It's Shark Week at the Alamo!
Friday, February 1st - Thursday, February 7th
Alamo Drafthouse Downtown (320 E 6th Street)
$6.25, various times
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We've never been up close and personal with a shark, and in fact the closest that we have ever come to large marine life was when we fell on a manatee at our family reunion (true story!), but we find them absolutely fascinating. How can a creature be so incredibly beautiful and serene, yet altogether menacing and unpredictable? It is the latter sentiment that filmmaker Rob Stewart wishes to eschew. Having been a lifetime shark fanatic, what started as simple curiosity and reverence on his part turned into a full fledged campaign to rid the world of its "Jaws"-ian fear of sharks, and portray them for what they truly are: lynchpins in a delicate underwater ecosystem.
Stewart teamed up with notorious conservationist Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, and together they traveled to the trenches of man vs.shark warfare off the coasts of Ecuador and Costa Rica to prove that these creatures are not the blood-thirsty, man-eating monsters that so many cultural misconceptions would have you believe. Watson's well documented use of "environmental terrorism" tactics against poachers may not sit well with some, but these two will stop at nothing to protect the ever dwindling population of sharks who are unable to protect themselves on the uneven playing field that has been created by corruption and greed.
No matter your politics or environmental world view, you have to admit that sharks are absolutely spellbinding. Watching great whites launch themselves from the ocean like rocketships during the last Discovery Channel Shark Week had us on the edge of our seats, and that was on a tiny TV screen, so we are drooling over the notion of experiencing these sinuous creatures in high definition on the big screen at the Alamo. See ya around the reef.
