People totally misinterpret my movie The Perfect Storm by calling it a tragedy. That really boggles my mind. I don’t see what’s so tragic about it. Listen, if a bunch of guys begging to get killed GET KILLED, it’s not a tragedy. It’s science.
The movie takes place in Greenbough, Alabama but through movie magic we moved the state of Alabama to Castle Rock, New England. Everyone is so painfully blue collar that even the little girls have five o’clock shadows. There are only three occupations to choose from in this shithole: fisherman, fisherman bar person, and fisherman stay at home ladyfriend. What this means is that jobs are not in great supply. In fact, in one of the DVD’s deleted scenes we find out that the unemployment rate is 3.2 million percent. In another deleted scene, we find out that everyone who’s unemployed is a faggot. Because of this, every man desperately wants to fish. But only a special breed of men can even get the chance at a chance: Macho Men.
I love the idea of macho men. That’s right, I’m kind of sort of a homo sometimes. Why? Well, because sometimes it’s Saturday night and any party’ll do. Anyway, in movies we look up to macho men because they don’t take shit from anyone and they get things done their way with no compromise. Sadly, in real life Macho Men are just idiots who punch things. My goal with The Perfect Storm was to display the imperfections of real Macho Men. To do that, it was my responsibility to show the macho world in as honest a light as possible. And thanks to a shitload of CG, I was able to.
There’s this real hardass named Cap’n Headshakes and he’s looking for a crew to man his bobbing turd of a boat. He named the boat My Heart Will Go On because he saw Titanic and he’s the macho version of sensitive. He gives all the applicants Macho tests. For instance, he’ll ask a guy to do something, like “Go get me a beer, Faggot.” If the faggot gets the beer, he’s out. If he says “FUCK YOU!” and punches Cap’n Headshakes in the head, he’s in (and therefore no longer a faggot). After two months of testing, he finally has a crew he can count on to fart a lot and shoot each other in the feet.
The guy who played Planet in Planet of the Apes stars as sort of the second fiddle in this band of fools. His character’s name is Bobby Shatford, as in: “Bobby shat a Ford cause he was sick of his Chevy!” That joke can be found in the deleted scenes portion of your The Perfect Storm DVD. Shatford just got back from a long fishing job and he really wants to hang out with his girlfriend. However, after one night of passion she starts asking him what he thinks about when he’s quiet and tries to get him to read She’s Come Undone, so he decides he’d rather hangout with the boys and is off to his death by the end of the day.
Another guy that gets hired has really fuzzy hair and absolutely no brains to show for it. He’s home long enough to give his kid a copy of the E.T. Atari game and then he’s off to the bar to shoot some whiskey and pool before spending the rest of his life underwater. As he drowns he tells the guy next to him, “This is gonna be hard on my kid.” Telepathically, the kid hears this and laughs his ass off.
Fuzzy Hair gets in a lot of fights with the other crew member, Slick Rick, who thinks he might be the father of Fuzzy Hair’s child. He hasn’t had sex with the mom, but he’s noticed that the kid is way more slick than fuzzy and it must have happened somehow. Slick Rick is kind of a blunt asshole, so he doesn’t have any friends or loved ones, but drowning on purpose really brings people together so don’t worry.
Cap’n Headshakes, Shatford, Fuzzy Hair, and Slick Rick set off to sea at dawn. Meanwhile at NASA, Shooter McGavin looks at his computer screen as though it just asked him if he eats pieces of shit for breakfast. He stands up and starts screaming, “This is it people! Three hurricanes are gonna collide! It’s going to be a PERFECT STORM!” One of his buddies leans over, “Hey, Shooter. If three hurricanes colliding is a perfect storm, whaddaya call it when four hurricanes collide?” Shooter can’t answer. “That’s what I thought. Now sit down, shut up, and stop dicking around on weather.com.” McGavin sits back down but points at the guy and tells him, “I eat pieces of shit like you for breakfast, NASA nerd.”
Back on the boat, crazy nonsense happens in an attempt to give this movie a second act. Both of the main events involve Fuzzy Hair. In one, he accidentally hooks that Hammerhead Shark from Joe Vs. The Volcano. It scares Fuzzy Hair cause he’s an amateur, but Cap’n Headshakes quickly shoots the Shark in the head with a shotgun, which turns the Hammerhead into more of a Field Goal head. In the other, Fuzzy Hair puts a fishing hook through his hand and does a shitty impression of Captain Hook. While hopping around on one foot, he accidentally goes overboard and almost drowns. If your English teacher asks, you can use this as an example of foreshadowing because not-drowning is not in this guy’s future.
Once they’re two thousand miles away from land, they drop anchor and start fishing. This industrial fishing is pretty complicated stuff. Two men sit on each side of the boat holding fishing poles. You can dangle your feet over the side but only if you take your shoes off first. If you get a bite you have to announce it so everyone else can verbally give you support. If you catch the fish, they all must clap and pat you on the back. You may only read pre-1970 comic books or the novels of Ernest Hemingway and Joseph Conrad. At the end of the day, you shake hands with your fellow fishermen and tell them they did a good job even if they didn’t catch anything (today is their bad day…tomorrow could be yours). Any fish caught outside of these guidelines have to be thrown back. Properly caught fish go down a hole which leads to the ship’s fridge. The hole gate MUST be closed at all times for safety reasons. If it rains, fishing is canceled. Eleven is lunch time, two is snack time, and three is nap time.
Following these rules, Cap’N Headshakes’ crew manages to catch twenty-seven million pounds of fish. To celebrate they get naked, build a bonfire, and shoot off flare guns, which confuses everyone within twenty miles. Unfortunately, this celebration gets interrupted with two very bad bits of news. One: Perfect Storm. And two: broken fish fridge caused by short-sighted bonfire.
Here’s the deal. Broken fridge means fish rot which means no money which means you’re a faggot. They might just barely get the fish back in time if they haul ass, but there’s a MamaJamma piece of pissed off nature directly in their path. They have to make a choice. Let their fish rot and live, or brave the Perfect Storm and die like dumb assholes trying to prove something. It’s a tough decision, so the men look to Cap’n Headshakes for guidance. “Men,” he says. “God put me on this Earth to fish, not hide from storms like some kind of pussy faggot. Last I heard, storms don’t have tattoos. Well I’ve got four, so I believe that puts us ahead. I say we take that storm, beat the shit out of it, then shove it up it’s own ass!” They holler a lot and rebuild the bonfire to celebrate their decision.
The storm plays with them for about twenty minutes before finally getting serious and swallowing them like the sun would swallow an ant. As Cap’n Headshakes sinks with his ship, he thinks: “This is the most noble, dignified, meaningful death a captain could ever hope for.” Then a shark comes along and eats his dick off.