2012 – We Are Movie Geeks

Tribeca 2012 Daily Recap: April 28th

I ended up skipping the festival yesterday due to feeling pretty crumby when I woke up. I slept most of the afternoon away and then caught a few films in the online press screening room at night. Feeling much better today, I made my final trip into the city for the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.

Being a big fan of James Franco, I was looking forward to checking out FRANCOPHRENIA despite the intensely mixed reactions. It is not an easy film to judge. Very experimental and free form, I’m still not quite sure what I watched even after the Q & A with Ian Olds (co-director, co-writer) & Paul Felton (writer). It starts out as a fairly regular behind the scenes look at the making of a special episode of GENERAL HOSPITAL cut together from the mundane stuff usually left on the cutting room floor. Then it switches into something quite weird through the magic of strange editing & sometimes hilarious voice-over done by Ian Olds. I wouldn’t call it anything you must see but it is certainly a strange curiosity that I am glad to have watched once. After the surprisingly long Q & A, a final pit stop at the press lounge, another super cheap NY pizza lunch & a 30-minute walk to the other theater, I settled in for my final screening of the festival.

MANSOME is a documentary by Morgan Spurlock although he does not appear in the film as often as you would assume based on his previous work. In fact, Jason Bateman & Will Arnett appear much more often, in little comedic vignettes setting up the subject for each section of the doc. The main focus of the film is modern men’s grooming techniques and as you can imagine, it is far more entertaining than enlightening. There are some truly fascinating personalities put on display for each section and talking head pieces of people weighing in, including Paul Rudd, Judd Apatow, and Zach Galifianakis. Unfortunately no one was on hand for a post screening Q & A so after the credits rolled, I left the theater and made my way to the bus home. Of course there was massive traffic downtown, which doubled my commute time. A perfect way to cap off a great festival.

Lesson of the Day: Sometimes enjoying copious amounts of free water can come back to bite you on the ass, like when you are stuck in massive traffic on your bus home.

Jerry Cavallaro – @GetStuck – JerryCavallaro.com

WAMG Sneaks A Peek At Dan Fogler’s DON PEYOTE

18 months ago Dan Fogler broke the news to us about his new film DON PEYOTE. 6 months ago he gave us a little update. Last week I finally got to see it. Well, most of it. The film is currently unfinished with 10 shooting days left and a handful of special effects that need to be added. For obvious reasons, this should not be considered a review of the film.

DON PEYOTE tells the story Warren Allman (played by Fogler), an unemployed stoner who finally finds a purpose in life after an unpleasant encounter with a homeless man preaching the end is near. Fueled by vivid apocalyptic dreams, Warren becomes obsessed with 2012 doomsday theories and decides to make a documentary on the subject while his fiancé is busy planning their wedding.

The film expertly weaves together a narrative storyline, Warren’s increasingly bizarre dream sequences and documentary footage. Many of the documentary elements are real interviews with people like Daniel Pinchbeck with Fogler in character. There are also some staged interviews such as Warren interviewing his friend’s drug dealer, played perfectly by Jay Baruchel in a quick cameo. Speaking of cameos, Anne Hathaway & Wallace Shawn both pop in for funny but all too short roles.

The brilliance of the film is that no matter how ridiculous the theories are, every character plays it straight so it is up to the audience to either laugh at or embrace the ideas presented on screen. Personally, I laughed. So did most of the audience. There are some absolutely hysterical scenes starting off with the opening sequence. I cannot wait to see it with the special effects added in because it is a truly unique and hilarious way to kick off this film.

Fogler likes to call his directorial debut HYSTERICAL PYSCHO “rock n’ roll Hitchcock on acid” which is a fairly accurate description. If he wants to continue the same motif for DON PEYOTE, I’d like to suggest “rock n’ roll Woody Allen.” Hopefully things come together quickly for this film because it will be a juggernaut on the festival circuit when it is finally finished.

Until then, you can stay updated by liking the Facebook fan page HERE or following the man himself on Twitter at @MrDanFogler.

Jerry Cavallaro – www.JerryCavallaro.com

AVATAR Aiming For a Lame Best Song Oscar

Yes, it’s lame, and I apologize to you die-hard “My Heart Will Go On” fans out there. It was released today by Atlantic Records that James Horner’s score for AVATAR would be hitting CD shelves on December 15th. With this announcement came word that not only would the soundtrack be filled with Horner’s score, but it will also be including an original song, “I See You,” performed by Leona Lewis.

For those of you who don’t know who that is (I had to look it up myself), she is a multi-platinum and three-time Grammy nominated R&B singer songwriter. The song, which, honestly, should have been written about seven years ago for that little-seen Stallone vehicle, EYE SEE YOU, is also being co-produced by Horner and Simon Franglen, both of whom did producing work on TITANIC’s Academy Award winning song. A companion music video is currently being produced for “I See You.”

Personally, this sounds like a lame attempt at trying to get an Academy Award. Like Adam Lambert doing a song for 2012 or Josh Groban doing the song at the end of TROY, “I See You” already feels out of place. In fact, about the only time a song over the end credits of a big sci-fi/fantasy film like this has worked was when Aerosmith didn’t want to close their eyes for ARMAGEDDON.

What do you think? Is “I See You” just an unnecessary attempt to pick up a Best Original Song Oscar? Is there any way the song fits in well with the movie? What are your favorite end-credit songs? Let us know by commenting below!

AVATAR hits theaters on December 16th.

Review: 2012

I find it humorous, if not entirely premeditated, that what is perhaps the disaster movie of the grandest scale be released on this, Friday the 13th, 2009. For a movie that has so much riding on it’s success and so many people sitting on the fence, unsure of how it will do… for it to open on such a characteristically traditional day for neurotic fears of bad luck, well… it ballsy. Then again, I don’t believe in that kind of superstitious black cat and broken mirrors bad luck.

Apparently, neither do the filmmakers. It’s a good thing too, because if they had it may have manifested itself in the movie and turned out much worse that it did. I will admit, I was one of those fence-sitting skeptics, fearful that 2012 would end up being a disastrous disaster movie. I can say with a fair amount of satisfaction that this film holds up to the standards of the genre and is certainly not a disaster… I mean, in the non-geological sense.

2012 is the newest massive scale epic from director Roland Emmerich (INDEPENDENCE DAY, THE PATRIOT). Emmerich has a filmmaker’s hopeless infatuation with the special effects heavy, ginormous budget thrill rides that draw audiences for the pure thrill of the ride. This is the kind of movie he enjoys, so it’s the kind of movie he makes. And, for what it’s worth, Emmerich has mastered the art and craft (10,000 BC excluded) of creating expensive yet exhilarating adrenaline rides.

As is his style, Emmerich wastes no time immersing the audience immediately into the beef of 2012. That is to say, it takes no time flt for the audience to catch up to what’s going on and know that the sh*t’s about to hit the fan. The story centers on Curtis Jackson, or Jackson Curtis… I never really was able to figure out which was his first name. Anyway, the story centers on Jackson [as he is referred to most often in the film] played by everyone’s favorite every-man John Cusack (SAY ANYTHING, HIGH FIDELITY). I mean, really… no matter how bad the movie is, who doesn’t like John Cusack?

Jackson is a failed writer who works as a limo driver for a wealthy Russian tycoon named Yuri (Zlatko Buric) while struggling to revive his writing. Jackson is divorced, dislikes his ex-wife Katie’s (Amanda Peet) new partner Gordon (Tom McCarthy) and is devastated by his son Noah’s ecstatic approval of his “new dad”. Jackson collects Noah and his daughter Lilly for a vacation of camping with dad in Yellowstone National park, only to discover something strange is happening.

With half of the story now within your grasp, we move on to discuss why 2012 is worth seeing. This initial scene in Yellowstone leads us to Woody Harrelson’s role as the enviro-nutty, conspiracy theorist Charlie Frost, who briefly meets Jackson and his kids after they stumble upon a very hush-hush, yet minimally guarded government secret. The scene is relatively short, but tuck that away in your back pocket as it comes in handy later on in the story.

Woody Harrelson, despite his mere three scenes, is hilarious. He’s 100% certifiably fruitcake, but not necessarily wrong. He divulges his theories regarding the pending doom of the human race via planetary disaster to Jackson, who only later realizes just in the nick of time that Whack-Job Frost was onto something. On the drop of a dime, Jackson rounds up his family and the real adventure begins as the Earth’s crust literally begins to crumble.

So, we’ve got some fairly big stars, including Danny Glover as the President of the United States, Thandie Newton (ROCKNROLLA) as the First Daughter and Chewitel Ejiofor (REDBELT) as the heroic scientist that sits in relative comfort doing the brainy work while Cusack’s Jackson is put through Hell just trying to keep his family alive. Oh yeah, and Oliver Platt as the enjoyably well-played a**hole politician/scientist Carl Anheuser. However, the true star of 2012 is none other than the special effects.

2012 is rife with extraordinary depictions of destruction and chaos on the grandest scale. The movie features several lengthy scenes of geological carnage, high in detail and excitement. The film does one thing well, if nothing else, and that’s keeping the audience gripping the arms of their seats, nervously watching and wanting more. It’s a morbid sort of entertainment to watch this sort of thing, even if it is purely fictional. Planes, trains and automobiles (and more) all meet their demise along with their many human operators and unfortunate bystanders. Bridges, buildings, streets and landmarks… nothing is spared.

One thing I noticed very quickly as I was washed away into the cinematic calamity that is 2012, is that it’s a movie that really should be experienced in IMAX. I did not view this film in IMAX, but could clearly see the potential and wish I had. Even on the regular old digital cinema projection, the special effects popped and felt real and even slightly three-dimensional, but this was all effect built into the movie to enhance the thrill ride. Add the new D-BOX Motion Technology seats into the mix with the IMAX and 2012 would make one helluva frighteningly fun cinematic experience worth every penny, so long as character development and story is not your primary objective.

At a whopping 158 minutes in length, 2012 ran the very real risk of being too long, but instead holds up well. I can honestly say I never realized or noticed the length until after wards while sitting and watching the credits. The writing is par for the course in a film like this, fairly thin and uncomplicated. There are many “conveniences” taken in the science and plot holes do exist, but 2012 deserves it’s place amongst the other classic disaster films from the past.

2012 surpasses Emmerich’s previous disaster film THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW by way of both special effects and believability, but the ending is still the weakest link in this film. Whereas THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW was far too neat and tidy with it’s ending, trying far too hard to tie up all the loose ends, 2012 does a slightly better job of leaving the audience with at least a tiny bit of their imagination in tact, even if you leave the theater baffled by the though of Kevin Costner’s WATERWORLD stuck in your head.

2012: Day 4 – The Music Videos

In our final part of WAMGâ€™s look at 2012, weâ€™ll show you the music video from Roland Emmerich’s latest film as well as more memorable ones from other related movies. Somewhere along the line it became the norm to have a song tagged onto the end credits of a film, noticeably the disaster ones, where you come out of the theater, ahem, emotionally drained. You go home, only to see on your TV or computer that the filmmakers/studios thought an accompanying music video was needed as well. Columbia Pictures has got the jump on that idea for 2012 by pre-releasing Adam Lambert’s “Time For Miracles,” full of what we’ve come to expect from our “based on the film” music videos…complete with scenes of explosions and mayhem from the movie.

Time For Miracles

Adam Lambert | MySpace Video

The rash of all these music videos seem to stem from the disaster blockbuster, TITANIC. In 1998, MTV and VH1 had Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” on a 24/7 loop. Originally meant to be an instrumental piece from composer James Horner, he, lyricist Will Jennings, along with Dion, convinced director James Cameron that the song would be perfect for the film’s end credits, and the rest is history. As we all know, the song went on to win the Oscar for Best Original Song. The music video you see here was directed by music video and film director Bille Woodruff.

My personal favorite is Aerosmith’s song from ARMAGEDDON. There’s no denying “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” was the biggest hit of 1998… God knows we heard it endlessly on the radio. The song went on to receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song. It’s not enough to have Steven Tyler and Aerosmith performing on a faux-set from the movie in the video, but when the curtains, with the shuttle logos of The Freedom and The Independence, drop to the floor revealing rows of playing violins, I freakin lose it everytime. Even though the ending with the shot of Liv Tyler’s hand pressed to the video screen of her father is hokey and sentimental, somehow, it just works.

So on the eve of the opening of 2012, it may be the end of the world, as we know it… and you know what? I feel fine…

2012, starring John Cusack, Amanda Peet, Thandie Newton, with Danny Glover, and Woody Harrelson, opens tomorrow, November 13th.

2012: Day 3 – The Posters

In Part 3 of WAMG’s look at 2012, we’ll take a look at the posters marketing the film as well as other disaster themed posters. Back in August, I showed you some of the dazzling posters from director Roland Emmerich’s apocalyptic movie. For me, there’s nothing better than when you go into the theater, movie posters towering all around, and you instinctively walk right up to one that catches your eye… especially the visually cool ones. That film is immediately locked into the brain and you begin thinking about what the first teaser for the film will look like on the big screen. Funny enough, this latest one for 2012 is reminiscent of THE 10 COMMANDMENTS, although Heston’s “Moses” has a far better outcome, and with a totally different type of “God’s Wrath” looming in the distance. No burning bush or stone tablets to save this Tibetian Monk. It’s the perfect final, one-sheet for the end of the world.

There have been many interesting posters for disaster films. MGM’s 1936 classic, SAN FRANCISCO, disguised as a drama/love story so as not to totally freak out its audience, was the biggest movie of that year. It was based on the Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906. The best part of the movie doesn’t happen til almost the end. The disaster film is filled with a great cast of Clark Gable, Jeanette MacDonald, and Spencer Tracy. The final earthquake scene, with the Barbary Coast Barroom and the actors being shook on a special platform to simulate the big one, was innovative for the time. Director Brad Bird (RATAOUILLE AND THE INCREDIBLES) is in production with his own take on the great quake in the disaster film 1906 to be released in, what else, 2012.

The titles say it all…”PLANETS DESTROY EARTH!!” splashed across in ominous, glaring font. 1951’s WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE is no doubt a fantastic doomsday film, but what is with the helpless, screaming woman at the bottom right. So stereotypical of the time. Bless filmmaker Ridley Scott for changing that with Ripley from ALIEN. But that’s another article. As I was saying, the giant planet, Bellus, is on a collision course for Earth and an escape ship is built, filled with food, animals, books, medicines, and people with the golden tickets to make the trip to nearby Zyra. As the poster shows, the group lucky enough to be chosen escapes off the planet just before the Earth has a close encounter with Bellus. According to IMDB, a remake of the film is scheduled for release in 2010 from director Stephen Sommers (THE MUMMY, VAN HELSING, G.I. JOE: THE RISE OF COBRA).

I love how the posters from the 1970’s always had a lineup of the major stars right below the graphics. As if daring you to place a bet on which actors or actresses would live or die, it gave audiences the inside track, even before the first frame of film, on which players would face “HELL, UPSIDE DOWN.” Who wouldn’t want to make a wager to see how fast Charlton Heston could outrace “THE EVENT” of a quake, or whether Gene Hackman could escape the capsized Poseidon, or if Steve McQueen and Paul Newman lived thru “A NIGHT OF BLAZING SUSPENSE.”

This poster for INDEPENDENCE DAY or ID4 marks the beginning of Roland Emmerich’s obsession with massive explosions and almost utter annihilation of the planet. In 1996, he started off slowly with ID4 by having the Earth invaded by the “no negotiations”, hostile aliens and having them be the bad guys in destroying Los Angeles and New York. This poster showing the gigantic spacecraft hovering above New York City was awesome and the simple tag line “The question of whether or not we are alone in the Universe has been answered” was enticing.

“ITS HOTTER THAN HELL” in downtown Los Angeles as the boiling heat seeps through in this poster for 1997’s VOLCANO. Poor LA can never catch a break. After an earthquake in Southern California hits, scientist Anne Heche (yeah, right) realizes that a volcano has formed under the streets of Hollywood and will soon erupt, spewing molten lava that will start flowing throughout the city. Isn’t that the reason for the LaBrea Tar Pits? The poster for the theater was funny, but the tagline for the dvd was howlingly better, “THE COAST IS TOAST!”

In 1998’s dueling asteroid flicks, DEEP IMPACT and ARMAGEDDON, film-goers were greeted in the theaters with these final one-sheets with lots of red comet tails, stars, and the Earth in there somewhere. Real critics and even the scientists praised DEEP IMPACT for its scientific accuracy, but the paying movie going audiences loved ARMAGEDDON. While I prefer the Michael Bay/Bruce Willis film, both posters come out in a cosmic stalemate. As Michael Clarke Duncan’s character, Bear, says, “Hey man, let’s draw, and let’s see who’s gonna stay up here and dance.”

Global warming and cooling were the focus of Emmerich’s 2nd disaster film, 2004’s THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW. The apocalyptic film depicts the catastrophic events of a new Ice Age through intense scenes, a la The Weather Channel. If you notice in this poster, once again Emmerich decided to lay waste to New York City under an icy, snowy blanket.

I’d certainly say from this 2012 poster released over the summer, “WE WERE WARNED.”

Come back tomorrow for our final part. In Day 4, we’ll look at Adam Lambert’s music video “Time For Miracles” from the film. 2012, starring John Cusack, Amanda Peet, Thandie Newton, with Danny Glover, and Woody Harrelson, opens on Friday, November 13th.

2012: Day 2 – The Clips

Day 2 of WAMGâ€™s series on 2012 will take a look at some of the clips from the film as well as a few other disaster films. The money shots like the one up above are what gets our butts into the seats. It really is a guilty pleasure… disaster pornography, if you will. We return time and time again for the thrill of the ride to see how the filmmaker will kill off the species, whether it be through invading aliens, massive tidal waves, shattering earthquakes or engulfing tornadoes, and Emmerich has become “King-of-All-He-Surveys” over it.

He loves taking out our national landmarks too. I think its become a summer thing with him. Only with 2012, every country’s landmarks are up for grabs. He decimates Rio de Janeiro, Rome, and Tibet. I will say this for Emmerich, he sure knows how to blow stuff up, with the main characters always running or flying away in the nick of time.

Before Emmerich, Irwin Allen, “The Master of Disaster,” had the corner on the disaster film genre. He had a flare for larger than life wipe outs of cities, through his great use of fires and miniatures….

…and every part of the world was fair game as far as Allen was concerned. It may look pretty inferior now, but back then audiences loved every minute of it.

No question about it, the penultimate Irwin Allen disaster movie has to be 1974’s THE TOWERING INFERNO. Just ask my sister. It was nominated for 8 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and won 3 Oscars for Cinematography, Editing, and Original Song. Along with a heart-racing score from John Williams, it has one of the most exciting and imaginative conclusions in film history. Its a stroke of genius by Allen. A remake, filled with the big stars of today, would be hard-core epic.

Have a look at this 5 minute preview of 2012. I guarantee it’s what will get you back on that rollercoaster and into the theater.

Come back tomorrow for Day 3 and a look at the movie poster for 2012 as well as other ones from the genre. 2012, starring John Cusack, Amanda Peet, Thandie Newton, with Danny Glover, and Woody Harrelson, opens Friday, November 13th.

Top Ten Tuesday: Best Destruction of a Famous Landmark

All the movies on this list feature countless thousands (probably millions in most cases) of innocent people shuffling off this mortal coil. Human are more than likely the cause of most of the disasters that appear here. Unfortunately, though, for all of those pesky humans that meet their demise, it’s the famous landmarks that seem to become the money shots of each of these films. They are icons to their respective countries, but these famous landmarks never looked so good than when they were getting blown the hell up.

10. The Cyclone Roller Coaster in THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS

The 1953 monster movie THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS is based on a short story by Ray Bradbury titled â€œThe Fog Hornâ€ about a prehistoric monster who mistakes the warning signal from a lighthouse for a mating call. The film expanded that premise, adapting the formula of the â€œmonster loosed amok on civilizationâ€ established twenty years earlier in KING KONG. Bradburyâ€™s friend, special effects wiz Ray Harryhausen brought the creature, now called the Rhedosaurus, to life. Disoriented after being awoke by atomic testing, the monster makes its way to its original prehistoric home, which over the millennia has become New York City. It destroys all in its path until it is lured into Coney Island fairground (actually filmed at Long Beach Amusement Park in California) where the finale takes place as the creature is destroyed with a radioactive isotope amid the burning Cyclone Roller Coaster. THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS was the first film in which Ray Harryhausen was solely responsible for the stop motion special effects and his signature style was already apparent as we see his penchant for rampaging monsters amongst recognizable landmarks taking shape.

9. The Golden Gate Bridge in X3: THE LAST STAND

As a local Bay Area citizen I drive over the Golden Gate Bridge several times a year. It’s easily the best entrance to a city on the planet. You cross that bridge and you know exactly what you’re in for. It’s the most iconic bridge in the entire world for a reason. People from all over the world flock to see it and sure it has the highest suicide rate of any land mark on the planet, but that’s part of the mystery. X3 might have not been the perfect step for the series to take, but there’s no mistaking that it’s finale started off with a massively cool scene involving the destruction of my personal favorite land mark. Magneto storms the bridge with his mutants and in a show of strength that makes even Yoda look like a bitch, he lifts the entire golden gate bridge with almost everyone still on it, and moves it down into the bay attaching it from the piers to Alcatraz. He single-handedly attached two of the coolest land marks in California. Sure the bridge was mostly intact after Magneto got his ass handed to him, but they had to rebuild it completely.

8. The Hollywood Sign in THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW

Roland Emmerich seems to be the maestro at coming up with destructive visuals to famous landmarks. It is his 2012 coming out this Friday that inspired this list, and, I’m sure, you’ll be seeing another movie of his somewhere else down the line here. The great thing about THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW (other than the incredibly inaccurate geography of…well, everything in that movie) is how nature seems to be chasing down its victims. This isn’t a film about the planet crumbling underneath us, because of all of our wrongdoings. This is a film about nature coming to life and stalking people. Just as the ice chases Jake Gyllenhaal down the hallway of a wrecked ship, so, too, does a well-placed tornado look at Mount Lee, think for a bit, and says, “Hollywood Sign, you’ve got to go.” The single tornado runs right along the sign, tearing up the 45-foot tall letters and sending the area back to pre-1923. Ironically created by some of the most well-known special effects houses in Tinseltown, the scene is pretty remarkable to watch. Now, if only that tornado could have found Whitley Strieber’s house.

7. The Washington Monument in EARTH VS. THE FLYING SAUCERS

In the 1956 sci-fi classic EARTH VS FLYING SAUCERS, aliens in flying saucers give the Earth sixty days to surrender. Scientist Hugh Marlowe invents some sort of sonic gun, which knocks them off balance and, in the finale of the film, the saucers lose control and crash into various Washington D. C. landmarks. Despite a mundane script, the movie works effectively by adopting a dry, documentary tone and splurging the budget on Ray Harryhausen’s spectacular special effects. The smooth, grey, spinning discs of EARTH VS FLYING SAUCERS have become the definitive UFO, imitated in dozens of subsequent alien invasion movies. For the filmâ€™s two most famous â€œmoney shotsâ€, Harryhausen created detailed miniatures in order to show the toppling of the Washington Monument and the decapitation of the Capitol Building (shots spoofed 40 years later in MARS ATTACKS) and thereâ€™s always been something quite sensational in watching Harryhausenâ€™s destructive vandalism.

6. Rapa Nui National Park in MARS ATTACKS

Could there be a movie more fun, watching so many landmarks worldwide getting obliterated than Tim Burton’s MARS ATTACKS!? Sure, it’s silly and over-the-top, but that’s all part of the fun. Along the vein of the old “cheesy” sci-fi films of the 50’s and inspired by the classic Mars Attacks! 1962 trading cards, with a heavy dose of Burton flair, this movie delivers hilarious mayhem as the Martians proceed to kill everyone and destroy everything in their wake, just teenage hoodlums running around with baseball bats and spray paint. From the Washington Monument to Mt Rushmore, the Eiffel Tower to Big Ben and even Las Vegas. But, one of the more creative and ridiculously absurd moments in this movie is when a Martian saucer released a massive bowling ball to take out the giant head statues on Easter Island. Silly, but classic!

5. The Eiffel Tower in G.I. JOE: THE RISE OF COBRA

In almost a pure show of how much the live action versions of Duke and Ripcord suck, G.I. JOE managed to have one amazing piece of destruction with the collapse of the Eiffel Tower. One minute we’re hearing how the particle accelerator in France can weaponize some nano-tech warheads and the next minute we’re seeing Duke and Ripcord fail to stop The Baroness and Storm Shadow from launching a Nerf football filled with goo at the most famous structure in France and BOOM it goes down. If there was ever a question as to where the 170 million dollars went in the G.I. JOE budget, it was certainly here. Buckling under it’s own weight as it was eaten away by nano-machines the Eiffel tower fell taking out quite a few people along the way. A very nice piece of chaos indeed. The shot was so cool they couldn’t keep it secret at all and managed to squeeze it into almost every piece of promotional film for the movie.

4. The Statue of Liberty in CLOVERFIELD

Oh, how I love J.J. Abrams. Heâ€™s the creator of so many awesome movies and shows, and always delivers on coolness to the extreme. Regardless of whether you fall into the love it or hate it camp, CLOVERFIELD stands to remain memorable for one reason if no otherâ€¦ the decapitated Statue of Liberty! How twisted is that? The monster beheads Lady Liberty, our most sacred symbol of American justice. Granted, itâ€™s not entirely the idea of Abrams and the writers, seeing as the concept was inspired by the ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK. Still, that scene, above all others in the film was incredibly intense and jaw-dropping, making CLOVERFIELD worthy of praise in this top ten list.

3. Tokyo Tower in GODZILLA

GOJIRA, or for us Americans, GODZILLA! How many times has the grumpy green giant destroyed the Tokyo Tower? I tried to find the answer online, no one seems to know for sure. I would count, but that would take forever. The destruction of this landmark is almost as, if not more famous than, the landmark itself. First crunched by the mean green stomping machine in the original 1954 classic GOJIRA, the tall Eiffel Tower-like structure has been pummeled not only by various eras and incarnations of Godzilla, but also by rival massive monsters like Mothra and Gammera, even King Kong when he battled Godzilla. Take any on landmark, natural or man-made, and I doubt itâ€™s had as many destructions as the Tokyo Tower. Hereâ€™s to resilience!

2. The Statue of Liberty in PLANET OF THE APES

Towards the conclusion of the Sci-Fi classic, 1968â€™s PLANET OF THE APES, just as Taylor (played to the hilt by Charlton Heston) and the gorgeous mute, Nova, have seemingly escaped the clutches of their simian jailers, theyâ€™re riding on a horse along the ocean when he sees something on the shoreline. Taylor jumps off the horse, slowly walks over to the object in slack-jawed disbelief before crumbling down into uncontrolled anger, in the mind-blowing realization that he has been home all along. In the harsh truth that his own civilization has been destroyed, Heston yells the staggering pronouncement, “We finally really did it. You maniacs! You blew it up! Damn you. God damn you all to hell.” The camera zooms out and pans upwards to reveal one of the most recognizable U.S. landmarks, The Statue of Liberty. Bar none, itâ€™s still the best movie sucker-punches ever. To see Lady Liberty, with torch still raised high, ravaged by nuclear war and followed by thousands of years of erosion, permanently entombed in the sand was horrifying. While itâ€™s essentially a full-length episode of Rod Serlingâ€™s THE TWILIGHT ZONE, complete with the dark twist at the filmâ€™s end, itâ€™s only more unnerving with its fade to black as the credits roll, accompanied by the sounds of the crashing waves on the shore. That last chilling shot of the landmark left audiences sitting there in the dark in silent shock. The final denouement of the disintegrating Statue of Liberty, just about engulfed by the shoreline at the ending of PLANET OF THE APES, will forever be one of the most shocking and iconic moments in film history.

1. The White House in INDEPENDENCE DAY

Roland Emmerich has a hard on for destroying cherished land marks all over the world. At the time of INDEPENDENCE DAY’s release, nobody could have expected they’d see so much demolition in one film. The US Bank building in LA, The Empire State Building and the biggest kicker of them all, the White House were all destroyed at exactly the same time, and the blasts coming from them managed to level entire city blocks. The most destructive force in film since The Death Star landed on every single land mark in the world, and damn was it awesome. The capital of the strongest nation in the world, the very symbol of The United States of America’s strength was completely wiped out in a matter of seconds. The model itself was actually 1/12th the size of the actual White House, and that amazing explosion was filmed with nine cameras, generating one of the most amazing explosions in film history, and easily one of the most memorable scenes.

2012: Day 1 – The Trailers

Beginning today, WAMG brings you a four-part series on Columbia Pictures upcoming film 2012. Day 1 takes a look at the trailer from the film as well as other trailers from the genre. I must start off by saying I love “time for the bad news” disaster films. Small scaleâ€¦global scale, complete with the thinly veiled attempt at character development and not much of a script. Pretty much a big ball of cheese with no crackers. Schlock disaster films are the best. Thereâ€¦ I said it.

When I worked in TV News, for me it was always about the visuals. What the viewer would see, not so much the news story. Believe me I had a lot of fun trying to overshadow the producerâ€™s show with flying cg graphics and animations. The real explosions and fires came from our photographers. So it should come as no surprise that I have an affinity for visually blinding disaster movies. Studios have been trying to scare movie going audiences of impending doom, as was evident in the 1950’s, with this Sci-Fi gem, WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE. This trailer is a beaut.

Growing up in the 1970â€™s, I loved Irwin Allenâ€™s star-studded, grand spectacles like, THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE, EARTHQUAKE, and THE TOWERING INFERNO. Some of the characters survived, some… not so lucky.

The 80â€™s marked the eve of catastrophic threats to Earth with the likes of WHEN TIME RAN OUT and METEOR. In the post-Bond Connery flick, it looks like the end of Terra Firma, until the scientists save the day with the use of nuclear rockets sent to destroy the mammoth meteor coming our way. The special effects are top notch!

The 1990â€™s gave us worldwide calamities with the likes of Mimi Lederâ€™s DEEP IMPACT, Michael Bayâ€™s ARMAGEDDON, and Roland Emmerichâ€™s INDEPENDENCE DAY. The constant, recurring theme in all these films…no character was ever safe. Any big time actor/actress could be picked off at a heartbeat, either by sacrificing themselves or with the whim of the screenwriter’s keyboard.

With the turn of the century, the studios apparently thought 21st century audiences were clamoring for more and gave us Jon Amielâ€™s THE CORE. The 2003 Sci-Fi disaster film has terranauts traveling to the center of the Earth to restart the core that was snuffed out by a government experiment that went awry. In the meantime, the planet begins to erupt by destroying the Coliseum in Rome and melting San Francisco’s Golden Gate Gridge. The funniest tagline, “Earth Has A Deadline,” to be sure.

Along with the new millennium, came myths and prophecies about dates and numerology and were prime for apocalyptic films like Alex Proyas’ KNOWING and Columbia Pictures’ upcoming 2012. In these films, there is total destruction of the Earth. No one or thing to save the day. It’s “over and out” time.

So I wondered what the creators of 1995â€™s INDEPENDENCE DAY and THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW had in store for us with 2012. Could they pull off another booming, explosive, special effects laden disaster film, complete with absurd plots & without much thought to character. From this trailer, it seems theyâ€™ve exceeded my expectations once again and I can’t wait.

On a related note, last week director Roland Emmerich exclusively told Entertainment Weekly that there are early plans for a tv version sequel to his film.

â€œThe plan is that it is 2013 and itâ€™s about what happens after the disaster. It is about the resettling of Earth. I think it will focus on a group of people who survived but not on the boats â€¦ maybe they were on a piece of land that was spared or one that became an island in the process of the crust moving….The movie talks about the varied reactions people have in the face of disaster and who should survive and how we carry on and what parts of our culture do we save. The TV show could carry on all that.â€

The article also goes on to say that 2012 executive producer Mark Gordon, an exec. producer on ABC’s GREYâ€™S ANATOMY and PRIVATE PRACTICE, would be on board and is in talks with the network for the series. Makes sense seeing ABC will have a vacancy in the weekly disaster slot once LOST ends, but we’ll first have to see how the movie does at the box office. As the article stated, an ABC spokesperson had no comment.

Come back tomorrow for Day 2 and a five minute extended clip of the film. 2012, starring John Cusack, Amanda Peet, Thandie Newton, with Danny Glover, and Woody Harrelson, opens Friday, November 13th.

‘2012’ Takes Out A Bentley

From MTV Movie Blog, comes a clip from Roland Emmerich’s ‘2012.’ Good lord, this is a stretch, even for him…but very tasty.

Movie Trailers – Movies Blog

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