Top 100 Disaster Movies – Week 2 – Twister – The Devil at 4 O’Clock

Twister

Everyone (Not everyone) likes a good thunderstorm, and I’m no exception.

Film 4 and this challenge has already been described as ‘shit’, which is amazing considering it’s the first and only film watched by Betsy, and also one she bought….

Obviously set in the good old plains of the United States, the opening scene comes as no surprise when we see a young Helen Hunt watching her old man getting sucked off down on the farm. She even has a little terrier dog. It’s like Dorothy. (Except she watched a witch getting sucked off.)

Suddenly, we’re transported to the late 90′s and Helen Hunt is a hot blonde in tight shorts who hunts down monster storms IN A MONSTER TRUCK. (Actually she’s not that hot.) When this film was originally released most people were wowed by the CGI for the tornados. Sixteen years later and I’m afraid I was wowed by how shit they are… Cars fly through the air in slow motion. A cow is seen suckling it’s calf in a F2 storm. Tractors are thrown willy nilly. It’s all a bit boring.

In fact. It’s all a bit shit.

6.5 DISASTER POINTS

The Devil at 4 O’Clock

Can the lepers, criminals, blind children and a drunken priest escape the island?

Unfortunately the video embedded above is the only trailer for this film I could find, and it’s only 12 seconds long. I did consider making my own but I also stopped after 12 seconds and killed myself. Some people have said that the first 12 seconds of this film are in fact the best bit. I’m inclined to agree.

Spencer Tracey plays an old crusty alcoholic priest type bloke. He likes a wee dram and he also likes lepers and blind kids. Frank Sinatra plays Harry. A hardened criminal, he refuses to sing or dance and frequently makes sarcastic remarks because he’s a dirty, slimy piece of good for nothing shit. He doesn’t swear though and he loves his mum Doris.

Unfortunately for everyone concerned, the beautiful, paradise island they all find themselves on, is actually a big bastard volcano. And going by the title of the film one would imagine that at about 4 o’clock it’s going to go ‘pop’. What we don’t know is if it’s 4am or 4pm. This can only add to the tension. Except it doesn’t.

2.2 DISASTER POINTS

The Last Patrol

There’s alot to be said about the demise of Dolph Lundgren’s career since the end of the 90′s. I think a lot of it can be explained by this film.

After a 400 second long 9.5 magnitude earthquake, Dolph finds himself in the desert with only his glummness for company. He soon meets up with two equally glum people and a pulsating goatherder, then a prison full of criminals and then we all wonder exactly how bad this earthquake actually was, considering how many people survived….

Somehow this film has a score of 3.4 on IMDB. I’m surprised Dolph had the mental capacity to even score his own film repeatably..

Top 100 Disaster Movies – Week 1 – Outbreak – No Blade of Grass – Knowing

Outbreak

Let’s start how we mean to go on…

So imagine a film that has helicopter chases, a deadly disease and a ginger Kevin Spacey. If you can, then you came to the right Blockbusters… Dog lover Dustin Hoffman separates from his fellow virus hunting, dog-loving wife Rene Russo and promptly gets A.I.D.S. from eating too much bush tucker. As he slowly mutates into a strange rubber wearing midget. Morgan Freeman arrives and sells everyone car insurance and fuel-bombs.. What’s not to like?

This is actually one film we own. @Betsymartian has always maintained that we own the film for it’s cinematic delights, structured characters and script, and finally the sheer terror of the suspense.

I’ve always thought we owned it because the monkey in it is called ‘Betsy’.

5.2/10

No Blade of Grass

I’ve always liked John Christopher books and until this project started, I had no idea they’d even turned this book into a movie. After watching it, I’m still not sure why they bothered..

The basic premise is simple. Over a period of time a new virus slowly spreads around the globe killing grass. ‘So what?!’ I hear you cry. Well no grass means no more corn, no more wheat no more bowling greens. Everyone will have to take up petanque and pretend to be French. So understandably the world’s populace being to riot and panic as they slowly realise there will soon be no bread, no more popcorn and then the final realisation hits, no more Wheat Crunchies.

EVERYONE PANICS.

The strange thing about the this film is the amount of grass it contains. After the main character escapes the city he slowly forms a group of like minded individuals who then attempt to walk their way out of trouble to somewhere safe. They walk over fields covered in green grass. They continue over the grassy moors until they finally reach a grassy farm where they have a massive fight and kill everyone, and I mean anyone. Police – shot. Army – shot. Mad Max Biker Gang (smoking grass) – shot. Pauline from Eastenders – HOT.

I thought we weren’t allowed guns in this country??

6.6 / 10

Knowing

Why this film is in this exhaustive list of Disaster Movies is beyond me. I seem to remember we wouldn’t be allowing aliens. I’m pretty sure we decided that disaster films in which everybody died were out as well.. And then what did we do? We kicked out Armageddon. We know asteroids can hit the planet and they frequently do in the film. New York is hit. Paris is squished… and there’s no aliens in it!!! anyway.

‘Knowing’ is the kind of film that will remain in your memory as long as you live. Two minutes before the end I realised that I’d seen it before. It was probably the rabbits. It’s that shit.

Widower Nicolas Cage has a drink problem and a son. He also has a speech impediment. In fact he has the very same speech impediment in every film he’s in, so it might not be relevant. After his son comes home with a bit of paper covered in numbers, Nick decides to get really drunk while his son is asleep and instead of reading his famous Batman comic or watching a bit of telly he decides to have another drink or two and in his addled state, discovers that the numbers coincide with disasters that have killed people over the last 50 years. Unfortunately for us the list of disasters isn’t shared. For all we know it’s the same list we’re using. Maybe we’ll each end up with a white rabbit as well.

After this is all gets a bit blurry. It’s possible I might’ve been drinking as well but I remember a plane crash, a subway (not the sandwich) and then a car chase/crash type thing. Everyone started nicking shit from shops and then a big bang. Then rabbits and aliens.

3.1

You should probably read this post by Dotmund. It’s slightly better than mine.

Well I did it! (Kind of..)

I managed to watch all the war films in the list, I just failed miserably at blogging them. It’s the blogging bit that I find so difficult, mainly cos I’m such a lazy twat. But in the spirit of Chop’s Top Fives I’ll give you my 5 highlights.

1. Ice Cold In Alex  (No. 26)

Genius film and one that transported me back to a rainy afternoon in Hangleton as a young boy. Surprisingly for a Black & White film I loved it. Great story and it had me on the edge of my sofa. Best product placement ever as well.

Read my brilliant review here.

2. The Pianist (No. 32)

Amazingly I found this film one of the most tedious films I’d ever seen when I first saw it when I was doing the IMDB Top 100 Films. Bizarrely I rather enjoyed it the second time round. This was probably due to the fact that i was expecting to watch the right film this time, and not The Piano with Harvey Keitel.

Read my first review here, and my later review here.

3. Memphis Belle (No. 88)

Who knew there was an alternate ending? Who believed it involved Kevin Costner and Kiefer Sutherland? Who didn’t realise it was a completely different show that I’d got confused with? (Yep that’s right, it was me) It’s was still a good film though, even with the singing..

My extensive review (including a video of the confused ending) can be found here.

4. Oh! What a Lovely War (No. 70)

A brilliant film set in my home town. A true joy to watch. So good I went out and bought it. If I said that I was dreading watching a film about a musical, about the First World War then I wouldn’t have been lying. It’s funny, sad and poignant. Well worth a watch. I would link to my review, but I didn’t do one.

5. Play Dirty (Not even on the list)

Brilliant! An English version of The Dirty Dozen! Michael Caine rocks out over the African desert and kicks some Nazi arse! A genuine highlight of my year of film watching, and proof in point that doing pointless New Year Resolutions might leave you somewhat wiser, if not a tiny bit bored of war films….

So yeah, what next. I have no idea. I have a couple of projects in the pipeline for 2012, but I think I might have a break from blogging films this year.

I might just podcast reviews instead…. Here’s the first one… Grease (1978) Vs. Sexboat (1980) I can only apologise… But say hi to Dotmund while you’re there

Internessless Day 13 !!

Dunno exactly what happened there but it might’ve been when Internetless Day 9 occurred. I blame @dotmund.

It’s actually quite difficult to describe the evening. @dotmund drank Special Brew while I drank Kronenburg. We watched one of the highest scoring films on IMDB. 7.2 in total, and happily turned on Sexboat.

WHAT A FILM!

There was discussion of me watching The Top 100 Porn Films of the 1970′s. Luckily there is no list.

‘Sexboat’ is basically consensual 70′s rape with fringes. There is a video of me and @dotmund watching it, but it’s rubbish.

That doesn’t mean it won’t been uploaded.

Internetless Day 8

Blimey! L.A. Confidential… Ever seen it? If you haven’t you should! As some of you know I tried to watch the IMDB Top 100 the year before last, and I failed miserably, and in doing so I missed this gem. And for some idiotic reason I thought this film was like Miami Vice. God knows how that thought got stuck in my brain. Possibly it’s the movie poster. It has to get a 9/10 especially as Crockett and Tubbs aren’t in it.

The lack of the interwebs at home hasn’t really become much of an issue yet. Well apart from writing these blog posts on a bloody iPhone. It’s shit this WordPress app. I can’t even add a picture.

I am beginning to worry I haven’t downloaded enough gardening shows to last though. I need my fix.

Internetless Day 7

The Sky man cometh. Not that we’ve watched anything on it. Nope it’s all LoveFilm and downloaded crap.

Thursday evening I was joined on the sofa by @iammudrock to watch the televisual delights of ‘Grow With Joe’. Unlike Carol Klein, Joe doesn’t put parsnips up his bot bot. Nope Joe likes to get down and personal with his brassicas. His cabbages are a delight to see, no slug damage, no white fly. Nadda. A quick Google in the pub afterwards and it seems that Joe mixes up 2 parts blood to 1 part semen in a small bucket, he then applies this liquid to the leaves using a red robin feather inserted in his urethra. Apparently he also recommends having a semi on as you get “More control”.

It’s no surprise then that our brassicas up the allotment have been shit this year! We’re using the wrong feathers!!!

Internetless Day 6

Oh woe is me. Wednesday, Wednesday Wednesday…. What did we do?

After the thorough enjoyment of The Victorian Farm I’ve gone up a beanstalk level and started watching The Victorian Kitchen Garden. Now this is good. Top marks.

I dunno when this was made but I’ve already learnt loads, some of which I can transfer to the allotment! I now know that double digging looks like fucking hard work. (so that won’t even be on the agenda) Forcing asparagus is possible!! (but it takes 4 years and kills the crown, which means that won’t be happening either) Also having a large property with horses allows you improve the soil depth by up to 3 feet in 30 years!! (erm, yeah, whatever)

So yeah being Internetless is basically about watching gardening shows! I’m loving it!