to DVD in a two disc set featuring the six programs which made up the 2007 edition of the series. Utilizing reenactments of historical events, brand new documentary footage and computer imagery, "Shark Week: Ocean of Fear" is timed to cross-promote the July 27-August 2 21st edition.
It is evident that a good amount of time and money went into "Ocean of Fear: Worst Shark Attack Ever" (84 minutes), the story of the USS Indianapolis. The cruiser Indianapolis-made famous thanks to Robert Shaw´s character in "Jaws"-was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine in July, 1945. For the next five days, the surviving crew fended off shark attacks, the overpowering heat, dehydration and salt water-induced delusions. Out of 1,196 men on the Indianapolis, 317 were picked up. (Some 900 made it into the water following the explosions on the boat, however.)
Filmed at Pinewood Studios in the United Kingdom, "Ocean of Fear" moves between interviews from surviving members of the Indianapolis and the reenactment, both in the water and of the depositions afterward. The transitions are a bit clunky, using Richard Dreyfuss as a narrator to bridge the segments together. There are too few current interviews with survivors; the piece instead relies on constructing what I assume to be a composite narrative out of the original hearings back in 1945. This is perhaps the most chilling of the six programs featured: to be floating in the middle of the ocean with no hope in site while men around you are being eaten by sharks is a terrifying thought. (It should be noted the majority of the men who died in the water are said to not have been the victims of sharks, but of other calamities. In that sense, this isn´t technically the worst shark attack on record, but it is the worst human tragedy involving the animals.
Next up is an honest-to-goodness documentary, "Perfect Predators" (84 minutes). We´re introduced to six different types of sharks (mako, hammerhead, bull, lemon, tiger, great white) along with special evolutionary adaptations which allow them to roam the seas in search of prey. This turns out to be one of the most engrossing pieces on either disc, if only because each variety of shark uses different ways of surviving. Whether it be an unending supply of razor sharp teeth or a knack for sensing the magnetic field emitted from any animal, 400 million years of evolution has aided the sharks in becoming fearsome predators.
Less enthralling is "Shark Tribe" (41 minutes), a journey to New Guinea to figure out the secrets behind calling and catching sharks by hand. While it is a potentially fascinating story, the execution becomes glacially slow. Perhaps it is due to the scientific information being repeated from "Perfect Predators" (something we´ll see over and over through the programs); we´ve already seen the way the ampullae of Lorenzini pores work in sharks, bringing them to floundering prey. (The ampullae of Lorenzini are tiny pores on a shark´s snout containing a membrane directly linked to the brain. It receives signals of electricity and relays them as a kind of GPS unit.)
Disc two begins with "Top Five Eaten Alive," another mix of reenactments and interviews of real life shark attacks. According to the piece, there are fewer than 100 shark attacks per year and the majority come from the bull, tiger and great white varieties. As we see in each case, these attacks could have been prevented with one very important tool: information. One woman is attacked when she swims in an area known as a shark haven. (She survives only by poking her attacker in the eye, a lesson to remember.) What these people have in common is a very close proximity to others as well as sheer dumb luck, a quality the narrator mentions.
"Survivorman" Les Stroud takes us through "Shark Feeding Frenzy" (42 minutes), an investigation into the qualities which attract sharks to prey. It is concluded fast heart rates and the color yellow bring the predators to their eventual meals. More than that, though, Stroud debunks the "Jaws" assertion a shark will eat anything: the great white either ignores or immediately spits out a whole turkey and ham, devouring 50 pounds of ribs. (A shark will not eat a license plate, for the record.)
The Discovery Channel´s ubiquitous annual event, "Shark Week," comes to DVD in a two disc set featuring the six programs which made up the 2007 edition of the series. Utilizing reenactments of historical events, brand new documentary footage and computer imagery, "Shark Week: Ocean of Fear" is timed to cross-promote the July 27-August 2 21st edition.
It is evident that a good amount of time and money went into "Ocean of Fear: Worst Shark Attack Ever" (84 minutes), the story of the USS Indianapolis. The cruiser Indianapolis-made famous thanks to Robert Shaw´s character in "Jaws"-was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine in July, 1945. For the next five days, the surviving crew fended off shark attacks, the overpowering heat, dehydration and salt water-induced delusions. Out of 1,196 men on the Indianapolis, 317 were picked up. (Some 900 made it into the water following the explosions on the boat, however.)
Filmed at Pinewood Studios in the United Kingdom, "Ocean of Fear" moves between interviews from surviving members of the Indianapolis and the reenactment, both in the water and of the depositions afterward. The transitions are a bit clunky, using Richard Dreyfuss as a narrator to bridge the segments together. There are too few current interviews with survivors; the piece instead relies on constructing what I assume to be a composite narrative out of the original hearings back in 1945. This is perhaps the most chilling of the six programs featured: to be floating in the middle of the ocean with no hope in site while men around you are being eaten by sharks is a terrifying thought. (It should be noted the majority of the men who died in the water are said to not have been the victims of sharks, but of other calamities. In that sense, this isn´t technically the worst shark attack on record, but it is the worst human tragedy involving the animals.
Next up is an honest-to-goodness documentary, "Perfect Predators" (84 minutes). We´re introduced to six different types of sharks (mako, hammerhead, bull, lemon, tiger, great white) along with special evolutionary adaptations which allow them to roam the seas in search of prey. This turns out to be one of the most engrossing pieces on either disc, if only because each variety of shark uses different ways of surviving. Whether it be an unending supply of razor sharp teeth or a knack for sensing the magnetic field emitted from any animal, 400 million years of evolution has aided the sharks in becoming fearsome predators.
Less enthralling is "Shark Tribe" (41 minutes), a journey to New Guinea to figure out the secrets behind calling and catching sharks by hand. While it is a potentially fascinating story, the execution becomes glacially slow. Perhaps it is due to the scientific information being repeated from "Perfect Predators" (something we´ll see over and over through the programs); we´ve already seen the way the ampullae of Lorenzini pores work in sharks, bringing them to floundering prey. (The ampullae of Lorenzini are tiny pores on a shark´s snout containing a membrane directly linked to the brain. It receives signals of electricity and relays them as a kind of GPS unit.)
Disc two begins with "Top Five Eaten Alive," another mix of reenactments and interviews of real life shark attacks. According to the piece, there are fewer than 100 shark attacks per year and the majority come from the bull, tiger and great white varieties. As we see in each case, these attacks could have been prevented with one very important tool: information. One woman is attacked when she swims in an area known as a shark haven. (She survives only by poking her attacker in the eye, a lesson to remember.) What these people have in common is a very close proximity to others as well as sheer dumb luck, a quality the narrator mentions.
"Survivorman" Les Stroud takes us through "Shark Feeding Frenzy" (42 minutes), an investigation into the qualities which attract sharks to prey. It is concluded fast heart rates and the color yellow bring the predators to their eventual meals. More than that, though, Stroud debunks the "Jaws" assertion a shark will eat anything: the great white either ignores or immediately spits out a whole turkey and ham, devouring 50 pounds of ribs. (A shark will not eat a license plate, for the record.)
No comments:
Post a Comment