What Mark Robson built in 1967’s Valley of the Dolls — a quintessential L.A. — he tore down less than a decade later with Earthquake, his penultimate picture as director. Released at the height of Hollywood’s disaster craze, the movie beat The Towering Inferno into theaters by one month, but lost to Irwin Allen’s flame-broiled … Continue reading Earthquake (1974)→
You know the hoary cinematic chestnut of the retiring cop whose last day proves quite the pickle? The reality-rooted The Wave ups that finality ante with a frickin’ tsunami! Not for nothing did this taut thriller become the year’s biggest deal in its home country of Norway, where the scenario depicted is expected to happen in … Continue reading The Wave (2015)→
The Towering Inferno, by the numbers: • 138 stories, stands San Francisco’s brand-new Glass Tower • 300 partygoers celebrating this massive erection — the world’s largest • $2 million saved by going with electric wiring inferior to the architect’s specifications • one fire caused as a result • and nearly three hours of star-studded cheese … Continue reading The Towering Inferno (1974)→
Should you choose to take a wine tour of Chile, pack a football helmet and an autograph book — the former in case of earthquakes; the latter because you just might run into Selena Gomez. That Spring Breakers starlet makes an uncredited cameo in Aftershock, a shaky quake pic more interested in a retching scale … Continue reading Aftershock (2013)→
That buzz you hear is The Swarm, disaster mogul Irwin Allen’s speculative epic about killer bees. As far as that subject goes, this one runs a distant second to 1991’s coming-of-age dramedy My Girl (Macaulay Culkin, nooooo!), but with Allen at the rare helm (he functioned not as director, but as producer for the influential … Continue reading The Swarm (1978)→