It had a Deep Impact on Me

 Me and the missus watched Deep Impact last night. After trying a couple of Harlan Coben crime series' intros, which the Missus didn't like, I opted for pure nostalgia.

I have to say I love Deep Impact. There's no point denying it. That Wolf- Biedermann comet takes me right back to the 1990's. We were in our thirties, the prime of our lives, a young family and our daughter, just a kid, lived at home with us.

Yep, Deep Impact is memory lane, wending it's way back to that nostalgic sunlit valley where our youth lingers.

Those rose-tinted glasses are powerful things. Seductive, alluring and the films we saw back then are windows into that distant land.

Deep Impact has a surprisingly low score on Rotten Tomatoes. 38% I think. I would have have scored much higher but then again nostalgia would drive my vote.

The central character, a TV reporter played by Tia Leoni, is the perfect neutral foul for the apocalyptic action around her. I read that Hollywood insiders think she never lived up to her potential as an actress. I saw her in a Jurassic Park film I'm sure. It's true, she sort of disappeared. A shame. Like everyone in Deep Impact, she's getting on in years now.

Robert Duvall, one of the films elders, is 93 these days! All that olive oil and good vino in three Godfather films paid off! His character in Impact, Spurgeon Tanner, the aging astronaut, is played in characteristically reserved Duvall fashion, which I really like. His clean-cut old-timer says one of its best short lines when sees the comet close-up for the first time,

'Mary Mother of God!'

Or something similar. 

Captain Tanner goes on to lead his young crew into the film's heroic heart with an act of selfless bravery as they head into the comet and oblivion. Humanity is saved by altruism. Has that idea had it's day in Hollywood?

My favourite line in Deep Impact, from an albeit short  role, comes from Dr. Wolf at the start of the movie. He's just received Leo Biedermann's astronomy query and is reading through it whilst eating a particularly floppy slice of pizza at the observatory. Punching in the coordinates, he pizza- mutters,

'Well, hi there little fella, where are you going in such a hurry?'

A moment later, staring at the screen, Dr.Wolf drops his food and the rest, as they say, is a disaster film.

But boy I still so want a slice of that pizza! 

Do you have a movie you just love readers?

TWISTERS with an S

Later this month a new disaster flick hits the cinemas, Twisters. 

You'll recognise the name from the Nineties guster, Twister. They've just added an S.

The old Twister starred the late great Bill Paxton, who is best known to Sci-fiers of our age as the jittery private Hudson in ALIENS. I remember clearly Bill chucking a shed load of small balls up into a tornado in Twister. I think they were trackers. I wonder if the new Twisters film has balls?

Twister was part of that Nineties disaster triple that defined the genre for the decade in my mind: the other two flicks being Dante's Peak and Deep Impact.

You could shove in Independence Day, Armageddon and Lake Placid as well, but they seem outliers to the main hat-trick of disasters.

All three had there peaks and cracks but I recall them all fondly. 

Memorable bits for me were: the balls of Twister, the pyroclastic cloud in Dantes Orak and probably the most memorable bit among many in Deep Impact for me was early on when the astronomer Dr.Wolf checks the kid Beiderman's floppy disc, says something like 'now were you going in such a hurry little fella?' and drops his slice of gooey pizza when he sees the end-point! I love that scene! Dunno why! 

Did you like Nineties disasters readers?

LEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND

Being a fan of disaster movies old and new I watched, with the Missus, Leave The World Behind, yesterday. 

Basically a cybergeddon scenario it stars Ethan Hawk, Julia Roberts and Kevin Bacon [Kev's not on even the poster!] - all getting on in years - dealing with things falling apart.

There are hints of 2012's The Wall and 2009's 2012. The whole tone is one of urban indifference and skepticism and has a Donnie Darko - American Beauty out of body feel to it.

It taps into that ever-present Western angst that we are surrounded by foes capable of sparking chaos at anytime.

Have you seen Leave the World Behind? Whats your favourite disaster film?

BIRD BOX

We watched Bird Box the other night on NF. 

Its a sci-fi apocalyptic flick about global mass suicides. Not a pleasant premise at all but the mystery of the cause keeps its rolling along. All we see are shadows and breezes and then .... bam!

Sandra Bullock plays the lead along with two kids she calls boy and girl. John Malkevich is the unhinged neighbour. he reminded me of Tim Robbins's mad cellar dweller in Cruise's War of the Worlds.

Ms. Bullock plays a decent straight role again and holds our attention as she tries to navigate with her two wards through a ravaged lethal world.

There are similarities to M.Night Shiyamalan's The Happening, an older film, which first gave us the ominous wind, the harbinger of self-destruction. As i can't recall how it ends I can't the finales.

In the epoch of a global pandemic Bird Box strikes a sort of chord as the human tide slows to a standstill trying to figure out what to do next.

Have you seen Bird Box or the Happening? What about A Quiet Place or The Silence?

I imagine there are many sci-fi stories similar to these too. Do you know any readers?

LEFT BEHIND IN THE SHIMMER: TWO DISASTER FLICKS

In apocalyptical mood, I watched two American disaster movies this week on Netflix, Annihilation and Left Behind.

Annihilation stars Natalie Portman as a grieving widow professor who enters an alien zone known as the Shimmer - which I think is set in Florida -  in search of her missing husband. Its based on an award-winning novel of the same title by Jeff Vandermeer.

I've seen this flick before and despite being a complete box office flop I really enjoyed it. Its interesting and well-made I thought. There are strange goings-on in the Shimmer and nothing is as it seems. There are also at least two furiously large predators, which set the heart-rate going. It calls to mind other movies like The Wall [German sci-fi], The Mist and Neither the Sea Nor the Sand [based on the novel by erstwhile newsreader Gordon Honeycombe]. I won't spoil anything but I enjoyed this film. I'm surprised it bombed.

Left Behind on the other hand is not like Annihilation, although it is about the end of the world, sort of. Where Annihilation is thought-provoking and interesting, Left Behind is a banal mess worthy of the Razzies it was awarded at the time. Yet I had to watch it!

It stars once impressive actor Nic Cage in an excruciatingly naff role as a Long Island airline pilot. Normally pilots aren't naff at all but somehow the director manages to just up the cringe-worthiness of everyone and everything in this film.  Imagine a terrible day-time TV movie set on a plane morphed with Sunday School. I don't want to give anything away though in case you feel oddly compelled to watch it like I did.

Amazingly when I checked Wiki the original story has a chequered history peppered with law suits and court cases. Who would have thought that this tale could garner such enthusiasm. Even more surprising are the number of sequels, which I don't think I'll be watching. Just not for me.

Left Behind reminded me of a the slow burn of the Stephen King flick The Langoliers if you've seen that. The central effect of people not being there called to mind the 80's cult hit The Night of the Comet.

Have you seen either Annihilation or Left Behind?

G R E E N L A N D

Not seen a new blockbuster for, well a year, so I thought I'd check out Gerard Butler's new apocalypse Greenland on Prime last night.

Unlike my Missus, I like disaster movies and the bigger the disaster the better, so an extinction level event is a no brainer. The Butler usually delivers big on the no need to think much stakes too so I was sold when I saw it advertised. The title Greenland was intriguing too.

It's a comet movie pure and simple, but I won't give anything away, although you can guess what happens if you watch the trailer. I'm not sure Greenland tells us much more than we already knew about the end of the world. OK, maybe having a 'full tank of gas' might help somehow.

Imagine Deep Impact and 2012 spliced together and you have Greenland. I don't think it deals with the whole comet thing as well as Deep Impact or older entries like Meteor or When Worlds Collide for that matter, but you'll make your own mind up as it approaches.

I often ponder if this kind of movie can still be classed as Sci-Fi or is it something else? Interestingly 'disaster' means evil-starred event.

Anyways, I wonder if you'll be taking a trip to Greenland?

LAST BROADCASTS

As sentient beings we worry.

We worry about the unknown and our demise.

Moments of global worry have filled the imaginations of Sci-Fi and disaster film and radio writers for decades.

Watching these films again helps me to see how we cope in fictional disasters in the face of our own very real viral calamity now.

Often these films and plays contain stark beginnings, last TV and radio broadcasts and occasionally happy ends.

I'll start with the powerful introduction to HG Well's War of the Worlds as read by Orson Welles in his infamous radio broadcast in 1938.



The 1953 movie version of War of the Worlds captures Well's final words offering humanity a beacon of light, an ending somewhat at odds with the world at the moment.

In 1961 came a movie which to me is the finest of all disaster tales, The Day the Earth Caught Fire and the anti-hero's final broadcast as he walks down an empty street is truly sobering.

The Day of the Triffids offered us some hope at the end in 1962 when simple seawater would save the world.

Deep Impact in 1998 gave Tia Leoni her best role as a TV news broadcaster who becomes the comforting voice for millions. Her final bulletin explains the rescue plans, the missile strikes and a tragic global lottery.

In 2002 28 Days later painted a startlingly stark picture of a vacant echoey London.

I wonder if we will see empty streets like this soon?

Can you think of any more memorable beginnings or final broadcasts in disaster films readers?

DEEP DANTE, PEAK IMPACT

I remember when the big three disaster movies came out of Hollywood in the Nineties: Dantes peak, Deep Impact and Twister.

These three movies seemed to blow a good and welcome deal of lava and gust into a sagging sub-genre at the time.

OK, there were other disaster movies around like Armageddon and Lake Placid [a disaster if the croc got you!] but to me they were side salad to the main course.

Dante's Peak has always stuck in my mind, a sort of Jaws for the volcano film. It just all came together and then ... blew apart. It was also a geography lesson dressed up as a movie and I'm sure even modern teachers use it in class. Pyroclastic clouds, vents and lava flows. Its all there for the budding vulcanologist. They were great special effects. Even the acting wasn't too bad: Pierce Brosnan as the unreliable boffin who cried wolf once before and for us TERMINATOR fans Linda Hamilton got time off from saving the future and just had to save the town. Not sure if it spawned any toys but I enjoyed the Peak and still do.

Deep Impact had a ... well deep impact on me. I remember so many scenes in it even now decades later so it must have done. A modern twist on the old trope of the earthbound meteor, I just sort of loved this whole film. At the start when the scientist is chomping a huge sloppy slice of pizza, is shocked to see the trajectory of the meteor on his screen, whereupon he hastily shoves discs and stuff in an envelope and drives off at speed to alert the sleeping world. He even abandoned the best slice of pizza I've ever seen and sadly crashed his car. There are many more scenes I could wax lyrical about: President Morgan Freeman telling Journo Tia Leoni it only seemed like she had him over a barrel; when Tia Leoni joins her estranged Dad on a beach where they wait for the impact's tidal wave to sweep them away and perhaps the stand-out scene, where the 'kids' stand on the hill at the end of the film staring up at the two vast meteorite chunks [I think its two] hurtling to Earth. There's just something about how they stare up helplessly at these harbingers of global doom that got me. Again, I can't imagine any Deep Impact toys but it's meteoric mate Armageddon brought us a few I think.

Twister is the least memorable of the three for me. I think it was the late great Bill Paxton as the lead scientist, this time running into tornadoes instead of xenomorphs. I remember the F scale being introduced to us all and I imagine like me everyone tried to not think aboput an F1 tornado landing near our homes. I can't think of any stand-out scenes as there was basically a lot of car driving and funnels of superfast wind everywhere. They did chuck a crate of mini-ball-sensors into one twister to see what would happen. Doubt if the subject matter lent itself to toys but I'd watch the flick again.

Did you watch the big three disasters of the Nineties? Would you include different disaster films from back then?

ITS HATCHING HOT THE DAY THE GARDEN CAUGHT FIRE!

I've been enjoying the unseasonably hot weather here in the UK this week, especially after work! My Missus is struggling in the heat so has a rest in the cool upstairs so to keep the noise down I relax in the garden with the dog for a couple of hours till tea-time.

Alas my blogging and answering comments/ emails is suffering. I hope to catch up soon.

Its baking in the garden so Blue and me head for the shade offered by two large parasols and an old drooping crab apple. Thus cooled and loafing on the sun lounger I've been relaxing with a book.

My current novel is The Hatching by Ezekial Boone, which my older brother Steve recommended. Just like Steve and his gothic passions the Hatching is right up my creepy alley too.

Like those terrific pulp killer bug paperbacks of the 70's and 80's by the likes of Guy N. Smith, Boone's book is a pest-fest of spider mayhem on a global scale. Arachnogeddon!

Alas the summer heat seems to massage my eyelids shut and I often fall asleep reading! It is incredibly hot for Britain at 300C. Today was the hottest day of 2018 and amazingly there are moorland wildfires in Lancashire. I can well imagine record-breaking temperatures in July or August this year.

Super hot weather makes me think of one my favourite disaster films, which I only recently watched again free on You Tube, The Day The Earth Caught Fire.

Made and set in 1950's London this black and white gem concerns itself with the environmental fears of the cold war: nuclear tests, missiles and the Earth's orbit. 

The film is told through the eyes of hard-pressed and dehydrating newspaper journalists at one particular paper. The combination of the hacks buckling in the heat trying to uncover the truth and the increasingly catastrophic weather events around the world makes for a fascinating and exciting disaster movie, intelligently made and convincingly set. Almost SWORDesque!

If you like films about investigative journalism like All The Presidents Men and Spotlight you should like The Day The Earth Caught Fire.

Have you seen it?