Category: Movies

How to Appreciate a Good Disaster Movie

I’ve always loved disaster movies. From Earthquake to The Towering Inferno to my all-time fav, The Poseidon Adventure (I even liked the remake), there’s just something about watching a group of people surviving some awful calamity, banding together to get out alive. Wondering who’s going to make it and who’s not.

A disaster movie these days, however, usually entails the near end of Earth as we know it – which, of course, makes sense to me. One natural disaster or hotel fire just doesn’t cut it anymore. You’ve got to up the ante. Aliens are taking over (Independence Day); giant meteors are falling from space (Deep Impact); global warming puts us in an Ice Age (The Day After Tomorrow). I mean, seriously, when those tornadoes rip up Los Angeles or when the survivors have to run from sub-zero frozen air, that’s just excellent entertainment.

This November, we can look forward to 2012, a movie based on the ancient Mayan prophecy that on Dec. 21, 2012, the world will end. In the trailer, it certainly looks that way, a surging sea toppling over the Himalayas. Sweet.

Of course, it sort of also scares the bejeezus out of me. I’ve watched those History Channel specials about how all the other Mayan prophecies have come true. The Sony Pictures campaign behind the movie is playing on that fear, with two separate sites: This Is The End.com and the Institute for Human Continuity.com. Doubly sweet.

Best death scene in a disaster movie EVER? When Shelley Winters’ Mrs. Rosen in Poseidon Adventure– once a champion swimmer, now an overweight grandmother – holds her breath and swims all the way through the debris to clear the path for the others and THEN dies of a heart attack. Best line EVER? When Gene Hackman’s Rev. Scott, holding the dead Mrs. Rosen, says, “Please GOD NOT this woman.”

How to Cast: Stephen Dorff

Remember Stephen Dorff? He was definitely a cutie back in the day. I remember him from a 1992 movie called The Power of One, in which he played a young lad growing up in the 1950s South Africa, fighting against apartheid. Of course, many will remember him as the badass in the first Blade movie, and then there’s the unmemorable Deuces Wild. Here’s the trailer, in case you forgot (yes, that’s also the late Brad Renfro as his co-star):

Now, according to Cinematical, Dorff might be getting what they are calling a “Mickey Rourke comeback,” starring in director Sofia Coppola’s next film Somewhere. Set in a Chateau Marmont-style hotel, it’s about a once notorious bad-boy actor who must face some life-altering changes when his 11-year-old daughter shows up for a little unexpected daddy time. The daughter will be played by Elle Fanning, Dakota’s little sister, who is gaining big acting chops lately. Damn, what do those Fannings put in their water?

Here are a couple of other tidbits from Cinematical:

Leslie Mann — quickly becoming one of the go-to gals from any successful comedy — is teaming up with one of the other go-to gals these days, Elizabeth Banks, to star in a comedy called What Was I Thinking?. Basically, they play friends who go on a ski trip to get over bad boyfriends and then meet either more bad men or the love of their lives. Either way, I just hope Mann’s real-life husband Judd Apatow gets involved in some way to make it funny.

Drew Barrymore will NOT be directing Eclipse, the third Twilight movie. Whew, that was close.

How to Watch: “17 Again”

Step 1: Finally admit to yourself Zac Efron may just have the stuff to make it big. Do it. Do it NOW.

Step 2: Notice how the film jumps to life once tired, depressed, middle-aged Mike O’Donnell (Matthew Perry), shunned by his kids and getting a divorce from his wife (a very fetching Leslie Mann, doing the very best she can with the role), magically turns back into his 17-year-old self (Zac Efron) again for some sort of life lesson. A reverse Big, as it were.

Step 3: Pay no attention to the very contrived plot line. But you can enjoy Efron’s effortlessness at playing the affable young Mike, dealing with his teenage kids AS a teenager and falling for his wife all over again – cougar-ish as it may seem. Seriously, Efron really can woo a girl.

Step 4: Do pay attention to the hilarious performance by Reno 911‘s Thomas Lennon, as Mike’s former geeky high school friend, now a multi-millionaire software designer with a penchant for all things fantasy – from Star Wars to Lord of the Rings. He speaks fluent Elfish, too.

Step 5: Now watch High School Musical 3 again (or for the first time) and see how Efron stands out.

Level of difficulty in watching 17 Again: Moderate. You’ve really got to stretch that suspension of disbelief, but I’m telling ya, Efron has got the chops. He just has to stop playing basketball in all his movies.

How to Cast: Cinematical’s Gift

I really like Cinematical.com. The writers have the same sensibilities as I do, maybe a tad more fanboy than me but that’s what makes them more fun to read. For example, they found this trailer to a new Japanime show called Cat Sh*t One (aka Apocalypse Meow in the U.S.) It’s one of the more disturbing and hilarious things I’ve seen in awhile. It’s not even cats but giant gun-toting military rabbits! Check it out … and laugh your ass off …

Anyway, I can be just as big a movie geek and Cinematical fits my bill. Here’s a few things I’ve learned from their site today:

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is now opening two days earlier on July 15, instead of July 17. Woohoo!

Brian Austin Green — from the old Beverly Hills 90210 — wants to throw his name into the hat to play The Green Lantern in the upcoming adaptation of the comic book. Why, because his last name is Green?

Will Ferrell and Adam McKay’s Funny Or Die.com just keeps getting better. They even got Lindsay Lohan to make fun of herself in an eHarmony video spoof.

Hottie Chris Pine, who is going to thrill the hell out of us as a young James T. Kirk in the upcoming Star Trek movie, wants to play the dude Murdock in the upcoming A-Team film, directed by Joe Carnahan. OK, whatever floats your boat, Chris.