Tag Archives: disaster movies

Yes, There’s a Scene During the “Twisters” End Credits

August 2, 2024 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Twisters movie poster shows release date of July 19th above the two leads standing on a red ruck and looking at an imminently stormy sky.

So, how about that Singin’ in the Rain reboot?

If you think my usual movie entries suffer from subjectivity, don’t expect an exception here. The original Twister holds a special li’l place in my heart for a variety of reasons. Its director Jan de Bont, fresh off the Speed race, was also the cinematographer on my all-time favorite movie. My mom was (and is) a big fan of disaster films, which had a sort of Golden Age in my childhood, from the natural terrors of Earthquake to the man-made systemic failures of The Towering Inferno, The Poseidon Adventure, Airport, and more. Along a more sensitive vein: in the darkest month of my life, pop culture manifested two welcome distractions to take my mind off my anguish when I needed that most: Rhino Home Video’s very first wave of Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes on VHS, and Twister hitting theaters. Setting my baggage aside, their timing was perfect, as the latter would make a great episode of the former.

Fast-forward 28 years and here we go again with Twisters! They’re back, and this time, they’re even windier. My stress levels aren’t as off-the-charts as they were in ’96 (well, as of this minute), but looking around me, I can’t say the same for the rest of the country, if not the world. Leave it to Lee Isaac Chung, director of the 2021 Best Picture nominee Minari and that season-3 hour-long episode of The Mandalorian that focused on reformed Imperial aide Dr. Pershing, to bravely decide it’s time again for humankind to pull together for a shared experience that’s not great, not terrible, just unapologetically crowd-pleasing and thrilling and extremely loud and filled with scenes of unironic smiling…well, when Mother Nature isn’t trying to murder everyone.

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“San Andreas”: Our Stars in the Fault

June 26, 2015 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , 2 Comments
San Andreas!

The Rock prepares to go punch the San Andreas Fault really hard. YOU try telling him that’ll only make it worse.

I said it to myself six years ago, and I stand by my stance today: every natural disaster film ever made for the rest of my life will pale in comparison to Roland Emmerich’s 2012. The pretenders will come, they’ll try to convince us their version of Mother Nature is the angriest of all times, they’ll knock over buildings by the dozen, they’ll grind hundreds of extras and millions of CG avatars into so much disaster mulch, and they’ll end with the reassurance that all the right costars will survive. None of them can hope to match Emmerich’s ludicrous audacity, the intimidating sight of America burning and sliding into the ocean, the world’s fastest limousine, the pre-Fast/Furious car-jump out of a flying plane, Woody Harrelson’s free-spirit zealotry, the post-apocalyptic speech to end all post-apocalyptic speeches as delivered by future Academy Award Nominee Chiwetel Ejiofor, or the bizarre fact that the movie costarred a screenwriter but was co-written by its composer.

It’s cute when someone invests a lot of money in giving one a try anyway. My mom needs reasons to get out of the house and she loves disaster movies (for her the gold standard is Earthquake), so one night I found myself at a showing of San Andreas with zero expectations and the satisfaction in knowing that sometimes I do try to be a good son.

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