Reviewer: James L.

I knew the very second I opened the attractive SmartFlix envelope (much better than Netflix, to be honest, and it doesn’t stand out with that red STEAL ME, POSTAL EMPLOYEE color) that this would be the most awesome training film ever. The title: Intermediate Sandcastling. Right away you’ve learned two things: there is a verb form of “sandcastle,” and there are three stages of expertise. Beginning, intermediate, and expert. There might be a fourth – Master – but you’d see a training DVD about that as soon as you’d see “The Secrets of 33rd Degree Masonry Explained.”

It’s a great topic for an instructional video. Who among us has not reveled in the simple childhood joys of building something grand, watching the water wash it away, finding out your policy does not cover hurricanes, and cursing the day you moved to Florida? The bugs here are the size of Electrolux vacuum cleaners, for God’s sake. I’ve made many castles on the beach with my daughter, using the time-honored methods: pack the bucket, upend in stick a few twigs on top for flagpoles, then add towers, parapets to reflect the King’s new power, and walls and moats to indicate his growing paranoia and insularity. The waves usually play the role of the Revolutionary Mob, in the end. If I have the time, I like to build long complex waterways, but it’s always an exercise in the futility of human endeavor. The water washes everything away. All that we build will come to naught. We are but grains of sand ourselves in the grand scheme, worn small by the pitiless hand of nature, destined to be swept to sea while our proudest achievements crumble, forgotten before the night falls. That’s when my daughter usually starts to cry because I’m scaring her with all this talk, and I have to buy her ice cream.

But! What if I could build those incredible things you see in the, er, incredible sandcastle videos you find on the cable channels? So I popped in the disk, smiled at the font choice for the menu – Hobo, my old friend, we meet again – and clicked play. There are two teachers: an elfin hippie named Sandy Feets, and Amazin’ Walter, a big genial dude who looks like Santa’s old surfer brother.

As it begins, Sandy heaves gunk from a wet pit onto a nice castle already in progress She gives us an important lesson on sand-transferring: be close to your hole. “It’s gotta be one smooth motion,” she says. “You want to keep a very clear idea in your head of where you’re going with your sand.”

Words to live by, those. From what I gather, you heap the wet stuff, let it dry a bit, then carve it. Of course! Now it’s Walter: “Another hint is to not scrape your knuckles on the bottom of the bucket.” Because it hurts. Noted. This disk has paid for itself already. Then we get jerky footage of sand-stacking, set to a smoky smooth-jazz soundtrack, which would be great if you were making sculptures in a nightclub.

Chapter Four: the dude is wearing an apron that has his special sandcastling tools. He is at the beach in a heavy black apron, which makes him look like a free-lance whale butcher. One of his tools is a “great big pastry knife,” which he uses to sculpt the wet mound of sand. In its pre-carved state the mound looks like the Watts Towers as designed by the Elephant Man. Or the Elephant Man as sculpted by the designer of the Watts Tower. Whatever, it’s ugly. But as the smooooth jazz plays, we see him sculpt a castle out of the rude heap. It seems so simple, once you know that pastry knives are involved. Of course. Of course.

Now we move to Sandy Feet’s house, where she introduces us to the use of giant forms. Because the handstacking method is simply insufficient for the gigantic castles you know you want to build. By now you’ve stopped taking notes, and you’re just enjoying the art. And yes, it’s an art; it requires skill, technique and aesthetic judgments, as well as practice and patience. As if to acknowledge that your patience in step-by-step instruction might be wearing thin, they start to run the how-to portions in super-fast speed, interspersed with Jerky-Vision that starts to make you queasy, and conclude with a project gallery full of sculptures you could not possibly reproduce. By now you realize that it comes down to three simple steps: Being Close to Your Hole, Having a Great Big Pastry Knife, and Being Really Good At This Already.

Score: B thumbs down out of four stars. Pluses: Friendly unpretentious hosts with whom you could easily imagine downing a Corona at a beachside bar. Well, Walter, anyway. Makes sandcastling looks easy. Minuses: uses the word “sandcastling.” Makes it look easy. Hobo font.