Nothing But Iron: Viewer Discretion Advised April 1, 2005 by Steven R. Lagman, M.D., C.A.S.W. There was a story the other day on CNN about hundreds of sharks swimming around together. These kinds of shark gatherings make the average human swimmer a little nervous, because average human swimmers believe sharks gather in groups of hundreds to discuss new ways to lure humans into the ocean so they can be eaten, like on the made-for-television-movie Spring Break Shark Attack, which aired during spring break. Humans should not worry so much about sharks, because, according to CNN, more people are killed by vending machines each year than by shark attacks. That makes me uneasy because there are vending machines right where I work. On the other hand, I have heard that vending machines are really quite timid around humans, unless provoked. I was also told that if a vending machine does attack, it can likely be fended off by repeatedly punching or kicking it in the coin return. Armed with knowledge of the dangers of vending machines, I plan to move slowly and deliberately when ever I am near one. And damned if I’m ever again sticking my hand in that slot to get the chips out. Wait a minute. Do you suppose its the food in the vending machines that poses a risk and not the machines themselves? I’ll get back to you on that. I discovered other astounding risk relationships that all safety-conscious people should know about. In any given year: 1) More people are injured by library books than by caterpillars, 2) More people are disabled by cordless phones than by bunnies, 3) More people are seriously harmed by high-heeled shoes than by rabid aardvark cubs and 4) More people are hurt by potpourri than by sparrows. You might be amused to learn that I voluntarily watched most of Spring Break Shark Attack. You might ask, why would a supposedly educated doctor, let alone amateur sportswriter with his own web site and self-imposed deadlines to meet, waste his time watching a sophomoric show like SBSA? Well, it wasn’t exactly sophomoric. More like freshmanic. Mostly I watch it for the same reason I once drank 13 glasses of milk at camp. To test my endurance, and because my wife wasn’t there to ridicule me. I puked after the 13th glass of milk and I only felt slightly nauseated after SBSA, so I think my endurance for dumb shark movies is pretty darn good. And just for the record, that milk drinking contest was decades ago. Curiosity was a secondary factor in my lack of viewer discretion. I had the urge to see 1) if the movie was really as stupid its title promised it would be, and 2) what the target audience might be. I determined that the target audience was that segment of the population curious whether or not the movie was a stupid as the title promised it would be. As for stupid, let’s just say the SBSA lived up to its billing in all respects. The one upside was that the movie was well cast with actors who did a convincing job of making the audience believe that this was not the only available acting job in a 10,000 mile radius. The exception was the shark actors. These were obviously not professional members of the Shark Actors Guild because they swam with their dorsal fins above the water’s surface the entire time the camera was on them.  Only amateur actor sharks would not know that dorsal fins are usually submerged and are generally exposed only before the shark eats someone being filmed by a movie camera. The best thing to come out of SBSA is the confidence it must have generated for millions of screenwriters who are hoping to be discovered. Trust me; if Spring Break Shark Attack got produced, your movie will sell soon. In case you wonder, I do have opinions about basketball games past and future, which I promise to share at a sooner date, but my eyeslids are as heavy, and I just had to get something published for Debra to read with her morning coffee. This just came flying out. Kinda like that 13th glass of milk. _____________ Nothing But Iron is an amateur sports column that sometimes doesn’t know what got into itself. The author, who is neither an aspiring screenwriter, nor a fledgling movie critic, admits to having watched the stupid shark movie for the sole purpose of writing about it. NBI is in no way associated with the the Save the Vending Machines Foundation. ©2005 DrTM Enterprises. All rights reserved.