Waiting for the end of the world

If it was spoken ironically, what would it mean?

JE: No telling. It might mean he actually had an unquenchable appetite for watching the world end. Or that he thought it absurd that anyone could ever get tired of end-of-the-world spectacle. But he sounded sincere to me.

Me too, Jim.

This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang, but with a trailer. Disaster porn aside, glad to hear you're up and watching movies, Jim. So what did you think of Tarantino's petite apocalypse?

JE: Thanks, Lyle. Hope to post my thoughts Monday... First I want to watch "Kill Bill Volume 2," just to catch up a little...

Before "District 9" today at the Metro I had the same reaction! I groaned at what I thought was the trailer for "2012," but it turned out to be for "The Road." Oops.

That reminds me, I wonder if the five hour cut of "Until the End of the World" has come out on DVD yet ...

And if you'd been sitting near me when I first saw the trailer, you'd have heard a very loud guffaw, followed by uncontrollable giggling. Starting with the airlifted giraffe.

JE: And then came the trailer for "9." More end of world. This time, animated!

I'm more tired of this world and I'd like to see us all die.

To Chris: The true cut of UTEOTW is out in Europe on DVD, so if you're region-free you can get it. And it's totally the way to go. A completely different and much better film.

I'm really looking forward to The Road coming out next month. I'm wondering if those who watch it will really view CG Apocalypse movies in quite the same way. (Have to recommend the book by the way to anyone who hasn't read it. It's truly incredible.)

The "2012" trailer left me absolutely giddy - I laughed incessantly throughout, and then for a bit after, too. Of course, by then I'd realized that no one else in the theater was laughing with me, and that in fact many of my fellow audience members were muttering to one another how good it looked. What it is that people find appealing about 90-seconds of CGI vehicles escaping (or not) CGI natural disasters will forever be a mystery to me.

On the other hand, the TV specials about major extinction events...

Those trailers go something like this: "The apocalypse soon! Alien invasion, polar ice cap melting, huge meteor striking Earth. Fortunately one of your favorite and most handsome movie stars is on the case (with a lovely female co star). There is a gruff but lovable general or president or prime minister played by a favorite character actor. But most of all there are frightening special effects. See the Statue of Liberty blow up. The Golden Gate Bridge submerged under tidal waves. The Eiffel Tower shake, shimmy and roll. All the scarier because IT COULD HAPPEN!"
That said, I look forward to The Road, hope it's half as good as the book.

I've been reading your blog for a few months now, usually find your stuff quite thought-provoking (especially the extended multiple posts you did on The Dark Knight), and I work at the Regal Thornton Stadium 14 & IMAX in Seattle.

And I agree wholeheartedly with the 22 year old's statement. 2012 looks like The Day After Tomorrow: Part 2.

There are articles about the trailer for The Road, all of them mentioning the fact that it was horribly re-cut by Bob Weinstein to include footage not even in the film. The director was not happy. Here's one article: http://www.esquire.com/features/movies/the-road-movie-review-0609-4
I read the book and found it to be spare, minimal and very poignant. The trailer on the other hand, was full of bang-cuts, silly TV-montage intro (the book never explains what happened) and included far too many shots of Charlize Theron, who barely appears in the story. Clearly Mr. Weinstein was trying to compete with all these other disaster flicks, clueless about the material he was working with.

Reminds me of Douglas Adams' The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, wherein restaurant patrons would watch as the universe crumbles amidst bad lounge singers, and then through the efforts of time travel, do the same thing again the next day.

When an apocalypse does come, I wonder which Roland Emmerich movie god will be accused of ripping off?

I have been reading your blog forever, and only now do I realize that we live in the same city. Cheers from a fellow Seattleite! I am not a big fan of the Thornton cinema, I would much rather be at The Neptune, or Egyptian any day. Even the Crest.

I am tired of watching the world end as well.

Has the phrase "there's nothing new under the sun" meant so much?

If you visit the Apple Movie Trailers site periodically you'll just see pretty much the same movie over and over only with different titles.

There's a glut of end of world movies such as the ones mentioned above.

Then there's the "indie" movies with all their little palm leaves on the poster and their indie soundtracks with "quirky" characters. Films like 500 Days of Summer, Taking Woodstock and Where the Wild Things Are fall into this category.

Then you have your CGI cartoon parading as a real movie like Transformers and GI Joe.

Then you have Scorsese doing a very genre film like Shutter Island and making it look brilliant and original. The only other trailer that's looked intriguing over the last couple of months has been Inglorious Basterds. It just goes to show you what a real master can do.

With the easy access to tools like Final Cut Studio and film like video cameras, everyone thinks that they're a film maker now.

The issue is not that there's been too many end-of-the-world movies. Warren has a point when he says that so many movies are pretty much the same, but that viewpoint, on its own, is reductive. Yes, many plots are similar. Yes, there are genre conventions. And no, that's no excuse for making boring, dumb crap. I'll bet you could have dozens of end-of-the-world movies, each one with a different, intriguing take on the philosophical, spiritual, and psychological implications of the world ending. But that's not what these movies generally do, is it? I believe the genre is perfectly capable of greatness, very much so, even if I'm at a loss to provide a concrete example off the top of my head after a night of heavy drinking. Anyway, blame the movies, not the genre.

I like end of the world movies where landmarks get destroyed and human civilization is put on hold. I think their attraction - to paraphrase Ledger's Joker character - is that everything in real life, almost all the time, goes according to plan. And the plan is not particularly good. It's the same reason people (and not just TV news people) welcome events like 9/11, or assassinations, or any other big deal tragedy type thing. It's nice to see the powers that be have something happen that they didn't foresee and that wasn't according to plan, something that puts everyone on a level and shakes things up. In real life the same shitty people and institutions keep power forever, and keep human life and society from fulfilling the potential we suspect it has. So it's nice sometimes to go to the movies and see a story in which those people are blindsided by something and power is up for grabs again. Very simple. (I can't be the only one who, reading The Stand as a kid, thought how fun it would be to be one of the plague survivors in that ruler-less, institution-less, money-less world.)

Also Jim if you publish a comment I left on here last night, I was not condoning assassinations or saying 9/11 wasn't horrible. But it would be dishonest to act as if the interest and excitement such events generate is due mostly to genuine sympathy and compassion and worry.

JE: Found it in the spam filter and approved it. The filter's been busy with masses of 6,000-word pharmaceutical "comments." I haven't actually read them, but they're full of references to medications -- and not just ED ones!