Fishing With John

Dennis Hopper, on the verge of Snickers shock, hunting a mythical giant squid in Thailand. Whiskey-voiced singer Tom Waits storing a red snapper in his pants. In short, Fishing with John is not your father's fishing show. Shown last year on the Independent Film Channel, this wry six-episode series from 1992 follows musician and actor John Lurie (the bushy-browed star of Jim Jarmusch's Down by Law and Stranger Than Paradise) and his equally cool friends (like Willem Dafoe) on ''adventures of a lifetime.'' Writer-director Lurie blends fiction and reality in his comic tales, breaking up the (plentiful) downtime with beautiful locales, an atmospheric score, idle chitchat, and the ramblings of Nature-worthy narrator Robb Webb. ''When it comes to the shark,'' Webb warns, ''man is on his menu.'' A surprising catch. B+