Independence Day: Resurgence (2016)

Tags

Action, Disaster, Sci-fi

One day when aliens arrive, I wonder how they’ll be.
We’ve seen it all on film and page,
From sudden, savage wars to wage
To peaceful coexistent folk
We must take care to not provoke,
Though they’re the rarer sort we see.

More often, they’re the hostile type, who simply want a fight,
For resources or new terrains
Or guinea pigs to harvest brains.
And when the flying saucers land
For real, we won’t know what they’ve planned,
But likely most will fear the sight.

We’ve taught ourselves suspicion of the sky through new releases,
For not all otherworldly guests are charmed by Reese’s Pieces.
__________________

MPAA rating: PG-13

Well, I finally got around to seeing one of the most maligned films of last year, a follow-up to the alien invasion/disaster favorite Independence Day that has been widely derided as a wholly detestable flop of a sequel, but contrary to popular opinion, I liked it all right. True, coming twenty years after the 1996 original, it’s not as good as the first, but it’s not an affront to the original either, thanks to the return of director Roland Emmerich and most of the original cast members, with the key exception of Will Smith.

One thing I liked is the appealing way that the world has risen from the ashes of the first movie’s events. Thanks to remnants of alien technology, it’s more of a sci-fi world with moon bases and flying vehicles, and after facing potential annihilation, the political tensions have subsided in favor of utopian cooperation between countries. Sure, it’s probably wishful thinking, but I found it believable that the Independence Day invasion has become a shared 9/11-style memory for the world. Yet, there are still scars, from the mental trauma of former President Whitmore (Bill Pullman) to the constant worry that there might be an even more insidious “resurgence.”  And guess what? There is, and mankind isn’t the only race to prepare for a rematch!

Resurgence does its best balancing the return of original cast members (Jeff Goldblum, Judd Hirsch, even Brent Spiner, whose Dr. Okun apparently wasn’t killed by that surgery scene gone wrong) with newer faces like Liam Hemsworth, Maika Monroe, and Jessie Usher as fighter pilots who have grown up in the wake of the alien invasion. Playing the son of Smith’s character, Usher doesn’t have the same swagger or sense of humor, which instead go to the less memorable Hemsworth, and the ensemble doesn’t really leave room for much depth for any of the characters, with death scenes and the like being such quick tragedies that they leave little impression. Moreover, the higher-tech action tries to exceed the first film for explosive bombast and extensive but barely seen loss of life, just as the alien mother ship here dwarfs the ships from the first invasion.

And for those who hated this movie, everything I just said in that paragraph is a negative, but does it have to be? I tend to think that many have forgotten just how cheesy, rambling, and overblown the first film was; it’s not great filmmaking, but that cheese factor is its appeal. We get to see a wide swath of mankind facing off against alien invaders, with nerds, Air Force pilots, and Presidents banding together to save the world. Resurgence does more or less the same thing, along with many self-conscious tributes to the original formula, from a comment about destroying landmarks to a narrow escape that just has to save the dog.

Don’t get me wrong; there’s plenty to criticize, like character changes (both Smith and Goldblum’s wife are written off as dead from the start, and Okun is revealed as gay for some reason), unoriginal plot developments (another giant alien queen), and a final scene that’s begging for a sequel I doubt will happen. Then again, who thought this sequel would happen? I just feel that there’s still effects-heavy fun to be had for those who don’t expect much. You don’t watch this kind of movie for drama, characters, or emotional involvement, though what there is of those is decent. It’s watchable because it’s a disaster, perhaps in more ways than one, and some people just want to watch the world explode.

Best line: (former President Whitmore) “We convinced an entire generation that this is a battle that we could win. We sacrifice for each other no matter what the cost. And that’s worth fighting for.”

 

Rank: List Runner-Up

 

© 2017 S.G. Liput
482 Followers and Counting

 

World Trade Center (2006)

Tags

Disaster, Drama, History

 

Do you recall the sirens?
The smoke-enveloped holes?
The billow blurred
And heavenward
Conveyed the victims’ souls.

Do you recall the terror
Of what was next to come,
The utter hell
As bodies fell
And minds and hearts went numb?

I didn’t watch the pictures
Ingrained on every brain.
I’ve seen them since
And felt the wince
That others bore with pain.

Like me, a generation
Has grown up towerless.
The shock and awe
That once was raw
We’ve had years to suppress.

One might regard us lucky,
The way we understand,
A distance free
From history
That many saw firsthand.

Although the blow is muted
For those younger than I,
We won’t let fade
The price once paid
By heroes when they die.
________________

MPAA rating: PG-13

Last year, I wanted to commemorate 9/11 by seeing the deeply effective United 93, and this year I did the same with World Trade Center, the slightly less acclaimed film from the same year. Based on the real-life experiences of Port Authority police officers John McLoughlin and Will Jimeno, who were buried under the rubble of Ground Zero, World Trade Center poignantly recreates the cavalcade of emotions of that infamous day.

From the first scenes, the film conjures the calm before the storm as everyday people perform their morning routines. Neither Jimeno (Michael Peña) nor his no-nonsense sergeant McLoughlin (Nicolas Cage) seems notable in their roles, yet when a plane flies into the North Tower of the World Trade Center, neither hesitates to venture into its lower levels. These early scenes highlight the uncertainty of the moment: conflicting reports of the severity of the damage, falling bodies, officers and civilians alike staring in shock at the smoking tower; and most of the scenes of the building seemed to be actual footage rather than a re-creation.

Despite the potent depiction of familiar events, most of the film is concerned with the aftermath, from McLoughlin and Jimeno struggling to stay alive beneath the debris to their worrying families. While a few scenes are confusing and the pacing becomes a bit paralyzed during their wait, the story still holds a relatable force in each family’s agonizing anticipation and the relieved cheer at any good news. Both Cage and Peña deliver excellent performances, as do Maria Bello and Maggie Gyllenhaal as their respective wives, and the ordeal is compelling enough that tears are probable by the end. (Also, Lost alert for William Mapother or “Ethan” as a Marine.)

World Trade Center is an admirable tribute to the first responders of 9/11, an impartial testimony thankfully free of the political messages for which its director, Oliver Stone, is known. I especially respect the religious overtones so often absent or limited in disaster movies; here, they extend to desperate prayers, God-led duties, and even a literal manifestation of Jesus. Even so, with its recognizable stars and anxieties common to most disaster films, it feels like a 9/11 movie, whereas United 93 felt like observing the actual events. Nonetheless, both are worthwhile commemorations of the courageous sacrifices made fifteen years ago.

Best line: (McLoughlin) “9/11 showed us what human beings are capable of. The evil, yeah, sure. But it also brought out the goodness we forgot could exist. People taking care of each other for no other reason than it was the right thing to do. It’s important for us to talk about that good, to remember. ‘Cause I saw a lot of it that day.”

 

Rank: List Runner-Up

 

© 2016 S. G. Liput
407 Followers and Counting

Everest (2015)

Tags

Disaster, Drama, History

 

(Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was inspired by Earth Day, which I incorporated as a mountain-shaped acrostic below.)

 

Everest:
As ladybugs climb,
Reaching toward the apex,
Toward the one place from which to fly,
Humans will strive for the summit, but do they know why?
Do we know why we cherish a challenge, perhaps our muscles to flex?
A conqueror’s motives are not so complex, and yet the worst danger or risk he expects is stoking his soul to the sky and arms him with courage to live or to die.
Your trials, O Nature, are hopelessly high, and yet mankind eagerly seeks to defy and, foolish or fearless, adventurers try and search for what you have next.
____________________

MPAA rating: PG-13

I haven’t seen many mountain-climbing movies, but the 1996 Everest disaster is such a fascinating example of human hubris gone wrong that it has warranted several books and films on the subject. My VC is well-versed on Jon Krakauer’s bestselling account Into Thin Air, and I somewhat remember the 1997 TV movie Into Thin Air: Death on Everest with Christopher McDonald. In light of more recent deadly incidents, like last year’s avalanche caused by the Nepal earthquake, the 1996 events seemed like a timely tragedy worth giving the big-screen, star-studded Hollywood treatment, and this is one example of the Hollywood treatment doing it right.

One of the shortcomings of the Into Thin Air movie and one of the causes of the deaths in the first place was the sheer number of climbers involved. The original film had so many characters whose faces were usually covered by necessary goggles or masks that I had trouble telling them apart. Everest fixes that problem by sacrificing some realism; I was much better able to distinguish between actors, but that was because they kept illogically removing their masks. My VC pointed out that impracticality, and considering the extreme cold endured by everyone, it became more noticeable yet still forgivable from a movie standpoint.

The presence of many famous actors didn’t detract the overall believability at all, from rising stars like Jason Clarke as expedition founder Rob Hall to better-known A-list actors like Jake Gyllenhaal as second team leader Scott Fischer or Keira Knightley as Hall’s pregnant wife, who gets the most emotional scenes. As for the climbers, we get to know the most important with some well-paced calm-before-the-storm introductions: Josh Brolin’s adventurous family man Beck Weathers; John Hawkes (Lost alert!) as desperate-to-summit Doug Hansen; Naoko Mori as Yasuko Namba, who has only Everest to complete her climbs of all Seven Summits; and a host of other amateurs and professionals (Sam Worthington, Martin Henderson). While the introductions aren’t thorough, it’s fair to say that everyone is worth liking and rooting for, and my ignorance of who survived and who didn’t made the eventual tragedy all the more potent.

In addition to the talented ensemble (who filmed on location only as high as base camp), the vision of Everest itself is immense and thrilling, with cinematography that easily could have earned an Oscar nomination. Sadly, disaster movies are no longer the award magnets of Irwin Allen’s day, and save for a lone SAG and Saturn award, Everest has been mostly snubbed. Even without the physical accolades, Everest deserves the positive reviews it has earned, and I rather wish I’d been able to experience it on the big screen. It is a sad story open to miracles that reminds us just how dangerous a sleeping giant can be.

Best line: (Doug Hansen) “I’m climbing Mount Everest… because I can… because to be able to climb that high and see that kind of beauty that nobody ever sees, it’d be a crime not to.”

 

Rank: List-Worthy

 

© 2016 S. G. Liput

383 Followers and Counting

 

The 33 (2015)

Tags

Disaster, Drama, History

 

(Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was for a san san, in which three words or ideas are repeated three times each in a eight-line rhyme scheme of a-b-c-a-b-d-c-d. Since san san is Chinese for “three three,” I thought the perfect film for this was last year’s The 33 about the Chilean miners.)

 

The sun was swapped for stone, above our heads and in our hearts.
With patience, we awaited news from those who thought us dead.
We lived within our hollow grave, refusing to be still.
How many lack the patience that a hollow grave imparts,
No choice but to bemoan in hope the stone above our heads?
Anticipating sky again, we found our patience heaven-sent
And looked beyond the stone above our heads, as doomed men will.
Arising from a hollow grave is not without its precedent.
__________________

MPAA rating: PG-13

I’m sure most recall the rollercoaster of emotions that accompanied news of the Chilean miners who were trapped by a cave-in for 69 days in the San Jose mine. The international rescue effort and the strong faith of the miners turned the 2010 mining accident into one of the most inspirational true-life stories in years, and as soon as the last miner reached the surface, I knew it was only a matter of time before a movie dramatized the incident.

Honestly, I thought it would be much sooner than five years, but here we have the based-on-a-true-story film for which we’ve been waiting. I expected it to be great, but I’m content that it’s good. The filmmakers succeed in presenting a comprehensive account of what happened before, during, and after the accident, and it’s hard to fault their efforts. The beginning introduces the most notable of the thirty-three miners: Mario Sepúlveda (Antonio Banderas), who acted as the leader of the buried miners; Luis Urzúa (Lou Diamond Phillips), the danger-conscious foreman; Álex (Mario Casas), the family man with a baby on the way; Darío, who is estranged from his sister (Juliette Binoche); Yonni (Oscar Nunez), whose extramarital affair comes to a head during the crisis; and numerous others who aren’t given enough screen time to make an impression. It’s easy to confuse the characters at first, but time and some earnest character moments help to distinguish the most important.

Above ground, the drilling plans are spearheaded by both professionals (James Brolin; Gabriel Byrne, who I never would have considered for a Hispanic role) and politicians (Bob Gunton, also pretending to be Latino; and Brazilian actor Rodrigo Santoro, known to me as the much-maligned Paulo on Lost). After the search effort turns into a rescue effort, the details of the operation are prudently depicted through real-life news reports.

I suppose the worst thing I can say about The 33 is that it feels inconsistent. The actual accident is spectacular, if a bit hard to see in the dark, but then the emotions and tensions of the subsequent waiting and anticipating come in fits and starts depending on which miners are on-screen. One potentially powerful final meal strikingly captures the men’s hopes and fears, but the tone oddly drifts between heavy and light.

Despite the inconsistencies, The 33 triumphs where it matters most, that climactic rescue that had people around the world wiping tears from their eyes. The ending will come as no surprise to those who know the story, but the film manages to give its audience further understanding of how the miners and their families felt and represents the solidarity both below and aboveground. It may not be the Oscar-worthy powerhouse I feel it could have been, but the pre-credits depiction of all thirty-three real-life miners ends the film on the highest note possible.

Best line: (one of the miners, answering why he doesn’t hate an outcast) “Hate is for children.”

 

Rank: List Runner-Up

 

© 2016 S. G. Liput

380 Followers and Counting

 

Earthquake (1974) / San Andreas (2015)

Tags

Action, Disaster, Drama, Thriller

 

Just another normal day,
Just keeping normal cares at bay,
But then to everyone’s dismay,
The ground begins to shake.
The rocks and hills begin to play,
The soundest structures start to sway,
Entire buildings fall away
Amid the sudden quake.

If you make it through the scare,
You wonder how your loved ones fare.
Do they live and how and where?
You worry more for them.
The worst disasters we must bear
At best encourage us to dare
To save the ones for whom we care,
Whom danger might condemn.
__________________

MPAA rating for Earthquake: PG
MPAA rating for San Andreas: PG-13

There’s something strangely entertaining about a disaster. Whether it be the dated survival tales of the 1970s or the modern effects-heavy world-wreckers, it seems clear that it’s not just the Joker who likes to watch the world burn. Of course, this doesn’t apply to real-life disasters. Films like The Impossible and World Trade Center are serious and painful reminders of tragedies, but others like San Andreas are enjoyed as popcorn fun simply because they’re not real. This seems like a puzzling dichotomy, but it’s no less true.

I thought I’d do a comparison of two similar films from different eras that exploit people’s fondness for destruction: 1974’s Earthquake and last year’s San Andreas. Both revolve around earthquakes blind-siding California and people’s struggles to survive. Both include experts who saw the quake coming but didn’t act fast enough, crumbling cityscapes, characters getting trapped in a parking garage, and a dam’s destruction and subsequent deluge (one at the beginning, one at the climax). While a few of the shaking scenes are even similar (both show a glimpse of a cook suffering at the hands of his stove), the two films are on entirely different levels. Earthquake was groundbreaking at the time and even won an uncontested Oscar for Best Visual Effects, but it seems quaint next to the comprehensive devastation of San Andreas, which is ironic since the quake in Earthquake is a 9.9 on the Richter scale while those in San Andreas only reach 9.6. (Yeah, only.)

I was curious to see Earthquake because of its tie-in to an episode of Quantum Leap, in which Sam leaps into a stuntman who features in a famous scene from this movie, complete with a clip showing Lorne Greene. It’s clear now as it surely was then that Earthquake is a gimmick film. Released at the height of the ‘70s disaster craze and the same year as The Towering Inferno, it seemed to be the result of producers saying to themselves, “Let’s see, we know of movies with a plane disaster, a ship disaster, a hurricane disaster, a fire disaster…What’s left? I know! An earthquake!” Plus, the film was accompanied by a new speaker system called Sensurround, which was meant to heighten the feeling of experiencing an earthquake and which was shorter-lived than the early 3-D craze. With so much effort put into accentuating the quake itself, everything else about the movie seems secondary, even though the actual shaking is relatively short.

Like other disaster films of the era, Earthquake is jam-packed with stars: Charlton Heston as a businessman unhappy with his marriage, Ava Gardner as his sullen wife, Genevieve Bujold as his lover, Lorne Greene as his boss, George Kennedy as a policeman, Richard Roundtree as a stuntman, Walter Matthau (under a pseudonym) as a drunk, and Marjoe Gortner as a psychopathic National Guardsman who uses the disaster for his own empowerment. And that’s not even half of the ensemble. It’s clear what the filmmakers were trying to do, focusing on a large swath of the population dealing with a huge disaster in different ways, yet only five or so characters really matter and even the film seems to forget about many secondaries by the end. Certain scenes are impressive for their time, and several are tense as characters try to escape the aftermath of the quake. I just wish that the cast and the narrative overall had been streamlined, perhaps with a less downbeat ending.

San Andreas, on the other hand, is everything a disaster movie should be, with all the unmitigated damage you could want. We see dams bursting, cars crashing, helicopters crashing, buildings toppled or chipped apart, and entire cities reduced to a flooded, smoking ruin, and it’s cool! Of course, it would be horrific if this actually happened (and I suppose it could), but it’s a feast for the eyes boasting an astronomical body count with no actual bodies. While I don’t really buy the causes for disasters like The Day after Tomorrow or 2012, an earthquake is more plausible and thus more alarming, though I was confused by the inclusion of a tsunami. (Seriously, wouldn’t a tsunami go out toward the sea and hit Hawaii instead of doubling back toward the source of the quake?)

Dwayne Johnson (whom everyone still calls the Rock) isn’t what most would consider a consummate actor, but he certainly knows how to play a tough, capable lead such as air rescue pilot Ray Gaines. Returning as his co-star from Race to Witch Mountain, Carla Gugino plays his soon-to-be ex-wife, whom Ray must save from certain death, along with their daughter Blake (Alexandra Daddario of the Percy Jackson films). There’s also Paul Giamatti’s worried seismologist and Ioan Gruffudd’s architect/home-wrecker, whose character is tested by stress and easily written off as selfish. While there are still many minor players, Ray’s family is the focus, which proves to be far more entertaining than the scattered attention of Earthquake. Screenwriter Carlton Cuse gives just enough emotional baggage and stress-kindled romance to be relatable, while throwing in a few moments that seemed directly drawn from his experience with Lost.

Neither film is what I’d call great cinema, but as a disaster movie, San Andreas is easily the better movie and one of the more exciting entries in the genre. I enjoyed watching it a second time even more because I got to watch my easily excitable dad jump out of his seat with two dozen “OMG” moments. Watching the two films side-by-side did emphasize one of the differences between the old wave and the new wave of disaster movies. While the likes of The Poseidon Adventure and Earthquake weren’t afraid to kill off main roles and leave the audience sharing some grief with the characters, more recent films are more concerned with keeping the protagonists together and finding a silver lining. It’s hard to say which is a better method, but one thing is for sure: movies like San Andreas and Earthquake are why I will never move to California!

Best line from Earthquake (which ties in to my elevator list): (dam caretaker, when told things seem fine after an elevator incident) “Right. People drown in elevators every damn day of the week!”

Best line from San Andreas: (young Ollie, after getting Blake’s phone number for his older brother) “I can’t wait to be twenty.”

 

Rank for Earthquake: Honorable Mention

Rank for San Andreas: List Runner-Up

 

© 2016 S. G. Liput

367 Followers and Counting

 

Armageddon (1998)

Tags

Action, Disaster

 

An asteroid with nothing to slow it
Will hit the earth unless we blow it.
Some experts, therefore,
Must destroy it before
The end of the world as we know it.

Don’t bother the National Guard,
The Navy Seals, or Scotland Yard.
What we need right now
Are the skilled and lowbrow
Who know how to dig and dig hard.

They’ve known ever since they began it
This mission needs real men to man it,
The tough and untried
With professional pride,
Emerging to save the whole planet.
_____________________

MPAA rating: PG-13

Armageddon has pretty much everything you could expect from a Michael Bay film: cocky and attractive hotshots, semi-serious life-and-death circumstances, underdogs rising up for their moment of truth, special effects up the wazoo, and explosions, lots and lots of explosions. It’s a film that can be both written off as scientifically inaccurate baloney and enjoyed as unreasonably entertaining baloney. Essentially, it’s a beautiful disaster.

It starts out a lot like Gravity, with a space shuttle spacewalk being cut short by a storm of debris, or in this case meteoroids. NASA quickly investigates the recent rash of destructive meteor showers and discovers that the big Texas-sized mama of them all is headed for a direct collision that will undoubtedly extinguish all life on Earth (except cockroaches, of course). Mankind’s only hope is to bring in a band of drilling experts, blue-collar ruffians who would normally be the last people called in during a disaster but who have the know-how to drill through the asteroid’s surface so NASA can blow it up with a nuke. There’s the leader Harry Stamper (Bruce Willis); self-confident A.J. (Ben Affleck), who is in love with Harry’s daughter (Liv Tyler) much to Harry’s chagrin; the unhinged genius (Steve Buscemi); the faithful sidekick with family issues (Will Patton); the big muscle (Michael Clarke Duncan); the fat guy (Ken Hudson Campbell); and that other guy (Owen Wilson). Throw in Billy Bob Thornton as a NASA scientist, William Fichtner as the military astronaut leader, and Peter Stormare as a semi-crazy Russian cosmonaut, and you’ve got a star-studded blowout of a movie.

Most of these actors have gone on to serious dramatic roles, but seeing them all together in a film like Armageddon brings to mind the big disaster films of the 1970s. Like some of those (Earthquake, for example), it’s certainly an open question as to whether this disaster is actually a good movie. The science is borderline silly, the editing choppy, the dialogue often corny, and plenty of unrealistic clichés abound, including not one but two down-to-the-last-second countdowns. I, for one, thought that the surface of the asteroid was absurdly crystalline in appearance, unlike any actual space surface I’ve seen, and the title shows an annoying lack of Biblical knowledge, since Armageddon isn’t the generic end of the world but an actual place where a battle of armies takes place in Revelation.

However, these complaints don’t really detract from what Armageddon the movie is: eye candy entertainment on a big, exciting, not-to-be-taken-too-seriously scale. The race against time is engrossing, not because we deeply care about these characters, but because the stakes are so high that suspension of disbelief goes out the airlock in favor of simply enjoying the ride. All the actors fill their roles well, particularly Willis as the experienced and heroic leader, and even if many of them come off as caricatures, they look like they had fun taking part. While the editing is erratic during some of the action scenes, Bay taps into that primal satisfaction of watching things blow up, whether it be New York streets or the surface of a space rock. The most thrilling scene takes place in the ISS, when a fire breaks out—wait, this reminds me of Gravity too.

Armageddon fits into that half-honored genre of popcorn blockbusters, the likes of which critics deride and ordinary moviegoers pay to see in droves. Its flaws are self-evident yet oddly insignificant in the face of the overall package. While end-of-the-world movies have become grim and somewhat more realistic over the years, Armageddon is an example of a big, long, funny, appealing disaster.

Best line: (one of Harry’s drillers, as Harry is trying to shoot A.J. for sleeping with his daughter) “This is illegal, man.” (Harry) “I’m temporarily insane, Rock. It’s all right.”

VC’s best line: (Harry, listing his drillers’ demands) “Yeah, one more thing. Um, none of them wanna pay taxes again…ever.”

Rank: List Runner-Up

© 2016 S. G. Liput
356 Followers and Counting

 

Source Code (2011)

Tags

Action, Disaster, Drama, Sci-fi

 

Time moves forward, onward toward
A future none can change or guess,
A train that all must get aboard
And some debark with suddenness.

But what if one could board again
To pick up pieces not yet broke,
To change the now before it’s then,
To douse the fire before the smoke?
____________

Rating: PG-13

 

Have you ever noticed a movie that you immediately wanted to see because you could tell solely from the trailer or the premise that you would like it but for some reason or other you just never got around to seeing it even years after it came out? That never happens, right? Well, that’s what happened with me and Source Code, but finally I saw it and found it to be exactly the kind of film I was hoping for and expecting: fast-paced, compelling, and mind-challenging.

When Captain Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) wakes up in the body of random commuter Sean Fentress on his way to Chicago, he is shocked at having no memory of how he got there and even more shocked when the train explodes and kills him. Next, he wakes up somewhere else and is told he is part of a secret government experiment for “time reassignment,” which can repeatedly give him the last eight minutes of Fentress’ life in order to figure out the identity of the bomber. Instructed by a sympathetic adviser (Vera Farmiga) and the demanding creator of this Source Code technology (Jeffrey Wright), Stevens returns to the train, where every passenger is a suspect and every repeat reveals something new.

If it seems like a mix of Quantum Leap and Groundhog Day, well, it is, and there’s not a thing wrong with that. I love the concepts of both, and fusing the two was what initially attracted me. Yet as easy as it might be to write the film off as unoriginal, Source Code takes some unexpected turns that not only question the morality of Stevens’s situation but bend its sci-fi idea to turn a no-win scenario into an oddly satisfying ending. (My VC was of a different mind and felt the ending was too unbelievable to be fulfilling.)

Throughout it all, Gyllenhaal provides a surprisingly emotional performance through his eight-minute missions, and the mystery was both enjoyable and urgent. (It was cool how the filmmakers incorporated Quantum Leap’s Scott Bakula for a brief but significant unseen role.) There are certainly unanswered questions, such as the overcomplicated details of how the Source Code actually works and what happens to the real Sean Fentress every time Stevens jumps into him. Nevertheless, like Groundhog Day, Source Code overcomes all its repetition and deserves multiple viewings; just remember, “everything is going to be okay.” Here’s a funny parody from MAD that made me want to see it even more:

 

Best line: (Stevens) “Christina, what would you do if you knew you had less than one minute to live?” (Christina, a fellow passenger) “I’d make those seconds count.”

 

Rank: List-Worthy

 

© 2015 S. G. Liput

340 Followers and Counting

 

The Towering Inferno (1974)

Tags

Action, Disaster, Drama, Thriller

 

 

I am the fire that burns out of sight,

Starting my rampage as merely a wisp.

Celebrate victory into the night;

I will burn you and your spire to a crisp.

 

Why do they build these skyscrapers so high,

Making it simpler with every floor

For me to cut off and trap in the sky

Everyone over my fiery roar?

 

Look at the people who panic and flee,

Visitors boasting illustrious names.

Look at the firemen battling me,

Feeble to fight in the face of my flames.

 

I am inferno, the new height of heat,

No other bastion of bragging is hotter.

Top of the world, Ma! None can defeat

Me or my mayhem, except—oh no—water!

________________

 

(Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was for a persona poem, one written in the voice of someone/something else. I’ve written a few like that recently, but this film offered another good opportunity.)

Released at the height of the 1970s fascination with disaster films, The Towering Inferno is one of the best films produced by “Master of Disaster” Irwin Allen. Featuring one of those great ensembles of former power players, the film plays as a modern land-based version of the Titanic story. Just as the Titanic set out without enough lifeboats for everyone aboard, the Glass Tower’s builder (William Holden) sees no problem with holding a top-floor party in a 138-story building with no working fire suppression system and later refuses to understand the severity of the situation. Likewise, the Titanic did have all the boats it was required to, just as the corner-cutting engineer (a loathsome Richard Chamberlain) insists that all the systems he installed were “up to code,” which is just not good enough, as the high-reaching disaster starkly proves.

In addition to the danger of irresponsible cost-saving measures, which are most commonly to blame for human-liable disasters, the film is an early realistic tribute to the heroism of firefighters, embodied in Steve McQueen’s Chief Mike O’Halloran. While he at first blames the tower’s architect Doug Roberts (Paul Newman), he wastes no time in taking charge and using everything at his disposal to stop the conflagration and rescue the stranded partygoers, from helicopters to a breeches buoy to a life-risking explosive mission. Not only does it foreshadow more recent firefighter stories, but certain scenes may even remind you of Die Hard or, more soberingly, the 9/11 attacks.

There’s everything you expect from a big disaster movie: building tension, children in danger, ill-fated lovers, lamentable panic, harrowing visual effects (the stars did their own stunts for the wet finale, which was filmed in one take), daring rescues, and an enormous cast of big-ish names, some of which aren’t necessarily safe from flaming death. In addition to the ones above, there are Faye Dunaway, an aging Fred Astaire, Robert Wagner, Robert Vaughn, model Susan Blakely, everyone’s favorite football player O. J. Simpson, Dabney Coleman, and the final film role of Jennifer Jones. Reportedly, Paul Newman and Steve McQueen clashed egos in who would receive top billing, resulting in a clever compromise in the credits, with McQueen’s name on the left but lower than Newman’s. Plus, those who remember 1970s TV might recognize the sheriff from The Waltons (as an electrical worker), Gregory Sierra from Barney Miller (as the bartender), and The Brady Bunch’s Mike Lookinland/Bobby Brady (as a boy in peril).

Rising from its B-movie potential, The Towering Inferno is surprisingly well-done, though not without some faults (a few overlong suspense scenes and victim incompetence), and it won Oscars for Best Cinematography, Editing, and Song, as well as a Best Picture nomination. While I prefer The Poseidon Adventure (which also won Best Song two years prior for “The Morning After,” which was also sung commercially by Maureen McGovern), this film has enough star power and thrills to still entertain. If Jaws made you afraid to go in the water and The Poseidon Adventure turned you off from cruise ships, The Towering Inferno may give you pause the next time you head to the top of a skyscraper.

Best line: (Doug Roberts, to the tower’s ambitious builder) “Don’t you think you’re suffering from an edifice complex?”

VC’s best line: (Doug Roberts) “If you had to cut costs, why didn’t you cut floors instead of corners?”

 

Rank: List-Worthy

 

© 2015 S. G. Liput

299 Followers and Counting

#8: Titanic (1997)

Tags

Disaster, Drama, History, Romance

The RMS Titanic plowed the icy North Atlantic

And made headlines and history when swallowed by the sea.

It served as quite a backdrop for a rendezvous romantic

Between an aimless artist and a fiancée set free.

 

When Rose is brought aboard the ship, she sees her future set,

A world of wealthy well-to-dos and proper parties planned,

But when the lass is rescued from a self-delivered threat,

Jack Dawson introduces her to his own world firsthand.

 

Although her mother and her haughty, cold fiancé Cal

Insist she stay away from Jack and keep to codes and class,

Her heart and hopes have superseded moneyed rationale,

For love is theirs until an iceberg makes a fatal pass.

 

As water floods into the ship, there’s order up on deck,

But when that deck begins to lean, anxiety begins.

With nowhere near enough lifeboats, this monumental wreck

Will claim the lives of most who panic to the violins.

 

The grand Titanic sinks beneath the frigid ocean waves,

And only six are rescued by the lone returning boat.

Though 1,500 fell below to dark and unmarked graves,

A sworn survivor strove to live, not just remain afloat.

_____________________

 

One of the greatest film achievements belongs to James Cameron and his historic Titanic, tied winner of the most Academy Awards, eleven in total. While the film’s prestige seems to have waned since the director’s cheesy “I’m king of the world” speech at the Oscars, it remains a moving romance and an unparalleled spectacle of magnificence brought low.

While it didn’t win any acting Oscars, both Roses were nominated, the lovely Kate Winslet as young Rose and the trauma-wearied Gloria Stuart as elderly Rose. Though not outstanding, the acting is uniformly good, from Kathy Bates as the unsinkable Molly Brown, Billy Zane as Rose’s arrogant husband-to-be Cal Hockley, Bill Paxton as modern-day treasure seeker Brock Lovett, and Bernard Hill and Victor Garber as the ship’s captain and designer, respectively, both overwhelmed with the grief and guilt of helming a deathtrap. Leonardo DiCaprio found his first big budget role here, and though he’s gone on to ever greater fame, it wasn’t until Inception that I saw him as anything but artist/lover Jack Dawson.

It’s a sad fact that, just as The Hunger Games is most entertaining when the blood sport commences, the best part is the massive ship’s epic floundering, both realistically tragic and awesome to behold. The couple’s wandering through the dying vessel allows multiple perspectives, from the gradually slanting upper deck to the water-logged lower levels, the desperate passengers behind locked gates and the former splendor of state rooms being swallowed from below. The Oscar-winning visual effects are indeed wondrous, giving a sense of the astounding size of this vanquished metal beast. Even so, I find it almost humorous how many times Jack and Rose trade each other’s names; from when Rose finds Jack below to her rescue, I counted 48 Jacks and 32 Roses.

In addition to winning Best Picture, Director, Visual Effects, Cinematography, Art Direction, Film Editing, Costume Design, Sound, and Sound Effects Editing, it truly deserved wins for James Horner’s majestic Celtic-infused score and for the song “My Heart Will Go On,” sung by Celine Dion over the end credits (earning a place in my Hall of Fame). The music adds much to the film’s beauty and grandeur and deepens the characters’ emotions. The romance itself is not the very best, so perhaps it was the music that put it over the edge for me. Titanic holds special meaning to me because I probably saw it too young; I cried harder at this film’s finale than at any other movie before or since, to the point that I swore I would never again watch it. While that oath obviously didn’t stick and the film doesn’t touch me quite as deeply, it’s still sublimely sad, with a final scene worthy of a meet-‘em-and-move-on reunion, even if the film doesn’t fit into that mold.

Though not the first film about the Titanic (which was 1912’s Saved from the Titanic, starring an actress who survived the sinking) nor the last (the recent 2012 miniseries Titanic featured quite a good ensemble), James Cameron’s Titanic will forever be the film version for the ages, against which all others are compared. With real underwater footage of the wreck and an epic depiction of the film’s floundering, its flaws are easily overlooked (among them the unnecessary language and nudity and the absence of any heroism among the wealthy passengers; also my VC feels the throwing away of the diamond was pointless). Even so, it deserved every one of its accolades and is still a truly spectacular experience.

Best line: (Jack, after they’re in the water) “I don’t know about you, but I intend to write a strongly worded letter to the White Star Line about all of this.”

VC’s best line: (Jack) “I figure life’s a gift, and I don’t intend on wasting it. You don’t know what hand you’re gonna get dealt next. You learn to take life as it comes at you… to make each day count.”

  

Rank: 60 out of 60

 

© 2015 S. G. Liput

283 Followers and Counting

#21: Cast Away (2000)

Tags

Disaster, Drama

Timing is the great obsession

For Chuck Noland, whose profession

As a FedEx problem solver leads him on a distant track.

Never lacking phone and beeper,

Chuck yet wants his romance deeper

And is planning to propose to Kelly once he journeys back.

 

Travel o’er the stormy ocean

Crashes Noland’s plans in motion,

And he’s left upon a beach no foot has touched upon before.

Cast away upon this isle,

Left with but a picture’s smile,

Chuck is forced to learn survival on this godforsaken shore.

 

With a volleyball attendant

On whom Noland grows dependent,

He has difficulty finding simple joys, like food and fire.

Long he waits upon the isle,

Fitter, wiser from the trial,

Till the day the brutal tide bestows a blessing to inspire.

 

Seizing chances when extended,

Noland builds a raft intended

As his freedom from the island that has been his home for years.

Rescue comes and resurrection,

And in need of new direction,

Noland mourns the loss of love until a plainer path appears.

____________________

 

Before All Is Lost, before Life of Pi, before Lost, there came Cast Away. While not the first film about an island-bound survivor, it is the most emotionally powerful, all thanks to actor extraordinaire Tom Hanks. He poured quite a bit of time and commitment into the role of Chuck Noland, first gaining weight in order to look like a chubby executive, then spending a year getting starkly thin with a full beard for the later island scenes. Many actors are at their best not saying a word, and his struggles against the surf, coconuts, and personal pain fill the long stretches of silence on the island with fascinating desperation and ingenuity.

I love the layers and hints sprinkled throughout the beginning: the Elvis connections, the ranch sign later seen partially missing, the underlying story of divorce playing out behind the scenes and waiting to become relevant to Chuck Noland, even the little copier dance with Chuck and Kelly (Helen Hunt). After a harrowing plane crash (with a scene of Chuck hanging underwater to watch sinking debris, which has been borrowed by Life of Pi and The Incredibles), Chuck is stranded on an isle not nearly as hospitable as Gilligan’s Island. While there are no wild animals or headhunters, there’s also nothing to attract distant search parties, nothing to encourage his eroding sanity, not even a single sound from an insect or a background score. He is alone. The audience is pulled into Chuck’s solitary struggle to sympathize with his loneliness, celebrate his small victories, and meet a volleyball named Wilson. (Despite all the product placement with FedEx and Wilson sporting goods, the film never feels like a commercial, instead simply using these familiar names as integral aspects of the story.)

By the time he escapes his island prison, Hanks had already earned his Oscar nomination for Best Actor, but his reaction to his subsequent loss should have clinched a win. (I think Hanks should have won, and Russell Crowe could have won the next year for A Beautiful Mind.) It’s a perfect example of how the loss of a “character” or even an inanimate object can deeply affect the audience simply by how it affects another character. I didn’t care about Wilson; he’s just a volleyball, but he was also Noland’s only friend. Hanks’s performance makes the loss far sadder than many a human death in other movies. Now that is acting!

The film is not quite perfect; despite repeated angelic symbolism, the film has no religious perspective on Noland’s plight, and a scene in which he buries a dead pilot is rather brusque in its lack of sentiment. Yet Cast Away works on many levels, not only as a story of forlorn seclusion; it’s a beautifully shot adventure, an example of the many survivalist uses of ice skates and evening gowns, a testament to the power of hope and endurance, a meditation on the simple conveniences we so often take for granted, and a lamentation of how life goes on and sometimes leaves us behind. Plus, it was the inspiration for Lost, at least in part. The suggestion of a Cast Away television series led to J. J. Abrams’ great show four years later, and it even bears a few familiar elements (a plane crash, a failed SOS; if Noland had looked harder, he might have found a hatch or a smoke monster). In many ways, Cast Away could easily have been titled Lost, best represented by the four-way dirt road in its final scene. As Alan Silvestri’s short but lovely score plays, it seems Noland has found his way; I’m not partial to many ambiguous and open-ended conclusions, but Cast Away’s is one of the best.

Best line: (Chuck Noland, to Wilson, as he is attempting to light a fire) “You wouldn’t have a match by any chance, would you?”

 

Rank: 59 out of 60

 

© 2015 S. G. Liput

281 Followers and Counting