Now that the first trailer for
Twisters
has been released , it is worth remembering those films that, more than anything in the '70s, broke out with the force of success, with method actors or not, but always members of massive casts, with better effects how worse
It was Irwin Allen who came up with the idea of giving definitive shape to this particular genre of catastrophe cinema.
It was in the '70s, with
Hell in the Tower
and
Earthquake
.
Perhaps the fuse was lit in 1970, with
Airport
, with Burt Lancaster, Dean Martin and George Kennedy.
We could define films whose main plot focuses on ongoing or imminent events that endanger humanity as members of the catastrophe genre.
Below, in no order of preference, but ordered by release date, ten memorable disaster films (for some reason, they don't necessarily have to be good).
The Poseidon Adventure (1972)
Gene Hackman and Entes Borgnine in the film that inaugurated the genre.
It was the first one.
Based on the best seller by Paul Gallico, published in 1969, the ship that gives it its title capsizes in the middle of a storm.
Produced by Irwin Allen, directed by Ronald Neame.
And the plot focuses on how several of the protagonists try to surface.
It had the peculiarity that many of them did not make it to the end of the screening.
The cast was brilliant for that time: Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, Roddy McDowall and Shelley Winters.
It won 2 Oscars (the song
The Morning After
and visual effects), and had 7 other Oscar nominations (including
John Williams
' music ).
The film had a pitiful remake in 2006, directed by Wolfgang Petersen (well, one of his first successes had been
The Boat
), with Kurt Russell, Richard Dreyfuss, Josh Lucas and the Argentine Mia Maestro.
On Lavalle Street - the street of cinemas, at that time - he remained at the Monumental cinema for dozens of consecutive weeks, something out of the ordinary.
Earthquake (1974)
It was the first film with "Sensurround" sound.
An earthquake in Los Angeles and a cast headed by Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner, George Kennedy and Walter Matthau.
Mark Robson's film had a script co-written by Mario Puzo, the author of
The Godfather
, but hey, it's not all his fault.
The music also, as in
The Poseidon Adventure
, was by John Williams.
It was the first film released with the “sensurround” system, specifically developed for the film, in Argentina.
It was surround sound, and there was also a speaker under the seats, which made the noise deafening.
They say that even the seats moved during the earthquake.
It had four Oscar nominations and won an Academy Award for visual effects.
He spent more than a year in a roadshow (only room) at the Renacimiento cinema, in 900 Lavalle.
Hell in the Tower (1974)
Steve McQueen, hero of the film.
Based on another best seller, a hellish fire breaks out in a San Francisco skyscraper, in the middle of the opening party of that office building.
Construction deficiencies trigger the fire.
There are people trapped at the top of the building (on the 135th floor), and firefighters are trying to get them out.
The cast included heavyweights such as Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, William Holden, Fred Astaire, Robert Wagner and Faye Dunaway (the only survivor, today).
By John Guillermin, later director of
Death on the Nile
and
King Kong
, and produced by… Irwin Allen, with music by… John Williams.
It had 8 Oscar nominations (one for John Williams) and won three, for cinematography, editing and the song,
We May Never Love Like This Again
.
Epidemic (1995)
Cuba Gooding Jr., Kevin Spacey and Dustin Hoffman, taking care of the virus.
How can we forget it, if when the coronavirus epidemic broke out it was the movie that everyone remembered.
The film fueled paranoia towards contagious diseases, something quite common in the '90s.
Everything is triggered by a virus, which has a little monkey, the vehicle of a deadly epidemic that threatened to leave the United States without people.
Directed by Wolfgang Petersen (who would later remake
The Poseidon Adventure
), the leading trio was made up of Dustin Hoffman, Rene Russo and Morgan Freeman, and starred
Kevin Spacey
(he won best supporting actor at the Critics Choice Awards and also was awarded by New York critics), Patrick Dempsey and Donald Sutherland.
Twister (1996)
Helen Hunt and the late Bill Paxton.
It was a surprising success, because although it had well-known actors, none of them were yet stars.
Directed by Jan De Bont, who was coming off the success of
Top Speed
, neither Helen Hunt nor Bill Paxton nor Cary Elwes nor Philip Seymour Hoffman nor Alan Ruck himself (Connor Roy in
Succession
) still had an audience under their own names.
Bill and Jo Harding (Hunt and Paxton), storm chasers on the brink of divorce, must join forces to create an advanced weather warning system that requires wading into extremely violent tornadoes.
Nominated for two Oscars, for best sound and visual effects, a new version will be released in July of this year, starring Glen Powell (
Top Gun: Maverick
) and Daisy Edgar-Jones.
Titanic (1997)
Jack and Rose, DiCaprio and Winslet.
Do I need to say something?
The love story of Rose and Jack, which in James Cameron's mind triggers the collision of the ship with an ice floe when those who were supposed to spot the blocks of ice are entertained by watching the couple Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio kiss.
James Cameron's blockbuster is one of the three most Oscar winners (11), along with
Ben-Hur
and
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
.
If you haven't seen it, they show it on Telefe every month.
Volcano (1997)
Tommy Lee Jones and Anne Heche, to extinguish the volcano.
Just as in
Earthquake
it was an earthquake that terrified Los Angeles, here a volcano erupts in downtown Los Angeles and a city official and a seismologist try to stop its inevitable flow through the city.
With Tommy Lee Jones and Anne Heche, directed by Mick Jackson (he had directed
The Bodyguard
!), paradoxically, another film about a volcano was released two months earlier:
Dante's Peak: The Fury of the Mountain
, with Pierce Brosnan (in full swing as James Bond) and Linda Hamilton (
Terminator
).
No, it did not have Oscar nominations, but rather the Razzies, which reward the worst in cinema.
Armageddon (1998)
Elencazo had the film whose cast was headed by Bruce Willis.
And yes, we had to choose between this one and
Deep Impact
, with Robert Duvall, which were more or less about the same thing.
A group of geologists are preparing to destroy a meteorite in space that threatens to collide with the Earth.
From the bombastic Michael Bay (
The Rock
, with Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage, remains his best film), and with a script by JJ Abrams (
Lost
), it had a brilliant cast: Bruce Willis, Liv Tyler as his daughter, Ben Affleck, Billy Bob Thornton, Will Patton, Owen Wilson, Steve Buscemi, Peter Stormare...
Who doesn't remember the video clip of the song
I Don't Want to Miss A Thing
, that Steve Tyler sang, and we saw his daughter Liv missing her fake dad, a Bruce Willis who was in the middle of
Die Hard
for a year now Brand new
Sixth Sense
?
The Day After Tomorrow (2004)
From Roland Emmerich, director of "Independence Day."
Roland Emmerich had already taken his first steps in something similar to the genre with
Independence Day
(alien attack) and
Godzilla
(mutant monster).
Here, a global-scale storm subjects the Earth to a new age of ice age, with characters miles apart.
The fight to survive is arduous, as is the film with Dennis Quaid, Jake Gyllenhaal, Emmy Rossum and Ian Holm, which works better in moments of disaster than in intimate dramas.
The Impossible (2012)
Naomi Watts and Tom Holland in a scene from the director's film of "The Snow Society."
From JA Bayona, who has just released
The Snow Society
, the film changes the concept of a massive cast to focus on a family.
A tsunami leaves the entire population of a coastal region of Thailand homeless.
And together with that family, which makes up the characters of Naomi Watts, Ewan McGregor and Tom Holland (yes, the future Spider-Man) we suffer the days after the gigantic wave, with some injured characters and others who cannot be found.
Naomi Watts was nominated for the Oscar for best leading actress, an award that ended up in the hands of Jennifer Lawrence (
The Light Side of Life
).