Hey everyone! Zach who watches movies here and I am
introducing a new weekly column "Flashback Friday". Every Friday I'll
put up a review/retrospective of a past movie that is relevant to either a new
release coming out that week or what's going on in the movie world. I've always
liked the idea of revisiting past films both that I love and didn’t love, my
mind has been changed on more than a few films with time as a barrier. Anyways,
I am hoping this will be a cool way to start conversation about these films as
well as introduce them to some people who maybe haven't seen or even heard of
them before. Each week I will pick a movie sometime before Friday that is
deemed appropriate for that week. Either
just one that I personally want to do or I will take a twitter poll to see what
you guys want to see done and then revisit the film. After doing so I will
write up a brief review and retrospective and see where I think they stand
today. Do the movies we love hold up because they are actually great films or
is nostalgia clouding our judgement? And when going back to films I wasn't a fan
of the first time around I'll reevaluate the parts of it that bothered me and see if maybe I was too harsh or reaffirm my first thoughts that
it's a bad movie. After reading let me know what you think of the idea and if
you want to see more, I plan on doing them weekly. I also want to hear any of
your favorite movies that you'd want to see me look back at. Thanks for reading
as always and I hope you enjoy my first ever "Flashback Friday'.
FLASHBACK FRIDAY MAY 29 2015: TWISTER (1996) AND WHY WE LOVE
DISASTER MOVIES
Twister (1996)
Action, Adventure, Disaster
Directed By: Jan de Bont
With Dwayne Johnson's new film San Andreas rumbling into
theaters today, a film about the destruction of Los Angeles after a series of
devastating earthquakes, I wanted to look back at a quality example of a
disaster movie done right. I had a few good ones in mind going in but I wanted
some more input. I decided to take this to twitter and see what some of your
favorite disaster movies are and a whole bunch of you shared your answers with me. While I got a ton of great responses with a variety of
excellent examples there was one that got mentioned over and over (well two,
ID4 was a huge one but I figured that’s a better post for the beginning of
July...) and that was 1996's summer blockbuster Twister. I'm not going to lie,
you guys made this easy for me as this was the movie I wanted to do from the
start. Here we have a disaster film that doesn’t really feel like any other of
its kind; it was directed by Jon de Bont as his follow up to the huge action
hit Speed and featured a number of super talented actors. Bill Paxton played
the lead alongside Helen hunt with a ton of quality support from familiar faces
like Philip Seymour Hoffman (RIP), Cary Elwes, and Alan Ruck who you know as
Cameron from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. All this meshed together to make a wild,
visually stunning movie about Tornado's and the crazy sons-a-b's that chase
them for a living.
Let me get this out of the way now, I absolutely adore this
film. It's one of those flicks that I watched over and over and over growing up
and it never got played out no matter how many times I watched it. This, along
with Jurassic Park, was one of the first movies to show me the true visual
power of the movies. Especially with CGI and VFX just beginning to blossom at
that time it was amazing to see what could be done with these new tools. I was
watching the "Making of" and the head of the VFX for Twister said
that they had to create all new software for this movie because the effects
they wanted to do had never been done before. Jan wanted to make you feel like
you were actually in the storm with the characters and that everything was
believable. To do this he did what the best actions movies have done ever since
the release of Jurassic Park; he found the perfect blend between CGI and
practical effects so even when you know a part of the shot is computer animated
by the end of the scene you don’t even remember because the final product is so
beautiful. Even after revisiting it the other night I think that the visual and
practical effects in this movie are off the charts.
It had been almost two years since I last sat down and
watched this movie straight through, and since then I have changed a ton as a
movie viewer and fanatic. This made me all the more excited to revisit this; it
is one of my all-time favorite childhood movies and easily my favorite disaster
flick so I was really interested to see how I feel about now. Well, I am quite
happy to say that this movie is as awesome as I always remember it to be and to
this day I don't think we have seen a disaster film come close (Your up at bat,
Mr. the Rock). For starters it has everything a good disaster film needs; fun
and compelling characters, awe striking action and destruction, and a balls out
third act that delivers a satisfying ending. Not only that but this movie
manages to do all of that better than any other without destroying the entire
world or even threatening it.
I'll break it down for anyone who for hasn't seen this film
and aren’t familiar with the plot. The movie takes place in the American Midwest
in a stretch of land known as "Tornado Alley" and it's the peak of
storm season. Not only that but according to weather reports the fabled Fifty
Year Storm is coming and it looks to be bigger than anything ever recorded.
Bill Paxton plays an ex storm chaser who thinks he is only going out to me his ex-wife
to finally get the divorce papers finalized but instead gets pulled back into
the chase. He brings his new fiancé along not thinking anything out of the
ordinary is going to happen and before they know it they are right in the
middle of the storm with all of Bill's old team. They are taking one last run
at launching a state of the art weather alert system that will help map out a
tornado and in turn allow for much earlier warnings.
Where Twister succeeds the most for me is that it’s not
about large scale destruction or alien invasion or anything like that. Instead
it is a story about real people doing real work that exists in our real world. The
director, Jan de Bont, doesn’t rely on the awe of our country’s biggest cities
being laid to waste and the world coming to an end. He taps into a more
realistic fear of ours by using an example of mother nature’s wrath that we
hear about every year when Tornado's rip through this corridor and that some of
us actually live through (Not me personally, but I do live in Buffalo so I know
about a good blizzard). In today’s age of super VFX and CGI there is a ton to
appreciate about this movie, so much of the action is done with practical
effects and stunts. In the Making of you see that when it’s hailing they
actually used real ice that they had to ship in from out of town and rig an ice
chipper typically used for fake snow to make it. They also bought two giant Jet
engines to create a realistic wind tunnel that they flung actual debris into
the throw at the actors in the vehicles. This is the just the tip of the ice
berg too, this movie was so incredible for its time and even today holds as a
great testament to the summer blockbuster.
This brings me to the last part of this post where I want to
talk about why so many of us love these disaster movies, why do we like to
watch the destruction of our world? And honestly I think the answer is pretty
simple. We like to watch these movies because of the thrill, it's the kind of
thrill that brings you to the edge of your seat and gives you wide eyes and a
big smile. Even more than that they tap into a small fear all of us have that
our world might one day be destroyed. Focusing more on "natural
disaster" films for sake of the topic of this week’s piece, when you're
showing us natural events we have witnessed before amplified to a whole other
level that strikes a chord with audiences that some of the more "out there" ideas can’t
achieve. Especially in a film like Twister where the plot isn't at all
unbelievable, there are actually people who chases these storms for science and
the thrill of the chase and risk their lives doing it. The idea that even with
all of our advancements and new technologies we are still no match for Mother
Nature is terrifying and these films tap into that fear and use it to take us
for a ride.
So San Andreas is in theaters worldwide today and it stars
Dwayne Johnson, Carla Gugino, and Alexandra Daddario as the sexiest family you ever did see (I
mean, holy crap, am I right?). Los Angeles is going to be destroyed and I get
to stare at The Rock for two hours so you know I'm excited. I'll be seeing it
hopefully today or tomorrow and will have a review up as soon as possible
after. If any of you are going to see it this weekend let me know and let me
know what you think of the movie when you do see it. I want to close the first
ever "Flashback Friday" with a list of honorable mentions. This list
is a compilation of all the other films you awesome people gave me on twitter as
well as a few of my personal favorites.
Honorable mentions for disaster movies done right (these are
not ranked):
-Independence Day (1996): Who doesn’t love watching the
White House along with all of the major cities in the world get leveled by
malicious aliens?
- Airplane! (1980): Yes, we are considering a disaster movie
without a doubt. It just also happens to be one of the funniest movies ever
made as well
-Super 8 (2011): That train wreck is still one of the
coolest things I have ever witnessed on the big screen
-The Day After Tomorrow (2004): It was a different look at
the end of the world scenario and its stars Jake Gyllenhaal
- Volcano (1997): Bring it on haters! I've loved this movie
since I was a kid and it is still a super fun watch for me
- Cloverfield (2008): Found Footage + Aliens + the
destruction of New York City = Insanity
-Titanic (1997): It's one of the highest grossing films of
all time for a reason
-Gravity (2013): Yes, this is a disaster film and it’s a god
damn masterpiece.
-Mars Attacks! (1996): Again, like Airplane! It’s definitely
a disaster film that happens to be hilarious. Go watch it
-World War Z (2013): It’s not just zombies; it’s the destruction
of the world.
-The Perfect Storm (2000): This is why I don’t like the
ocean.
Separate honorable mentions to the ones I haven't seen but you
mentioned to me:
-The Towering Inferno (1974)
-Deep Impact (1998)
-Armageddon (1998) - I know, I know. I’m working on it.
-The Poseidon Adventure (1972)
-Dante’s Peak (1997)
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