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1:01

the Breakfast Club. The world's most

1:04

dangerous morning show. Hey! Angela E.

1:06

is kind of like the big sister

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mornings from 6 to 10 on 106

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7 the beat. Columbus is real hip-hop.

1:31

Welcome to Stuff You Should Know,

1:34

a production of iHeartRadio. Hey,

1:42

and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and

1:44

there's Chuck, and it's just us today, and

1:46

that's okay, because we're just going to be

1:48

sitting around rapping about one of our favorite

1:50

things to talk about, and that

1:52

is movies. Let's

1:54

go to the movies. You

1:58

had a little Katharine Hepburn thing going on there. Uh,

2:02

Ethel Merman? Katharine Hepburn.

2:04

It was Katharine Hepburn singing Ethel

2:06

Merman. Okay. That's how I

2:08

took it. Yeah. Yeah, we

2:10

are going to go to the movies, Chuck.

2:12

And in particular, a specific kind of movie

2:14

that the more I dug into, the more

2:16

I realized it's one of my favorite types

2:18

of movies. Oh, yeah? Yeah, disaster

2:20

movies. I had no idea. But remember

2:22

we were talking, this whole thing was

2:24

kicked off by me watching The Day

2:26

After Tomorrow a couple weeks ago. Yeah,

2:28

yeah. And I was like,

2:31

yeah, it's one of my favorite movies.

2:33

And the reason why is because I

2:35

love disaster movies. Love them. Yeah,

2:37

I like a lot of these. It's

2:40

not my favorite genre overall, but like I

2:42

found myself saying like, oh, yeah, that was

2:44

pretty good. I like that. All right. But

2:47

generally, if we're in

2:49

this, this is a subgenre of

2:51

action movies. And I think

2:54

I prefer action movies overall more

2:56

than disaster movies. OK.

2:58

All right. Well, yeah, we'll get into

3:00

that because it is a subgenre of

3:02

action. And that makes a

3:04

lot of sense. disaster movies are

3:06

packed with action, and there

3:08

are some that are like, okay,

3:10

this is definitely a disaster

3:13

film, like The Towering Inferno. Oh,

3:15

yeah, I'd be. Okay,

3:17

but then there's also movies like Speed,

3:19

and Speed checks off a lot of

3:21

the boxes. Yeah, not a disaster movie.

3:23

You would not call it a disaster

3:25

movie, even though it really could. If

3:28

you really wedged it in there, it

3:30

would qualify. But there's just a couple

3:32

of little things that are different that

3:34

make it. Definitely an action movie. And

3:36

then you have other ones like The

3:38

Birds, Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. Not a

3:40

disaster movie to me. It ends up

3:43

on lists. It's part of the animal

3:45

attack subgenre of disaster films, which is

3:47

a subgenre of action. Yeah, it's interesting

3:49

because I'm sure you did the same

3:51

thing when reading off some of these.

3:53

It's sort of like just a gut

3:55

feeling sometimes. And you can't say exactly

3:57

what it is that you feel personally

4:00

like doesn't count. But someone, you know,

4:02

someone else. might think it counts. It's

4:04

not like this is something you can

4:06

say is very cut and dry, you

4:08

know? Right. And because of

4:10

that, I looked everywhere on the internet

4:12

to try to cobble together this

4:14

list of, like, basically the

4:17

basic defining characteristics of disaster films.

4:19

Yeah. And it was hard.

4:21

Nobody's ever sat down and said,

4:23

here they are. Some people

4:25

have kind of piecemeal, but people

4:27

don't talk that much about

4:29

disaster films, which I find... Sad.

4:31

Well, maybe this can be

4:33

that. And maybe you can, like,

4:35

I don't know, start a

4:38

website. JoshDefinesDisaster.com. I'll just

4:40

put this article on there and that'll

4:42

be that. All right. Should we go

4:44

through some of these? Because you did

4:46

a bang -up job. Thank you. The first

4:48

thing you needed in a disaster movie

4:50

is a disaster. Sure. But this can

4:52

be a lot of different things. A

4:54

lot of time it's a human -made

4:56

thing. And that varies from climate change

4:58

movies, which we've seen a lot more

5:00

of lately. to, like,

5:02

pandemics. And

5:05

sometimes, like, I guess some things

5:07

like Towering Inferno are a bit of

5:09

a mashup because you can have,

5:11

like, the threat of a structural collapse.

5:13

So that is a human -made thing,

5:15

but it might be brought upon

5:17

by, like, a fire or flood or

5:19

something. Yes. There's overlap. Nobody said

5:21

you can pin down disaster movies pretty

5:23

easily. That's right. What else? There's

5:25

like extraterrestrials, a big one. It can

5:27

be an alien attack. It can

5:29

be a comet or an asteroid headed

5:31

toward Earth. Yeah. Transportation

5:34

is huge. Yeah. People

5:36

love screwing up like cruise

5:38

ships and trains and

5:40

boats and airplanes. Love

5:42

it. And then one of

5:44

the other things about it, too, the

5:46

disaster is ongoing. Right. So it's not

5:48

like the people survive a five minute

5:50

earthquake and then. The rest of the

5:52

movie, they all go out to dinner

5:54

and everything's fine. They spend

5:56

the rest of the movie

5:59

negotiating all the problems that

6:01

that disaster created. So they're

6:03

negotiating sub -disasters. Or it

6:05

can be like an ongoing

6:07

disaster, like a flood or

6:10

something like that. Like that

6:12

can happen the entire movie.

6:14

But one way or another,

6:16

the entire movie takes place

6:19

over... Some sort of disaster

6:21

in all of its after

6:23

effects. Yeah, for sure. Impending

6:25

or in what? Oh,

6:28

that's a good point, too. Yeah.

6:30

Sometimes there's a lot of lead up

6:32

to it. Yeah, exactly. But what

6:34

am I looking for in process, in

6:36

progress? Sure. Oh, good Lord. It's

6:39

usually a pretty large disaster. And

6:41

for me, this is like can be

6:43

a real big differentiator in my

6:45

personal opinion. And

6:48

but again, it's a gut check. Like

6:50

sometimes if it's just a local thing

6:52

to me, I'm like, well, that's not

6:54

really a disaster movie because it has

6:56

to be more big and sweeping to

6:59

truly qualify. Right. But then sometimes it

7:01

is sort of a smaller thing and

7:03

I feel like it does qualify. So

7:05

like like in the case of, you

7:07

know, like a bridge collapse or a

7:09

collapse tunnel or like daylight Stallone's movie

7:11

about the one that one of the.

7:14

The New York tunnels was collapsing or

7:16

collapsed. Like, I considered that a disaster

7:18

movie. So I'm, like, contradicting myself, and

7:20

that's what makes this all fun. Yeah,

7:23

on one end of the spectrum, the

7:25

world can actually be ending. That could be

7:27

the premise. Or, like you said, a

7:29

little tunnel collapse. The rest of the world's

7:31

just going on business as usual. Exactly.

7:33

Let them die. Like that

7:35

guy in Airplane. I don't

7:38

remember that. What happened? There

7:40

was, like, a debate. TV

7:42

show like on the news or something

7:44

like that. And one was like, we need

7:46

to take better care of people in

7:48

the FAA has to step it up. And

7:50

the other guy was presenting counterpoint. He

7:52

was like, I say, let them die. It's

7:56

way funnier in the movie. Yeah.

7:58

Obviously, surviving the disaster is a big

8:00

part of the plot point. We

8:02

know some people won't make it out

8:04

alive, but usually like most of

8:06

the A -list cast will make it

8:08

out alive unless they're really trying to.

8:10

Like pull one over on you

8:12

in a scream sort of way. Yes.

8:15

And you teased something

8:17

just now. Some people

8:19

will definitely not survive. One

8:21

of the things about disaster

8:23

movies is all you have

8:25

to do is basically see

8:27

one. And the next one,

8:29

maybe you don't even need

8:31

to see a second one.

8:33

You can pick out very

8:35

quickly who's going to die.

8:37

Who's going to live? And

8:39

the reason why is because

8:41

stereotypes are pervasive in disaster

8:43

movies. Like you have like

8:45

the dumb brawny guy or,

8:47

you know, a smart scientist.

8:50

Damsels in distress. Like to this

8:52

day, disaster movies are sexist.

8:54

I could not come up with

8:56

a single disaster movie where

8:58

the hero was a woman. Not

9:00

a single one. In all

9:02

the decades of disaster movies, it's

9:04

men. Most of the main

9:06

characters and leads are men. Yeah.

9:08

And the woman is basically there to

9:10

essentially be saved and maybe help

9:12

out some. Yeah. I mean, I guess

9:14

more recently they may throw you

9:16

a bone with like a woman as

9:19

president, but then she's like commissioning

9:21

the team of men to usually solve

9:23

the problem. Good point. Right, so

9:25

you know very quickly who the hero

9:27

is, but there's also plenty of

9:29

other people who are like, I think

9:31

they're going to live. And you

9:33

can really kind of cut them into

9:35

three moral categories, good, bad, and

9:37

redeemable. And redeemable can be like the

9:39

guy's ex -wife's new boyfriend who you

9:41

hate, but really he actually turns

9:44

out to be a good guy. He

9:46

probably dies, but he'll die a

9:48

good noble death. He could also not

9:50

die and become like a sidekick.

9:52

And then there's like the shady rich

9:54

people. Often the people who are

9:56

who are responsible for the disaster through

9:58

like their greed or something like

10:00

that, you know, they're going to die

10:02

a very bad death. And the

10:04

point is, is like it's a really

10:06

simplistic way of looking at humans.

10:09

And I think that's one of the

10:11

reassuring things about it that make

10:13

them enjoyable. Yeah, for sure.

10:15

And I think we would be

10:17

remiss if we didn't bring up

10:19

a little bit of a prickly

10:21

topic for our African -American listeners. It

10:23

has long been a movie trope

10:25

in horror movies, disaster movies or

10:27

whatever, where the black characters will

10:29

die almost certainly and usually first.

10:31

And that has become such a

10:33

trope. It's become a joke and

10:36

lampooned in like, you know, the

10:38

parody movies and stuff. But

10:40

we have to mention that. And what

10:42

I'm curious about, and hopefully we'll hear

10:44

from some of our listeners, if that

10:46

has now become so ridiculous and crossed

10:49

over to where. It's now just sort

10:51

of funny and expected and a movie

10:53

thing and not like truly upsetting. Right.

10:55

So I'm curious how our African

10:58

-American listeners feel about this at

11:00

this point in 2025. Yeah.

11:02

There's usually about as many

11:04

black characters as there are

11:06

women characters in disaster movies.

11:08

Yeah. But like you said,

11:10

similarly, they're often the president,

11:12

like Morgan Freeman or Danny

11:14

Glover or something like that.

11:17

I'd vote for Morgan Freeman. Yeah,

11:19

for sure. But I heard the

11:21

reason, you know, he wears those diamond

11:23

studs in his ears all the time.

11:25

Yeah, he's been rocking those for a

11:27

while. I heard the reason why it's

11:29

an old pirates thing where you wear

11:31

some sort of jewelry or whatever so

11:33

that if you die away from home,

11:35

you have enough currency or value or

11:37

something on you to pay for your

11:39

funeral. That's why he does that? That's

11:41

what I heard. That's incredible. Yeah, it

11:43

makes you want to vote for him

11:45

even more, huh? I just want

11:47

to hear that State of the Union. Yeah.

11:51

Whatever speech he's delivering, it would be

11:53

really smooth. I was going to try

11:55

and bust out of Morgan Freeman, but

11:57

I think I would embarrass myself. I've

11:59

never tried, so it's never good to

12:01

launch into your first attempt live on

12:03

the air. Well, maybe we'll workshop it

12:05

off air. Well,

12:08

we have to talk about the

12:10

hero. The hero, most times. is

12:13

not like a typical

12:15

hero. It's usually an everyman

12:17

kind of character who

12:19

just like Armageddon, for instance,

12:22

you know, they put together a rough and tumble team, you

12:25

know, Dirty Dozen style. It wasn't

12:27

a bunch of like elite problem solvers.

12:29

They were like oil rig guys,

12:31

right? Like drillers. Yeah, they weren't even

12:33

astronauts for Pete's sake. Yeah, they

12:35

had to train them. I only saw

12:37

Armageddon once, so I'm pulling a

12:39

lot of this from distant memory. Yeah,

12:41

I'm more a deep impact dude.

12:43

Oh, yeah? That's what I heard. As

12:46

a matter of fact, I'm not entirely certain

12:48

I've ever seen Armageddon. Yeah,

12:51

you know, it was okay. It

12:53

was fairly, you know, schlocky,

12:55

big budget sort of stuff. You

12:58

just described almost every single disaster

13:00

movie ever made. And the response, too,

13:02

your judgment of it. Almost every

13:04

single disaster movie ever made. Like they

13:06

don't get you to jump off

13:08

the couch at the end and scream

13:10

Bravo or Encore. You know what

13:12

I mean? You just kind of like

13:14

them. They're just kind of fun. Yeah.

13:17

It's a summer movie popcorn fair. I still

13:19

love these kind of movies. I think there's a

13:21

place for all kinds of movies. And I

13:23

still love going to the theater and seeing the

13:25

sort of big budget. Like it probably isn't

13:27

a great film, but it might be a fun

13:29

movie. Right. So within these,

13:31

the structure, these constrictions. People have

13:33

learned over the years how to

13:35

kind of play with them and

13:37

make new forms of disaster films.

13:40

And a really good example, I

13:42

think. So we said that either

13:44

a big disaster affects tons of

13:46

people or a small disaster affects

13:48

a little amount of people. Something

13:50

that kind of combines the two

13:52

is Leave the World Behind, the Ethan

13:55

Hawke movie. I don't know that

13:57

one. Oh, it's great. It was on

13:59

Netflix. Okay. Ethan Hawke and Julia

14:01

Roberts. So basically. there's a

14:03

cyber attack that just causes

14:05

civilization to essentially collapse. But we're

14:07

just following like two families

14:09

who are kind of having to

14:12

figure out what to do

14:14

and what's going on and all

14:16

like that approach. Yeah, it

14:18

was definitely worth seeing. And then

14:20

other ones, rather than having

14:23

kind of a schlocky humor that

14:25

really started to develop in

14:27

the late 70s and then kind

14:29

of turned into like, Quips,

14:32

I guess, in the 90s. There's

14:35

some very, very serious ones, too,

14:37

like The Impossible. Not

14:39

a schlocky depiction

14:41

of the 2004 Indian

14:44

Ocean tsunami. Incredible

14:46

movie, though. It is. It's

14:49

probably the most realistic film I've ever seen

14:51

in my life. Yeah, I mean, I think

14:53

I remember when it came out. We might

14:55

have even talked about that on the air

14:57

at some point when we did the tsunami

14:59

episode. How they

15:01

recreated that was just harrowing.

15:03

Exactly. So that's disaster

15:05

films in a nutshell. And I feel like

15:07

we could probably take a break here and

15:09

then come back and talk about the history

15:11

of disaster films. What do you think? Let's

15:13

do it. Hey,

15:29

it's Zuko and Kayla from The Wake Up

15:31

Call. Enjoy your podcast, but when you're done, don't

15:33

forget about us. We have a radio show.

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15:38

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When you're done podcasting your podcast, listen to

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us at 92 .3 WCOL. Set your preset on

15:50

your radio right now, and don't forget you can

15:52

listen to us online on the iHeartRadio app. So,

16:05

unlike some other things, disaster

16:07

films are one of those things

16:10

you can explore and find

16:12

that there's an actual beginning. And

16:14

it's not like this thing

16:16

developed over time. There were disaster

16:18

films. Because there's these definitions,

16:20

these characteristics that you have to

16:22

have, there were films along

16:24

the way that just happened to

16:26

have those. And the first

16:28

one was Deluge from 1933. Where

16:31

if you watch it, there's several

16:33

minutes of New York City being

16:35

destroyed by a tsunami. And it's

16:37

pretty impressive for 1933. Yeah,

16:40

for sure. And it also sort

16:42

of, as we'll see, and usually they're

16:44

the schlockier ones, but you get

16:46

a lot of these one word title

16:48

disaster movies. Right. Especially in the

16:50

70s. But then again, as we'll see

16:52

in the 90s resurgent, things like

16:54

tornado, flood, stuff like that. Yeah, you

16:56

put an exclamation point at the

16:58

end of a natural disaster or a

17:01

force of nature, and you're set.

17:03

So I didn't know any of these

17:05

early, early ones, but one from

17:07

1936, it was called San Francisco, right?

17:09

Yep. And it was made 30

17:11

years after the 1906 earthquake and

17:14

about that earthquake. Yes, but it's

17:16

also apparently people break into song

17:18

in it here or there, so

17:20

it's sometimes listed as a musical

17:22

drama. Yeah. There's another one called

17:24

Old Chicago about the 1871 Chicago

17:27

fire that came in 1938. Titanic

17:30

apparently was a favorite subject of

17:32

early disaster films and actually stayed

17:34

that way over time. But it

17:36

wasn't until nuclear anxieties really started

17:38

to develop as the Cold War

17:40

picked up and it was reflected

17:43

in movies that people started imagining

17:45

what would happen if all these

17:47

nuclear weapons went off. And that

17:49

actually kind of created the first...

17:51

crop of what you could really

17:53

point to as the earliest disaster

17:55

films. Yeah, kind of like the

17:57

ones as we know it. In

17:59

the early 60s, Voyage to the

18:01

Bottom of the Sea was one

18:03

in 61 when a nuke -powered

18:06

sub that was radiation fire coming

18:08

from space. They were going to

18:10

bomb that radiation fire from below.

18:12

Like, anytime you're using a nuclear

18:14

bomb to, you know... launch it

18:16

into a disaster. Like, I feel

18:18

like that's happened a couple of

18:20

times at least. Sure. For sure. What

18:23

else? There's the day the Earth

18:25

caught fire. Not a good day.

18:27

No. That kind of wondered

18:30

what would happen if a couple of

18:32

nuclear bomb tests that happened to be

18:34

carried out simultaneously by the U .S.

18:36

and the Soviet Union, what would happen?

18:38

And they said, oh, well, probably the

18:40

Earth's axis would be shifted and we

18:42

would be knocked out of orbit and

18:44

we would start heading toward the sun.

18:46

That is. cut -and -dry disaster

18:48

plot. Yeah, for sure. Also in

18:50

the 60s, we had Crack in the

18:52

World, and for me, one of

18:54

the great movie titles of all time,

18:56

Panic in Year Zero. Such a

18:58

great title. It is a great title.

19:00

And then, of course, The Birds,

19:02

an undisputed disaster film. Yeah, I take

19:04

issue with that. The Night of

19:06

the Living Dead is listed. That is

19:08

not a disaster movie. Well, that's

19:10

a great question because is a zombie

19:12

apocalypse that a handful of survivors

19:14

have to survive and negotiate? That's an

19:16

ongoing disaster. You have a group

19:18

of people from different walks of life,

19:20

sometimes stereotype coming together. Their lives

19:22

intersect through this disaster. And then they

19:24

have to survive. Some people do.

19:26

Some people don't. There's a hero. I

19:29

mean, in that sense, Night of

19:31

the Living Dead definitely qualifies. World

19:33

War Z would qualify. Yeah,

19:36

I think that there's like a... mean,

19:38

there's room for debate there. Like, those

19:40

could also be horror monster movies, too.

19:43

Yeah, I consider those subgenres. I think

19:45

as soon as you add any zombie,

19:47

it becomes something else. Something

19:49

else entirely. Again, these are all

19:51

just my dumb opinions. Did you see

19:54

Godzilla Minus One? No, but I've

19:56

heard a lot about it. Dude. Is

19:58

it garbage or great? No, it's

20:00

great. Oh, It has a great plot,

20:02

great acting, great dialogue, and then

20:04

the action sequences. Oh. Unbelievable.

20:06

I got to check that out then. It's a

20:08

really good movie. Again, is

20:10

it a disaster movie? If you

20:12

add Godzilla, I don't

20:14

know. Could make it a monster

20:16

movie. Let's see what Chuck

20:18

says. Chuck? Monster movie. Okay. It

20:20

is officially a monster movie. Well,

20:23

you know, I did host a movie show for a couple

20:25

of years. I know you did. That's why I deferred to

20:28

you. That makes me an expert. The

20:30

70s is when really things

20:32

start get cooking. with

20:34

all manner of disaster movies

20:36

from things like The Andromeda

20:38

Strain in 1971, you

20:42

know, a Michael Crichton novel. So one

20:44

of his early novels, it was adapted.

20:46

I tried to watch that the other

20:48

day, and the animal torture, I couldn't

20:50

get past, man. That's when they just...

20:52

care about depicting that stuff with any

20:54

kind of tenderness at all, you know?

20:56

Well, I stopped the movie and went

20:58

and looked it up. Like, did they

21:01

actually kill this monkey and these rats?

21:03

Did they? And no, luckily they did

21:05

not. And the ASPCA was on hand

21:07

and signed off on it. But what

21:09

they did was they suffocated it with

21:11

carbon dioxide until it passed out. And

21:13

then the moment it passed out, they

21:15

cut and then they revived it. But

21:17

that... monkey was still suffering from asphyxiation

21:20

during those moments where they filmed it.

21:22

It's awful. Did someone do mouth to

21:24

monkey resuscitation? Well, when the monkey dies,

21:26

if you look closely, before they cut,

21:28

there's a shadow of somebody moving toward

21:30

it already. Are you serious? So I

21:32

think they used a little tiny oxygen

21:34

mask to revive it. God. But it's

21:36

yeah. I mean, that makes it a

21:39

little better and that they didn't kill

21:41

him, but they still tortured him. So

21:43

I couldn't finish that movie. Yeah. I

21:45

don't blame you. I never saw it.

21:47

But I remember that kind of as

21:49

a holdover, you know, came out the

21:51

year I was born. So but I

21:53

remember it just being a thing. Yeah.

21:57

So, OK. Yes. You said we started

21:59

off with Androma Strain, right? Yeah.

22:01

I mean, Airport was in 1970.

22:03

And that's the one that, you

22:05

know, kicked off a huge. I

22:07

mean, it had sequels. It led

22:09

to Airport 75, Airport 77, and

22:11

then Concorde colon Airport 79. Yeah.

22:13

Which all eventually led to Airplane

22:15

as, I mean, that had to

22:18

be the first spoof, right? Like

22:20

disaster spoof? That's as far as

22:22

I could tell, unless I would

22:24

qualify or include Attack of the

22:26

Killer Tomatoes as a disaster spoof.

22:28

And I'm not sure if that

22:30

came out before or after Airplane.

22:32

I think it was before, but

22:34

Airport was a very lauded film.

22:36

It got 10 Oscar nods. It

22:38

actually won. Helen Hayes won for

22:41

Supporting Actress. And this is something

22:43

that we'll see over and over

22:45

again. Most of these movies, they

22:47

make a huge, huge return on,

22:49

even if they cost a lot

22:51

to make. Like that cost $10

22:53

million in 1970, which was a

22:55

lot. But it brought in $100

22:57

million in 1970. Yeah. And so

22:59

that really caught the attention of

23:01

the studio bosses. They're like, let's

23:04

do that again. And like you

23:06

said, there were three sequels to

23:08

it. This is probably one of

23:10

my favorite movie franchises. I would

23:12

make the case that the sequels,

23:14

at least the first two sequels,

23:16

are better than the original. I

23:18

didn't see any of these. They're

23:20

so great. I watched 77 and

23:22

79 in the last 24 hours.

23:24

Oh, really? I love them so

23:27

much. And Airport 75 is probably

23:29

the best of the bunch. All

23:31

right. I'll check that out. And

23:33

Airport 77, of course, brings in

23:35

the Bermuda Triangle because I think

23:37

1977 was peak Bermuda Triangle paranoia.

23:39

Yeah, for sure. And then that

23:41

Concord, the Airport 79, the Concord,

23:43

it's people keep shooting missiles at

23:45

it. They have to take like

23:47

evasive action. And you're like, OK,

23:50

this is definitely when the genre

23:52

really started to die or died.

23:54

It had already started. But one

23:56

of the one of the big

23:58

things that Airport kicked off in

24:00

addition to. eye -popping box office

24:02

returns was that huge cast of,

24:04

like, where you recognize every single

24:06

person. I mean, if you

24:08

were alive at the time and an adult

24:10

at the time, you would recognize everybody

24:12

in there. Sometimes there were cameos. And what

24:15

they were following, Airport was based on

24:17

a novel by Arthur Haley, and he had

24:19

written Hotel. One of his

24:21

things was a ton of different characters

24:23

whose lives kind of intersect in this

24:25

issue or this problem or this disaster. So

24:28

basically Arthur Haley, the

24:30

novelist, inadvertently invented the

24:32

disaster film through like

24:35

his format. Yeah.

24:37

And, you know, they movie posters back

24:39

then reflected that, too, because I remember

24:41

stuff like Towering Inferno. They would be

24:43

the more artistic, like the inferno, you

24:45

know, the building on fire. But then

24:47

like at the top or the bottom,

24:49

they would literally just have like. frames

24:52

of people's faces of the cast.

24:54

Like, just tagged on there. Like,

24:56

look at all the star power.

24:59

Right. And as time went on,

25:01

the stars got a little schlockier.

25:04

Yeah. In Concord, Charo

25:07

makes a hilarious one -minute

25:09

cameo. J .J. Walker is

25:11

one of the major, minor characters.

25:13

I love it. she smokes

25:15

grass the whole time. Okay. I

25:19

think in... which

25:21

we'll talk about in a second, Walter

25:23

Matthau makes this inexplicable cameo a

25:25

few times where he's dressed like a

25:27

70s pimp with a curly wig

25:30

and everything, and he's drunk out of

25:32

his mind. That's his

25:34

character. They were definitely known

25:36

for cameos. But yeah, those sweeping huge

25:38

casts of generally A -list and then

25:40

former A -list stars. That was a big

25:42

hallmark of disaster films that came around

25:44

in the 70s. Yeah. You know, they're

25:46

trying to appeal to a broad demographic.

25:48

So they would definitely bring back like

25:50

some of the stars from like the

25:52

golden age of Hollywood when they were

25:54

in their later years would be in

25:56

these like Fred Astaire was in one

25:58

of them. Right. Yes.

26:00

He I can't remember. I think he might have

26:02

been in The Towering Inferno. Yeah.

26:04

So, you know, they're clearly trying to

26:06

appeal to all age groups. Another

26:08

thing they a lot of these had

26:10

in common, at least in the

26:12

1970s. was a man named Erwin Allen,

26:14

the master of disaster. He came

26:16

up in the 1950s, but he really

26:18

hit his stride in the 70s

26:20

with things like Poseidon Adventure, aforementioned

26:23

Towering Inferno. Each

26:25

of those was the top box

26:27

office hit of their respective years. Poseidon

26:30

Adventure very famously was about an

26:32

ocean liner that flips upside down and

26:34

sinks, basically. That's such a good

26:36

movie, too. So everybody is upside down

26:38

on this boat. on the ship

26:40

trying to get out while they're underwater.

26:42

Pretty great. Yep, and it's a

26:44

bunch of different people who are stereotypes

26:47

from different walks of life who

26:49

are led out to safety by an

26:51

everyman, in this case a priest

26:53

named Gene Hackman. That's not the character's

26:55

name, that's the actor's name. That'd

26:57

be pretty coincidental that Gene Hackman played

26:59

a character named Gene Hackman. Such

27:01

a brutal, tragic, very

27:04

upsetting end for such a

27:06

wonderful person. Yeah, upsetting is definitely

27:08

a good word for it.

27:10

Yeah. Can't stop thinking about

27:12

it sometimes. You should probably try to. I

27:14

think that would be for the best. I

27:16

know. Towering Inferno, of course,

27:18

you know, we mentioned there was a fire. If you don't

27:20

know this movie, you should check it out for sure.

27:22

It's one of the good ones. But faulty wiring, of course,

27:25

makes it catch fire. People are trapped at

27:27

the top. But you've also got,

27:29

you know, sometimes it can work

27:31

in other many disasters within it. And

27:33

that's the case here where there's

27:35

a flood scene because they're trying to

27:37

douse the fire. And then all

27:39

of a sudden you've got a flood

27:41

to reckon with. That's like a

27:43

prestige disaster film. They played it straight

27:45

ahead. There's no schlock to it.

27:47

The cast was just amazing. And they

27:49

did something that would be picked

27:51

up again in like the 90s and

27:54

then today's disaster films where they

27:56

had two heroes who kind of had

27:58

to work together. One was Paul

28:00

Newman, who played the architect of this

28:02

135 floor skyscraper. Yeah. Just totally

28:04

fictional at the time, especially. And

28:07

then Steve McQueen was this fire

28:09

chief, and they had to work together

28:11

to figure out how to get

28:13

the people out of this building and

28:15

quench the fire. Man, McQueen

28:17

and Paul Newman, does it get

28:19

any better than that? Not really.

28:21

Maybe Paul Newman and Robert Redford?

28:24

Yeah, that's been done, too. they Butch Cassidy

28:26

and Sundance Kid? Oh, yeah, that was

28:28

great. Okay, so, yes,

28:30

if you see one disaster movie,

28:32

see The Towering Inferno. Yeah,

28:35

agreed. If you

28:37

want to see one that's kind of super

28:39

schlocky, if you want to go down

28:41

that avenue, you could start with Earthquake from

28:44

1974. Yeah. Old Charlton Heston

28:46

was in that one. People are, in

28:48

this case, again, trapped in a skyscraper

28:50

once again. But this time it's an

28:52

earthquake. A lot of, you know, when

28:54

you see these earthquake movies, they're always

28:56

shaking the camera. But

28:58

what's funny is if you ever see them

29:00

being shot. Obviously, nothing is

29:02

moving except the camera. So the

29:04

people are all just going, whoa, on

29:07

just, you know, solid ground. It's always fun.

29:10

So Earthquake did not really mean to

29:12

be schlocky. It just kind of ended

29:14

up being schlocky. They did a great

29:16

job of doing it unintentionally. And it

29:18

wasn't the film that like led to

29:20

the end of the 70s boom. But

29:22

it was definitely one of the early

29:24

signals that this is not this party

29:26

is not going to last forever. And

29:28

it's a good movie. I watched it

29:30

last night. No, I watched it early

29:32

this morning. Oh, man. And Charlton

29:34

Heston, who's a regular in these

29:36

disaster movies, he did great. Everyone

29:39

did really good in it.

29:41

It was just some of the

29:43

premises and then also some of

29:45

the special effects. Like, there's a

29:47

scene where the earthquake tremors are

29:49

rocking the street in L .A.,

29:51

and they're just pushing over the

29:54

facades. So you can see that

29:56

it's just this cardboard facade

29:58

coming down, stuff like that. And

30:00

then there's a very famous elevator

30:02

scene. Yeah, that's on YouTube. It

30:04

drops like all the way down,

30:06

killing everyone inside. But the

30:08

way they show the impact is

30:10

they just freeze the frame and then

30:12

some animated blood splatters across the

30:15

screen for some reason. Yeah, it looks

30:17

really, really bad and is so

30:19

abrupt and jarring and weird. But it's

30:21

like I said, that part is

30:23

on YouTube if you just, you know,

30:25

type in earthquake movie elevator scene.

30:27

Thank you. It's so, you know, it's

30:29

a good scene if someone is

30:31

taking the time to clip it out

30:33

and put it on YouTube. Right. Yeah,

30:36

it is definitely worth it. But

30:38

OK, you want to take a break now

30:40

and come back and talk about the end of

30:43

the 70s or push on through until the

30:45

90s? Yeah, let's maybe push on

30:47

and then we'll stop at the 90s.

30:49

OK, sounds good. So like I said,

30:51

it was kind of clear fairly early

30:53

on that this wasn't going to last

30:55

forever. And it definitely did not make

30:57

it out of the decade. It really

30:59

kind of came to an ugly end

31:01

starting around 1978. Yeah.

31:03

And, you know. One

31:05

person's great disaster movie is another

31:07

person's schlock. It all kind of

31:09

depends, because some of the ones

31:12

listed here as sort of being

31:14

the lazier versions. Avalanche

31:16

and Meteor, that's not one movie.

31:18

That would be pretty great, though, actually.

31:20

Sure. It'd be

31:22

Meteor, then Avalanche, probably. But those are

31:24

two different movies. The Hindenburg, I thought

31:26

that was okay from being a kid

31:28

and watching it. I didn't see that

31:31

one. I haven't revisited. But then Roller

31:33

Coaster. I, as a child, loved, loved

31:35

that movie about a terrorist. It's,

31:37

you know, again, I don't know if

31:39

it holds up, but it's about a terrorist

31:41

that's going to blow up a roller

31:43

coaster. You know, he's targeting amusement parks. So

31:45

are the people on the roller coaster

31:47

like having to go on it or stay

31:49

on it over and over again, like

31:51

it can't stop or something like that? I

31:53

don't. I think so. But,

31:55

like, there's the bombers in the park,

31:57

and I just, you know, I'm having

31:59

these fleeting memories. It's probably terrible, but,

32:01

you know, as a 10 or 11

32:04

-year -old, it was great. Yeah, I got

32:06

you. And then there's

32:08

Flood with an exclamation point. Shout out

32:10

to Laura, who helped us with

32:12

this, who came up with this list

32:14

of lazily named disaster movies, kind

32:16

of like they were phoning it in.

32:18

Yeah, Roller Coaster isn't the best

32:20

name. I'll admit that. Okay. All right.

32:22

I'm going to watch that one,

32:24

though. All right. But a lot of

32:26

people who think about this kind

32:28

of stuff point to The Swarm from

32:31

1978 as the one that was

32:33

like, yeah, this is over. Not only

32:35

was this over, but Erwin Allen's

32:37

career was over because he had not

32:39

one, not two, but three disaster

32:41

film flops from 1978 to 1980. And

32:43

that really ended the boom. Yeah,

32:46

that was pretty much it. The

32:48

Swarm kind of, I don't know if

32:50

Nicolas Cage, if they were referencing. or

32:52

paying homage to that with the

32:54

bees thing later in The Wicker

32:56

Man. It became a very popular

32:58

meme, the bees. Oh, I didn't

33:00

know that. Yeah, from Nicolas Cage.

33:02

But in this movie, in The

33:04

Swarm, there's a pilot that yells,

33:07

bees, bees, millions of bees. Right.

33:09

And the bees take down an

33:11

Air Force helicopter. Of course they

33:13

do. And the way that they're

33:15

overcome is somebody figures out how,

33:17

I think it's Michael Caine leading

33:19

the cast. He's the hero. He

33:22

figures out that they can lead these

33:24

bees out to an oil slick in

33:26

the ocean and then set the oil

33:28

slick on fire and no more bees.

33:30

Hey, I think that's a pretty decent,

33:32

you know, disaster movie

33:34

solution. Okay, fair enough. But I

33:36

was reading a criticism of

33:39

that movie by Tyler Sage, I

33:41

think on a site called

33:43

Ultimate Classic Rock, of all things.

33:45

And Tyler Sage says that

33:47

the cast seems either faintly embarrassed

33:49

by the proceedings or confused

33:51

about what's supposed to be actually

33:53

happening. Yeah. I mean,

33:55

that's all you need to know. Like,

33:57

that's not supposed to happen in

33:59

a movie, you know? No, it's not.

34:01

So Alan had a black mark

34:03

on his record with that, with the

34:05

swarm. And then beyond the Poseidon

34:07

adventure, they tried to recapture that magic

34:09

in 1979 movie. Released

34:11

seven years later, even though it took

34:13

place the very next day of the original

34:15

movie. Yeah, and that was Michael Caine,

34:17

too. But also Sally Field, Telly Savalas, Peter

34:19

Boyle. And, like, if your cast like

34:21

that can't keep a movie, like, make it

34:23

good, then there's something really wrong with

34:25

it. Oh, I thought you were about to

34:27

say afloat. I almost did, and then

34:29

I was like, no, Josh, do not say

34:31

that. He

34:34

did produce perhaps one of the

34:36

worst entries, Erwin Allen did, of

34:38

the genre. I don't

34:40

think it was his swan song, but it

34:42

was definitely the end. In 1980, a

34:44

movie called When Time Ran Out that did

34:46

have Paul Newman. It was

34:48

about a volcano at an island resort,

34:50

but he was very much forced

34:52

into this movie because of his contract.

34:54

I don't think he at all

34:56

wanted to make it. They cut the

34:58

budget. Warner Brothers did. So

35:01

they didn't even have the money to make it look OK.

35:03

And it was just it was really bad. There's a pretty

35:05

good quote in here, too. Right. Yeah. The

35:08

eruption when it finally comes

35:10

is a wonderfully cheesy amalgam of

35:12

wobbly back projection, bathtub tidal

35:14

wave and scared expressions from the

35:16

cast. Oh, man. So

35:18

then because of all this, because these movies

35:20

just got worse and worse. But then

35:23

also like the high drama that was played

35:25

straight. It was just ripe for

35:27

parody. And like you said, Airplane was

35:29

the one that you really don't need to

35:31

mention any other parody. It's

35:33

it as far as disaster film parodies

35:35

go. It just completely captured it

35:37

perfectly. Yeah. And that movie holds up

35:39

pretty well, I have to say.

35:41

It's still a fun watch. For sure.

35:44

OK, I think we've made it to

35:47

the end of the 70s. The first

35:49

real disaster boom has come and gone

35:51

and things quiet down throughout the 80s.

35:53

And we'll let you think about this

35:55

quietly. through this ad break. All

36:12

right, we're

36:14

back and

36:17

we're going

36:19

to talk

36:21

about the

36:24

resurgence. of

36:26

disaster movies in the 1990s, and

36:28

I may have mentioned it on

36:30

this show before, I'm not sure,

36:32

but this is one of my

36:34

legendary predictions, my friend. I

36:36

can't remember it, but it was

36:38

one of the very, very, very early

36:41

90s disaster flicks came out. I

36:43

wish I could have pinpointed which one

36:45

it was, but I remember very

36:47

distinctly at the time in college telling

36:49

my friends, I was like, you

36:51

watch. I was like, they're going to

36:53

start making all of these movies

36:55

again, just like they did in the

36:57

70s. And there's going to be

36:59

a ton of disaster movies. And it

37:01

literally happened, like, starting that year.

37:03

Man. Did you hear that from the ghost

37:05

standing in the middle of the street? No,

37:08

no, no, no. She whispered it

37:10

to you? It's probably pre -ghost,

37:12

but yes. Sharknado, Jared from Subway,

37:14

Hugh Jackman, and disaster movies. The

37:16

only four things I've ever predicted.

37:18

I don't know. I think some

37:20

more are going to come to

37:22

the fore over the coming years.

37:24

Chuck Stradamus. It could only have

37:26

been one of just a few

37:28

movies because... I can't remember what

37:30

it was. Yeah. This whole, this

37:32

90s disaster boom started and peaked

37:34

within a two -year period. And it

37:36

got started off, you could say

37:38

in retrospect, it was started off

37:40

by Outbreak, which came out in

37:42

1995. It's an epidemic disaster movie.

37:44

Yeah, that counts, I think. Most

37:46

people don't point to that and

37:48

say that kicked it off. It's

37:50

more like they say Twister or

37:52

Independence Day in 1996 kicked it

37:54

off. And then, yes, you would

37:56

definitely lump Outbreak into it. But

37:58

it was probably one of those

38:00

two movies. Yeah, it's

38:03

there was a movie called

38:05

Avalanche in 1994. So

38:07

they were dabbling in that world, but

38:09

it was not a big movie at

38:11

all. As far as like capturing attention,

38:14

I think Twister. For sure.

38:16

And that may have been the one actually

38:18

where I was like, oh, man, you because

38:20

that is what I think of is like

38:22

typical disaster. I don't I know this is

38:24

controversial, but I'm not sure I put Independence

38:26

Day in disaster movies. There's something

38:28

about when you add like zombies or

38:30

aliens and stuff. It just tweaks

38:32

it slightly for me from classic disaster.

38:34

But again, just my opinion. Well,

38:36

OK, so even if you accept and

38:38

not with an A, but an

38:41

EX. Independence

38:43

Day from this list, then

38:45

you still have Twister. I think

38:47

it was Twister. I remember

38:49

the entire country was talking about

38:51

Twister. Yeah. I famously

38:53

said, Emily's favorite movies of all

38:55

time are every independent film ever

38:57

made in Twister. Yeah. And I

38:59

mean, it's a really good movie.

39:01

Bill Paxton's amazing in it. Helen

39:03

Hunt does great, too. Like, it's

39:05

a good movie. And one of

39:07

the reasons I think that it

39:09

did kick off that. that second

39:11

boom in disaster movies was that

39:13

you could take the, the disaster

39:15

formula, but then apply emerging CGI

39:17

computer assisted, um, special effects that

39:19

were at the time it was

39:21

like, Holy cow, we can do

39:24

this now. Like the white house

39:26

being blown up by the, the

39:28

alien ship and independence day. Like

39:30

you just had not seen stuff

39:32

like that before. This was all

39:34

very new. And they were using

39:36

it sparingly enough, too, that it

39:38

didn't look fake. Yeah,

39:40

for sure. It was like those are really

39:42

great special effects at the time. Twister looked really,

39:44

really good. We should also

39:46

mention, too, I know we didn't

39:48

go over this, but it's just

39:51

now occurring to me, Philip Seymour

39:53

Hoffman and Twister is also a kind

39:55

of a classic disaster movie trope

39:57

character, which is sort of a

39:59

side character to the guy in

40:01

the chair. You ever heard that? the

40:04

computer expert that just literally sits

40:06

in a chair the entire movie and

40:08

figures stuff out. Yeah, and usually

40:10

has a smart mouth. Always. This is

40:12

sort of an adjacent thing, though,

40:14

Philip Seymour Hoffman's character, which is sort

40:17

of, he's not in a chair,

40:19

but it's the wisecracking, irreverent kind of,

40:21

you know, he's wearing the Hawaiian

40:23

shirt when everyone else has on, like,

40:25

tactical gear. Right. That's,

40:27

you know, but super smart and figuring stuff

40:29

out. I'm not sure what they call that in

40:31

disaster movies, but it's their version of Guy

40:33

in the Chair. I don't think people have written

40:35

enough about disaster movies for anyone to name

40:37

it. So call them what you want. A

40:41

Hoffman. There you go. He

40:44

was the Hoffman of the movie and maybe

40:46

one of the first. We

40:48

got to talk about Titanic. It's

40:50

a disaster movie, but it's got

40:52

so much story. And

40:54

romance, it's definitely a sub -genre

40:56

within it, I think. Bill

40:58

Paxton was in that, too. Yeah.

41:01

R .I .P., man. What a great guy.

41:03

Oh, I forgot he was gone. That

41:05

was so sad. Yeah,

41:08

it was sad. So

41:10

one of the other things, too,

41:12

that fueled this 90s resurgence of

41:14

the disaster boom is that these

41:16

movies, some of them Titanic, Independence

41:19

Day, Twister, they're among the highest

41:21

grossing films of all time. Yeah.

41:23

So just like in the 70s,

41:25

studios were like, we can spend

41:27

lavishly in a production, but we're

41:29

still going to make back 10

41:31

times or more what we put

41:33

into it. So they're like, good,

41:35

let's start making disaster films. And

41:37

very quickly after some of these

41:40

really creative original disaster films, you

41:42

could see in theaters virtually at

41:44

the same time disaster films about

41:46

the exact same topic. Yeah,

41:48

that was the thing for a little while. I

41:50

think I was still getting Premiere magazine at the

41:52

time. I remember they started

41:54

writing about these productions trying to

41:56

outrace one another to get to

41:59

the box office first, maybe to

42:01

their disadvantage as a production. But

42:03

very famously, the two biggest examples,

42:05

or I guess four, are

42:07

Armageddon and Deep Impact, about a

42:09

meteor striking the Earth to

42:11

basically wipe out humanity. And then

42:13

Dante's Peak and Volcano. Neither

42:15

of those were that great. No,

42:18

they weren't. I don't. I

42:20

was Volcano with Tommy Lee Jones.

42:22

Is that the one? Yeah.

42:24

And Anne Hesch. Yeah.

42:26

Again. Yeah. And Dante's

42:28

peak was Pierce Brosnan

42:31

and Linda Hamilton. Oh,

42:33

Linda Hamilton. That's right. And that's a

42:35

really good example of like just how

42:37

disaster films like minimize women and their

42:39

contributions. Linda Hamilton was well known by

42:41

this time as a female action star.

42:44

Yeah. Like she was in the Terminator

42:46

movie. She was a total B .A.

42:48

Yeah. Sarah Connor. Right. And but in

42:50

this movie, apparently she's she's like a

42:52

single mom who's totally dependent on Pierce

42:54

Brosnan to help her and her kids.

42:56

She's like she whimpers at times like.

42:59

Yeah. That's just one of the big

43:01

problems with the genre. Like if you

43:03

can just kind of hold your nose

43:05

and make it through stuff like that,

43:07

then you're you can enjoy them. But

43:09

if you focus on things like that,

43:11

you're probably not going to like disaster

43:14

films. Yeah, agreed. What a waste of

43:16

Linda Hamilton. What a shame. I

43:18

got to shout out a few more that

43:20

weren't listed here from the 90s. Hard Rain.

43:22

Remember that one, Christian Slater and Minnie Driver?

43:25

No. It was a

43:27

flood movie. You know what it was about? It

43:29

was about a very hard rain. Okay. Just

43:31

won't stop raining. Shout

43:33

out, a friend of the show, Minnie Driver. Listen

43:37

to her wonderful podcast on her

43:39

own network, Minnie Questions. Very nice.

43:42

I don't know if you remember this

43:44

one. Firestorm with NFL legend Howie Long. No.

43:50

Yeah, that was one of the bad ones.

43:52

I think he was like a forest fire,

43:54

like a fire jumper kind of guy. So

43:56

far, these ones you're shouting out sound like

43:58

Riff Trax candidates. They

44:00

probably are. And then also some of the

44:02

one word titles. There was a movie

44:04

called Tornado. There was

44:06

a TV movie called Tornado Warning

44:08

that starred Gerald. Gerald

44:10

McCraney from Simon and Simon. Nice. I

44:12

love that guy. There was another movie called

44:15

Flood, a second movie called Flood. Wow.

44:17

And then there was one from 1999, which

44:19

is sort of when things started to

44:21

peter out, called Storm with

44:23

Luke Perry and Martin Sheen.

44:25

Wow. That's some 90s casting.

44:27

It's a mini driver in

44:29

Christian Slater. That screams 90s

44:31

pretty hard, too. Yeah,

44:33

for sure. But like you said,

44:35

there's one other thing. The 90s

44:37

definitely contributed to the hero scientist. where

44:40

it wasn't necessarily some tough dude.

44:42

It was a guy who had

44:44

the smarts to figure out how

44:46

to deal with this or knew

44:49

what was coming. That's another trope

44:51

from disaster films, especially now. Usually

44:53

the hero is the only one

44:55

who can see the impending disaster.

44:57

No one will believe him, and

44:59

then he ends up having to

45:01

save everybody else's tokus because no

45:04

one believed him and didn't take

45:06

any measures to thwart the disaster

45:08

from happening. Right. And once again,

45:10

you were saying he because all

45:12

of these movies failed the Bechdel

45:14

test. For sure. 100 percent. And

45:17

there's also a thing that popped

45:19

up in the 90s, which was the

45:21

like the rival scientist. If

45:24

there was a hero scientist, a

45:26

lot of times there was an

45:28

ant. Well, not antihero because it's

45:30

still a hero. Just. the anti

45:32

-scientist who is still a scientist.

45:34

I'm clumsily working my way through

45:36

this. But they thwart the hero.

45:38

It's, you know, like usually a

45:40

government scientist or something or maybe

45:42

an official, and they dismiss everything

45:44

like the hero scientist is saying.

45:46

Right. It can also be a

45:49

government official very frequently. They get

45:51

their comeuppance pretty commonly in 90s -on

45:53

disaster movies. Yeah. What do you

45:55

call like... Hard. That's not a

45:57

disaster movie, is it? I've seen

45:59

it listed. Yeah, I guess it

46:01

could be. To me, it's just

46:03

a straight ahead action film. I

46:05

totally agree. But it does. Slash

46:07

Christmas movie. Like you would say

46:09

all the people in Nakatomi Plaza,

46:11

that's a disaster to them. Yeah.

46:13

The world's going about its business

46:15

as usual, but to them inside,

46:18

they're in the midst of a

46:20

disaster. They have to survive. I

46:22

don't know. I think just, I

46:24

don't know. I think, so the

46:26

same thing with speed. In Speed,

46:28

Keanu Reeves, the hero, was a

46:30

SWAT member. Right. Not an every

46:32

person. Right. Die Hard, John McClane,

46:34

he's a cop. Even though he's

46:36

off his beat, he's still a

46:38

cop. Like, the hero has to

46:40

be some sort of everyman who

46:42

may or may not possess some

46:45

special sort of skills or knowledge

46:47

that help him overcome this problem.

46:49

And then his metal. that he

46:51

may not even have known that

46:53

was there, is tapped and he

46:55

leads other people to safety. Yeah,

46:57

for sure. But,

46:59

you know, as the 90s wore

47:02

on with things like Luke Perry's

47:04

movie, R .I .P., once again, in

47:06

99, things really

47:08

kind of stopped in the wake

47:10

of 9 -11. It just

47:12

wasn't something that people wanted to see for

47:14

a little while. So there was a lull.

47:16

You knew it would come back. Early

47:19

2000s had a few of them

47:21

here and there. There was one called

47:23

the core in 2003, where the

47:25

inner core of the Earth ceases to

47:27

rotate. And scientists, once again, have

47:29

to bomb it to get that thing

47:31

kick -started, just like using the paddles in

47:34

the ER. Right. Clear!

47:36

Yep. What was that, 2003? So,

47:38

yeah, the very next year was the

47:40

day after tomorrow. And that,

47:42

to me, is the bridge between

47:44

the 90s disaster films and the

47:46

ones that kicked off in the

47:48

2010s. Agreed. It is awesome. It's

47:50

got a great cast. The scientists

47:52

are the heroes. There's a bunch

47:54

of different stuff going on. The

47:56

world is being threatened. There's amazing

47:58

special effects of things just going

48:01

haywire. There's wolves. There's wolves, yep.

48:03

And then that scene of the

48:05

tsunami flooding New York. There's a

48:07

shot that's the exact same shot

48:09

in Deluge of the tsunami coming

48:11

to New York. interesting. So I've

48:13

read that it was probably an

48:15

homage to that. Oh, that's kind

48:17

of cool. Yeah, I thought so

48:19

too. 2009,

48:21

it was a pretty big

48:23

year. This is when they really

48:25

started to come back, you

48:28

know, pre -2010s with the movie,

48:30

the Mayan calendar anxiety movie, 2012

48:32

came out. Do you remember

48:34

that? Yeah, that was Roland Emmerich,

48:36

right? Yes. No, but I

48:38

mean, do you remember living in that time

48:40

where people were actually like a little nervous

48:43

about it? was like Y2K Lite. Yeah. I

48:45

mean, we did a podcast on it. We

48:47

totally did. Yeah. Yeah. And if I remember

48:49

correctly, we told everybody it's totally fine. The

48:52

Maya calendar doesn't actually say the

48:54

world's going to end because a

48:56

new calendar starts. That's right. And

48:59

we're all here right now. So thankfully that

49:01

came true. 2012 was not

49:03

a great movie, but it did because

49:05

of the scope of like just

49:07

the world ending. They could be like,

49:09

hey, let's just do any disaster

49:11

we want anywhere all across the world.

49:14

Not a great movie. I watched

49:16

that one yesterday, too. I didn't think

49:18

it was very good. Oh, I

49:20

liked it a lot. I think to

49:22

me, and I know you know

49:24

this, but to me, 2012 is basically

49:26

up there with the towering inferno

49:28

as far as best examples of a.

49:30

disaster film go. Okay. Here

49:33

you go. My favorite disaster

49:36

film is not listed here, but

49:38

it is from the 2010s. As

49:40

far as being an actual great,

49:42

great film is Steven Soderbergh's 2011

49:44

film Contagion. Yeah, that is a

49:46

good one. It is. I mean,

49:48

it's a disaster movie, but it

49:50

doesn't play like one because it

49:52

is so realistically scary and doesn't

49:54

have that sort of... summer movie

49:56

kind of schlocky appeal. But it's

49:59

a disaster movie for sure. Did

50:01

you, like me, detect a note

50:03

of hostility when the medical examiner

50:05

pulls Gwyneth Paltrow's face like roughly

50:07

off of her skull during her

50:09

autopsy? I don't remember that part.

50:11

It seemed like that was gratuitous.

50:13

Like Soderbergh had a problem with

50:15

Gwyneth Paltrow. Gwyneth Paltrow? Oh, maybe

50:17

so. Yeah. That was a really

50:19

good movie too. And that would be an example

50:21

of some of the highbrow ones that started to

50:24

come out in 2010. Like we said,

50:26

The Impossible. There's a Korean

50:28

one called Pandora that came out

50:30

in 2007 about a nuclear meltdown.

50:33

Sully, about Captain Chelsea Sullenberger's landing

50:35

in the Hudson River where

50:37

not one person died. I didn't

50:39

see that one. A plane,

50:41

I should say, landed a plane.

50:44

Yeah, that was Hanks, right?

50:46

Yeah. Yeah, he was in every

50:48

single movie that was out at one

50:50

point, I think. Yeah, he went through a

50:52

string of playing real -life characters. Here

50:55

and there. That's right. Some of

50:57

those weren't great, but I did

50:59

like the one about the Somali

51:01

pirates, Captain whatever his name was.

51:04

Captain Hoffman. Yeah,

51:07

that was it. So one

51:09

of the other things

51:11

that the 2010 onward disaster

51:13

films did was at

51:15

the very least the studios

51:17

figured out like, hey,

51:19

these are kind of like

51:21

easily translated internationally. And

51:24

we don't mean the dialogue's translated

51:26

easily, although it definitely is. Yeah, for

51:28

sure. And because everything's so morally

51:30

cut and dried, people anywhere

51:32

can get what they're seeing, even

51:34

though it's an American -made film

51:36

about Americans. But also in

51:38

these movies that are like a

51:40

worldwide catastrophe, you have the

51:42

opportunity to take down landmarks all

51:44

over the world. So in

51:46

France, they can see like the

51:48

Eiffel Tower going down. They're

51:50

like, woo, France, you know? And

51:53

then one of the other things,

51:55

too, is because of these huge all

51:57

-star casts, you can easily cast foreign

51:59

actors or actors who are really

52:02

big in the country they hail from,

52:04

and that'll up the box office,

52:06

too, in that country. Yeah, it's all

52:08

a formula. The Rock

52:10

started being in a lot of these. One

52:13

of the few movies I've ever walked

52:15

out on was San Andreas in 2015

52:17

with Dwayne The Rock Johnson. I did

52:19

not think it was very good at

52:21

all. He followed that a few years

52:23

later. You liked it? I didn't

52:25

see it in theaters, though. I think if I

52:27

had paid 20 bucks to see it, I probably would

52:29

have been upset. Yeah. And then

52:32

he was in Skyscraper, not to

52:34

be outdone by San Andreas, another not

52:36

so great movie, a few years

52:38

later in 2018. But again, some people

52:40

love all the Rocks stuff. Sure.

52:42

Which is my dumb opinion. I had

52:44

an idea or a thought that

52:46

I wanted to share, Chuck. Let's hear

52:48

it. About the 2010s boom. It

52:51

didn't burn out in one decade.

52:53

It's still they're still making straight

52:55

ahead 2010 style disaster films. And

52:57

I was thinking that the reason

52:59

why is because there's so many

53:01

more studios now putting out so

53:04

many different types of movies that.

53:06

It hasn't become a glut of

53:08

so -so movies, or even if

53:10

there are so -so disaster movies, there's

53:12

still room to make other good

53:14

ones rather than just three or

53:16

four studios going all in on

53:19

disaster films for the same few

53:21

years. Yeah, just spacing them out

53:23

as, you know, like just something

53:25

you can return to that's a

53:27

pretty dependable release. Not like,

53:29

hey, let's release nine of these in

53:31

the next two years. Exactly. There's a

53:34

wider variety. So it's been allowed to

53:36

just kind of continue on. And in

53:38

my opinion, it's gotten better. Like Leave

53:40

the World Behind was really good. The

53:42

Wave, a Norwegian one that came out

53:44

in 2016, was like highly acclaimed. Don't

53:47

Look Up. Did you see that? The

53:49

satire from Adam McKay? Yes,

53:52

I did. It was pretty good, actually.

53:54

I liked it a lot. It

53:57

satirizes government and people

53:59

not taking climate change seriously.

54:02

And it's a disaster film, but it's

54:04

not a parody of disaster films.

54:06

Right. It uses disaster films to satirize

54:08

that stuff. Yeah, which is an

54:10

interesting take for sure. You

54:13

got anything else? No.

54:15

I feel like I need to watch

54:17

more. I didn't actually watch any full disaster

54:19

films again in preparation like you did. This

54:22

has inspired me to go back and

54:24

watch some of those from the 70s that

54:26

I never saw. Definitely watch Earthquake and

54:28

watch Airport 75. 75. And

54:30

I still haven't seen Towering Inferno. Oh,

54:32

definitely see that too. Yeah. All

54:34

right. Done. Okay. Great. Well, since Chuck

54:36

agreed to see some movies that

54:38

I thought he should see, we've unlocked

54:40

Listener Mail. I'm

54:43

going to call this follow -up to Morgana the

54:45

Kissing Bandit. Hey, Chuck and Josh and all

54:48

that help make your show awesome. My

54:50

wife and I are longtime listeners, but

54:52

first -time writers. My wife, Jennifer, and I

54:54

love having you entertain and educate us, especially

54:56

on long -distance trips with the family. You

54:58

help keep us awake and focused with

55:00

a pleasant side effect of putting our five

55:02

-year -old Ben and seven -year -old Eleanor asleep.

55:04

That's great. I love it when we can

55:06

lull children to sleep. We

55:08

live to give. We are on spring break traveling

55:11

to my in -law's house right now, and during

55:13

the drive, one of our episodes we listened

55:15

to was Morgana the Kissing Bandit. When we arrived

55:17

at our destination, I asked my father -in -law

55:19

if he remembers her since he is the biggest

55:21

sports enthusiast I know. Get

55:23

this, dude. He said, of course. He

55:25

sees her all the time because she

55:27

lives down the street. What?

55:31

You ended your podcast with a mention that

55:33

you didn't know she was still alive and

55:35

what happened to her. And we wanted to

55:37

let you know she's still alive and enjoying

55:39

retirement with a full life. That is awesome.

55:41

And cherry on top. This is written to

55:43

us by John Ritter. Wow.

55:47

My mind is coming apart

55:49

at the seams right now, Chuck.

55:51

Maybe best listener mail ever.

55:53

So big hello to John Ritter

55:55

and your wife, Jennifer, and

55:57

Ben and Eleanor. Yes. Hello.

55:59

And happy travels to you guys. hats

56:01

off to your dad, too, knowing

56:03

Morgana the Kissing Bandit. Yeah. hats

56:05

off to Morgana. I'm glad you're doing

56:08

great. Hopefully this message gets to

56:10

you. Yes. This message brought to

56:12

you by John Ritter. If

56:14

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