Broadway Star Joined: 9/28/05
I just watched Poseidon. Being a huge fan of The Poseidon Adventure, I was hoping for a remake worthy of the name. However, this has to be the worst remake of any movie I have ever seen. They rushed the disaster without building the story(Which made both the original Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno work so well), and they underused the characters in my opinion (particularly Andre Braugher as the captin), and I won't even start about Kevin Dillon. This movie was a huge letdown,but it reminded me of how much I loved the original Poseidon Adventure and the disaster films of that era. I was just curious what some of you favorite disaster movies are. Here are my top three:
1. The Poseidon Adventure(1972)
2. The Towering Inferno
3. When Time Ran Out
In no particular order,
The Poseidon Adventure
Earthquake
Airport '75
I actually like POSEIDON. Not when compared to the original, but on its own terms. A quick, by-the-book, disaster film, with many tense scenes. Thankfully, you had real pros like Kurt Russell and Richard Dreyfus, to balance out the, otherwise, stock characterizations; and, the lead guy (whoever he is), wasn't my idea of a leading-man/movie hero.
Favorites -
Airport (although it barely qualifies, it remains one of my favorite films)
The Poseidon Adventure
The Towering Inferno
The Day After Tomorrow
A Night To Remember
The Abyss
Broadway Legend Joined: 3/29/05
Titanic
The Day After (TV)
Poseidon Adventure
Towering Inferno
Airport
Earthquake
The Wiz
Damn RobbO, you beat me to it.
God, I am ADDICTED to disaster flicks. I love them ALL, even the super horrid ones.
Just last night, i watched a made-for-TV called Firestorm: Last Stand At Yellowstone, about a super-fire that threatened to destroy the entire park. It was...nifty. GREAT effects.
My faves...hrm. Dunno if I could really pick one, but I'm fond of:
The Day After Tomorrow
Volcano
The Towering Inferno
10.5
Aftershock: Earthquake in New York (liked the book better)
Testament (nuclear disaster film, the most heartbreaking thing I've ever seen)
Dante's Peak
I'm sure there are about a billion others...
My faves:
The Poseidon Adventure
A Night to Remember
Airport
Airport '75
The Birds
The Hindenberg
The Swarm
Twister
The Perfect Storm
The Day After Tomorrow
The Towering Inferno
Earthquake
Titanic
oh...TOTALLY forgot the movie adaptation of one of my FAVORITE books from childhood, Ivy Ruckman's "Night of the Twisters", starring the ever-so-goddamn-adorable Devon Sawa.
Well, if we are counting THE BIRDS, as a disater flick, then that's my favorite.
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/10/05
The Poseidon Adventure will always be my favorite. The biggest disaster is, of course, that girl onstage singing, "Morning After," or whatever that song is called.
JailyardGuy, thanks for the reminder of FIRESTORM. I had meant to select it on TiVo, and forgot all about it. They are re-showing it this Friday, at 10:00!
It's actually quite good...there were quite a few heart-in-the-throat moments. The effects are fantastic, too...they really did a good job with the inferno.
The Birds seemed pretty disastrous to poor Tippi.
I love it when Nonnie sings The Morning After in her fringe vest, turtleneck, boots, and hotpants. It's such a smooth, mellow song, yet everyone dances like they are totally rocking out. Beautiful.
My favorite is a so-bad-it's-good TV movie from 1994, "Without Warning." It was broadcast around Halloween, sort of as a tribute to the "War Of The Worlds" broadcast. It was designed strictly as a breaking news broadcast of three asteroids hitting the earth and the fallout that follows (and ends in basically the destruction of the entire world). Absolutely awful all the way around -- the plot didn't even make much sense -- while being completely mesmerizing. One of the best moments is when Sander Vanocur gets to "act," comforting colleague Jane Kaczmarek. And even Arthur C. Clarke puts in a brief appearance.
What made this even better is that despite huge "THIS IS ALL FAKE" disclaimers at every commercial break and occasionally scrolling across the bottom of the screen, people were still calling in the local news affiliate to ask when the next asteroids were going to hit. Yeah. The world is ending, but only one network is carrying any coverage of it. What a testament to human idiocy.
I had this damn thing on tape, including a break-in from the local news affiliate to tell people to stop calling in and asking about the asteroids, but stupid me taped over it.
Totally add Dante's Peak to the list.
And Deep Impact.
I TOTALLY remember that, Calvin.
I think I have it somewhere...if I dig it up, I'll let you know.
We should TOTALLY have a disaster-film movie weekend at my house!
Calvin,
They played that back home (in Costa Rica) like 3 months after it aired here. My sister was watching it and totally freaked out. She called us and is asking all these questions... it took me a few minutes to realize what she was talking about.
Ooh, absolutely, Jaily.
I think there is a DVD of the show out there somewhere, but it wouldn't be the same without the commercial breaks, which to me, just added to the campiness of it all.
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