Filmsane

Ahhhhhhhhhh…. Disaster movies.

Guilty pleasure for me to be honest. You watch them and for the most part you feel entertained, and scared, and exhilarated annnnnd…… that’s it. That’s all you feel about them.

You see… Disaster movies are the grilled cheese of movies for me. You watch them for comfort, for excitement and for the inevitable feeling of guilt and shame afterwards. You could have been watching The Lobster for instance (for the record, I totally watched the Lobster you guys and it’s awesome) but you chose San Andreas instead. Hence the guilt.

My fiancé would disagree on this, cause he doesn’t believe in the term „Guilty Pleasure“ but like me, he gets a kick off some great disaster movie too. Weather it’s natural disasters, asteroid impact, end of the world hypothetical movies or SF disaster movies about saving of our planet from an Alien invasion they are all awesome and fun to watch.

The trick in choosing a good disaster movie is actually to watch a movie with interesting plot, with a concise and engaged script, and likable characters who will guide you through all the terror that’s unfolding before your eyes. Oh and a little bit of humor can’t hurt. Cause you know that the visuals, the SGI, the set pieces, the stunts and the action in general will be good (or at the very least descent).

But what are some of the best guilty pleasures when it comes to Disaster movies?

2012 (2009)

Director: Roland Emmerich
Stars: John Cusack, Thandie Newton, Chiwetel Ejiofor…
Fun fact about the movie: Banned in North Korea, because 2012 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of First Great Leader Kim Il-Sung. Several people were arrested for watching pirated copies of the film.

Armageddon (1998)

Director: Michael Bay
Stars: Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton, Ben Affleck…
Fun fact about the movie: Bruce Willis has said that he did not care for Michael Bay’s directing style, and he refuses to work with him again.

Deep Impact (1998)

Director: Mimi Leder
Stars: Robert Duvall, Téa Leoni, Elijah Wood
Fun fact about the movie: Morgan Freeman portrays the President in this movie, in Olympus Has Fallen (2013), he portrays the Speaker of the House, and in London Has Fallen (2016), he portrays the Vice President. He is set to reprise his role of Allan Trumbull in Angel Has Fallen (2018).

The Day After Tomorrow (2004)

Director: Roland Emmerich
Stars: Dennis Quaid, Jake Gyllenhaal, Emmy Rossum…
Fun fact about the movie: In 2008, Yahoo! Movies listed the film as one of the Top 10 Scientifically Inaccurate Movies.

The Towering Inferno (1974)

Director: John Guillermin
Stars: Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, William Holden…
Fun fact about the movie: Only feature film to co-star father and son Paul Newman and Scott Newman.

Titanic (1997)

Director: James Cameron
Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Billy Zane…
Fun fact about the movie: The elderly couple seen hugging on the bed while water floods their room were the owners of Macy’s department store in New York, Ida and Isidor Straus, both of whom died on the Titanic. Ida was offered a seat on a lifeboat but refused so that she could stay with her husband, saying, “As we have lived together, so we shall die together.” There was a scene filmed that depicted this moment but was cut from the final version. In this film it is Rose who states “where you go, I go” but it was actually Ida who says this when refusing a lifeboat without her husband.

The Impossible (2012)

Director: J.A. Bayona
Stars: Naomi Watts, Ewan McGregor, Tom Holland…
Fun fact about the movie: Many of the extras are actual survivors of the tsunami.

The Wave (2015)

Director: Roar Uthaug
Stars: Kristoffer Joner, Ane Dahl Torp, Jonas Hoff Oftebro…
Fun fact about the movie: Norway has about 5 mill. inhabitants and The Wave (2015) sold 832,649 admissions, therefore about every 6th Norwegian saw it in a cinema.