Be Excellent To Each Other

Drunk. Just done Meal & Movie with Lord Rixondale. I cooked up salmon, cream cheese, spinach and pasta with a home-made potato salad (apple, chives, spring onion, tatties) side. For films I chose Fantastic Mr Fox (I have found I love that film more than any other last year) and The Time Machine with Rod Taylor, the 1960's version.

I was expecting Rixondale to scoff a little at The Time Machine. Instead he very much enjoyed it. It has reinforced my belief that George Pal is awesome, and knows more about how to make a good disaster movie than Emmerich and Michael Bay do in a million years. I have thusly written 32 commandments on how to write a top disaster movie. This is not just for you, but for me, for when I write a big article later tomorrow (today) on George Pal and why he is awesome, and why Bay is a big fool.

Anyway, those magic ingredients...

1: In ye land of unreality, thou leading man shalt be bland or unknown to ensure audience-member projection.

2: Thine supporting men shalt be awesome, yay, even at the cost of thine leading man.

3: Thou Shalt not follow the rules of Joseph Campbell and 'The Hero of the Thousand Faces'. Nor shall there be 'A Calling', nor 'A Mentor', or any of that shit.

4: Thou shalt not explain for retards.

5: Thou shalt not have one special effect clangingly fighting another unless both creatures can be discerned as a certain individual at a glance.

6: Thou shalt be spontaneous. No portentousness.

7: Thou shalt never wisecrack.

8: Thou shalt have, in retrospect, surprisingly few effects.

9: Every effects shot shalt count, as in a million dollars.

10: Where one can convey an idea in reaction shot, thou shalt not tack on an effects shot.

11: Thou concept shalt be simple.

12: There shalt be no romance.

13; There shalt be no 'villains' unless playing to a character actor's strength.

14: Thou shalt shoot 'documentary' style, or 'George Pal' style.

15: Thine film shalt follow the main character and nothing but the main character.

16: Thou shalt not destroy landmarks, but everyday places.

17: Thou shalt not slow-mo.

18: If there be monsters, they shalt be based on the creatures of the sea, or Lovecraft, or something balletic and animalist. Thou shalt not be tedious clunking things that one cannot tell apart.

19: Thou shalt look at the paintings of the last four hundred years of the fall of Sodom and Gomorrah, and such-like, and nod and say, "Yay. For they knew how to compose a scene."

20: Thou shalt have half thine shots deliberately impressionistic, underexposed, hand-held or otherwise seemingly 'snatched'.

21: Thou shalt begin the day as 'It was a day like any other...'

22: Thou shalt not try to Top-Trump 9/11 in spectacle, for nay, it cannot be done.

23: Thou shalt not have topical references or George Bush-alikes. Dated now. Will be even more dated later.

24: Thou shalt let them know how many die, and where. Thou shalt say to thine extras, go! And die there!

25: Thou shalt not pussy out.

26: Thou shalt not have a dirt-bike out-run a mile-high tidal wave.

27: Thou shalt not be able to catch a taxi anywhere in the world days before an apocalyptic event.

28: There shalt be no warning. Trust thine Lord of movie, 'tis better this way.

29: Thou shalt strive for surrealism by juxtaposing the quiet suburbia with the awesome intrusion.

30: Thou shalt respect the nerds of thine audience who know the Fujita scale. This shit matters.

31: Thine sound-track shall be the best of all movies that year, and shalt not consist of rock.

32: Fear shalt be engendered through being small and vunerable in a big world. Thou shalt fear the tripod on the horizon. Thou shalt fear the death from above. Thou shalt fear the lava and yay even the abrupt blowing of the grass. No where shalt feel safe, excepting of the basement, where thalt shalt practice thine alegories and thine arguements against charasmatic guest cast.

33: Thine extras shalt be lingered over and allowed to become characters in themselves.

34: Creepy air-raid sirens shalt play at at least once point in the film, adding dread.

35: There shalt be a big 'exodus' style evacuation scene. This shalt be the best scene in the movie, with perhaps a panicky riot at the end.

I'd also like to add this for action flims:

Thou shalt not die, nor feel pain, from falling from any height if ye landeth upon ye's one knee and fist, like totally.

Is this going in Empire, Pete?

And if you can write this well drunk, why are you still a sexy librarian?

I'd suggest this one is controversial.

Particularly if you want the coveted one-star rating.

You can have boobies without romance.

In real life too.

Aw, ta.

Not yet it ain't. I'm off to the coffee shop shortly to write a couple of articles. I thought up this lot walking back home drunk from Meal & Movie, and then banged on my housemate Kieron's door (fortunately he was awake) and gave him my rules of disaster-movie off the top of my head. He told me to go upstairs and type it all up before I went to bed, as otherwise I sure as hell wouldn't remember them in the morning. Ta Ki.

I nearly choked on my cereal* at that. Thanks, Pete.


*I'm having a late day. What?

Disaster movies should be bleak, there may be acts of heroism and self-sacrifice but no saving the day. If it can even be called a disaster movie then Threads is still the best one I've seen.

Are Zombie films included in the disaster ginree?

Sort of but I think it's pretty much a separate sub-ginree with its own rules.

Yeah, Markg hits it on the head pretty firmly here. It can loosely be called a disaster movie, but really that's like calling a cheesecake, a 'cake'. It is superficially similar but distinct enough to always be known by the name that sets it apart. It has zombies in it. It is of the zombie genre. It is a zombie movie.

But I do think a zombie movie could be subsumed into the disaster movie genre by following some set rules and deviating from the usual road trip/house under siege format. That can be gone into later though.

Threads still shits me up.

Are there any disaster films where everyone, including the cute kids and the hero and the scrappy dog, all just get killed at the end? And not in a heroic, sacrifice myself to save the world way, just getting clunked by some falling breeze blocks or getting typhus or something.

No running

Yup, that'll be Threads again.

I violently disargee with "7: Thou shalt never wisecrack."

This is a fundamental component of a disaster movie - the hero making a wrly amusing comment to show how extaordinarily nonchalent he really is about Los Angeles turning into a giant fruit bowl, or whatever. "Hmmm, low calorie breakfast".

I'd also agree with Grim on the romance thing - a disaster movie needs smoochies, and a motiviation for one character to do something really -really stupid.

Also, you should always always always use any flimsy pretext to get sexy ladies naked - I give you Deep Blue Sea and the seminal "I'll not get electrocuted if I take my wetsuit off and stand on it" moment as Exhibit A.

Otherwise good stuff as usual!

How about the older tough guy who says, go on without me/I'll only slow you down/gimme your ammo, I'll take out as many flying monkeys as I can NOW GO!

All disaster movies need him.