The Big Picture - ‘Twisters’ Rocks! Plus, the Top Five Natural Disaster Movies.

Episode Date: July 19, 2024

Sean and Amanda discuss one of the most anticipated movies of the summer, ‘Twisters,’ starring their guy Glen Powell alongside Daisy Edgar-Jones (1:00). Then, in honor of the genre that ‘Twister’ amplified in the ’90s, they discuss what makes natural disaster movies so appealing and which are the most successful (40:00). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Senior Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Greetings, it's Mal. Call your banners because it's time to head back to Westeros for House of the Dragons Season 2. The Ringer's Dragon Riders will soar alongside you each week with a Harrenhal-sized slate of conversations. The Dragon has three heads, and on Sunday nights immediately after Hot D concludes, Chris Ryan, Joanna Robinson, and I will be with you for Talk the Thrones. Then on Mondays, two more shows await. Dan Laith and Charles Holmes, Steve Allman and Jomia Deneron, aka the Midnight Boys, pew pew, will head to the tourney grounds to share their reactions.

And of course, Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald will sip the Arbor's finest vintage on the watch. Then on Tuesdays, Joanna and I will head to the bowels of a pleasure den for our House of R Deep dives. Then on Thursdays, Joe, Neil, and Dave Gonzalez will gather the Ravens for Trial by Content. In this season, full episodes of Talk the Thrones, House of R, and The Midnight Boys will also be available on video on Spotify and the new Ringerverse YouTube channel.

Podcast episodes available on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Sean Fennessey I'm Amanda Dobbins and this is the Big Picture a conversation show about Twisters today on the show we're digging into

the new legacy sequel to the 1996 hit Twister we'll also be sharing our top five natural disaster movies

did you originate the term legacy sequel or no okay good you just said it like you did no because I'm not sure if Twisters top five natural disaster movies. Did you originate the term legacy sequel or? No. Okay, good. You just said it like you did. No, because I'm not sure if Twisters is a legacy sequel or not. That's the question.

Oh, I think it is. Well, we'll get there. Yeah. We'll get there. How are you doing on this fine day? I'm great. We're recording this episode from the past future. Correct.

You'll be on vacation by the time it airs. Yes. So any timely references, find a way to disregard them because we don't know. Recording this episode from the past future. Correct. You'll be on vacation by the time it airs. Yes. So any timely references, find a way to disregard them because we don't know. Or Horizon Part 2. Did you do that on Long Legs without me? I didn't. I didn't do it.

I didn't talk about it at all. Do you want to share your thoughts on the shelving of Horizon Part 2? Foreseeable. Yeah. But tough beat, I guess. Foreseeable. Well, I don't think that we thought Horizon Part 1 or Part 2 were going to make enough money to financially justify what was going on. That's true.

And, you know, I don't know. I'm not privy to all the details. Casey did not call me to let me know kind of where the various mortgages stand. But I guess they just decided that they were going to lose less money. You think there was going to be a foreclosure in Santa Barbara that he was trying to avert? I mean, I, you know, he does spearfishing with his children there, so I hope not. That's incredible. He said that like-

Did he learn that on the set of Waterworld? I don't know, but he did tell Zach, my husband, that in GQ and then has repeated it in every interview. Like, we do spear phishing is a sentence that Kevin Costner has said upwards of 10 times. I guess I'm sad that we don't get any more Kevin Costner interviews. I had an incredible August 16th planned. Okay. Me and Chris were going to go arm in arm to the movie theater at 9 a.m. And we were going to see for 24 hours Alien Romulus.

Okay. And then Horizon Part 2. And then Alien Romulus. And then Horizon Part 2. And that has been taken from us. I was going to ask why I wasn't included. And then. You know why you're not included.

And then 24 hours. Could you watch Alien Romulus six times in a row? No. I could probably take a nap though. That's true. If you did. Like if you got one of the recliner theaters. Yeah, sure.

That's a condition for me seeing any movie for the next three months. We'll get you in a Dolby theater. Okay, thank you. Let you take a nap while a xenomorph rips our faces off. That was sad news about KC, but that happened nine days ago. So why are we talking about that? We're talking about a different kind of disaster today. Twisters, which is the new film from Lee Isaac Chung, an unlikely director for this film.

He was a guest on this show when his Oscar-nominated family drama, Minari, was making the rounds. Amazing movie. Wonderful movie. We saw it at Sundance 2020. We did. Yeah.

One thing that I recall about my conversation with him, and he was a lovely guy, was that he was not like some young filmmaker who'd burst onto the scene. And this was his big Sundance breakout premiere debut feature. Like he'd made many movies into a relative obscurity before that. So on the one hand, you might think, oh, the guy made Minari. Why is he making twisters? On the other hand, this is the kind of movie that can kind of like set up your life and set up your career in a completely different way. In addition to that, well, Lee Isaac Chung is from Arkansas and also loving Steven Spielberg movies and Amblin being a part

of the history. So it might seem weird on the surface that he's the director behind this movie, which is a really traditional 1990s style blockbuster. But I thought he did a great job with it. What did you think of Twisters? It's the movie of the summer for me. I think so too. Yeah, with full disclosure, haven't seen Trap yet. Okay.

Even Nine Days in the Future, I don't think I've seen Trap. Warner Brothers, Josh Hartnett, holler at me. You also have not seen Deadpool and Wolverine. That's true. I've RSVP'd. I will be in tears. I will be in weeping if you say, I'm sorry I was wrong on the Twisters episode. Deadpool and Wolverine is in fact the movie of the summer. I would say one of the low moments of my summer this far has been sending the calendar

invite to my husband, which reads Deadpool and Wolverine parentheses for Amanda, which is how we schedule our family time. So he can't make any plans so that I can go see Deadpool and Wolverine. Our lives are very stupid right now. Yeah. So that is, that's what I have to look forward to. But listen, until then, this was just an absolute delight. You and I got to see it together. We were stressed out. We were cheering. We were making jokes to each other.

We walked out and we're just like, that was great. That was just straight up exactly what I want from a summer movie. They nailed it. It's an incredible relief in many ways because it's been an up and down summer. It's also, I think, a really interesting test of virtually an entire generation of young actors because, of course, our beloved Glenn Powell is the star of this movie, as is Daisy Edgar-Jones, an actress who I really love. I think you're a fan of hers as well, right? I am, and I'm really pleased to say that we've sprung back entirely from Crawdads.

Yes, yes. She's going to be okay. It's going to be okay. She's trying an American accent. This is more located in Oklahoma. I thought pretty credible. I did as well. Yeah. Did you ever see Where the Crawdads Sing? I did.

I was appalled. Yeah, that, on every level. I was in a bookstore with a friend yesterday and like pointing to that book, like, can you believe how many copies of,

anyway, the South Carolina, North Carolina accent didn't really land for her, but Oklahoma, she's got down. I thought she was great in this. I do need to check in with Tyler Parker on this, The Ringer's't really land for her, but Oklahoma, she's got down. I thought she was great in this. I do need to check in with Tyler Parker on this, The Ringer's Tyler Parker, just to verify that the Oklahoman-ness of this movie feels right.

I think that is something that worked very well in the original Twister movie. We should talk a little bit about the original Twister, too, before we get too deep into Twisters. But it's not just Daisy Edgar Jones and Glenn Powell. It's also Anthony Ramos, who's basically huge, basically the third lead of the movie. Brandon Preah, who people may remember from Nope. You've got Sasha Lane, who's been in a number of movies like American Honey. You've got Daryl McCormick, who was in that drama with Emma Thompson that we were talking about. Good luck to you, Leo Grant.

Right, and was also in Bad Sisters. That's right. Kiernan Shipka, Don Draper's daughter, now emerging as a young star. And East Side LA fixture. Yep. David Cornsweat, a.k.a. Cornsweeper.

Cornsweeper. This is how the legend of Cornsweeper started, was you texting me like three days later on a Sunday morning being like, hey, that guy in Twisters, he's going to be Superman. I found him borderline unrecognizable and certainly not very Superman-esque in this movie. Nevertheless, he's Katie O'Brien from Love, Lies Bleeding

is also in this movie. Also randomly Tunde Adebimbe from TV on the Radio appears in this movie in kind of the Philip Seymour Hoffman part from the original. And like gets more lines than anyone else in the crew. And so many times you turn to me and we're like, is that Tunde from TV on the radio? And I was like, I think so.

Pretty weird. He's just talking about science. Yeah, he's an actor and he is acting. He's in, you know, Rachel getting married and movies like that. But it seemed like an odd movie for him to show up in. Yeah, but it was nice to see him. It was. It was great.

So it's this, you know. Wait, you skipped one person. Who did I forget? Who I didn't know was in this movie until she showed up halfway through. Oh, but she's not a young star. Yeah. Excuse me. I didn't say she was an old star.

Excuse me. She's a star of a reasonable age. Maura Tierney shows up in the maternal role, homesteader role halfway through. And I really did like start my own applause. You did. You were very happy to see her. Like when an Easter egg happens in a Marvel movie. But for me, it's more a tyranny.

She was, and she, I think a very credible mom to Daisy Edgar Jones. So, you know, the original Twister is going through, I don't know if it's a kind of a reclamation or a re-examination because of this movie. The movie and not like the original Tornado. Not Tornado. There's and not like the original tornado. Not tornadoes. There's no origin tornado here.

There's no spaceship landing from Krypton that starts a tornado. The movie Twister from 1986, directed by Jan de Bon, recently on the rewatchables. I can see across Letterboxd, everybody's rewatching Twister. It's on max right now.

That's a movie that was dropped right into the middle of our adolescence. I was turning 14 when that movie came out. I think you were turning 12. Like it was a very, very, very big deal. It was probably the first post Jurassic Park movie where our ability to render something digitally was like really touted as part of the marketing of the movie.

And that's one of the reasons why the movie was made i gotta be honest yeah i was not a big fan of twister when it came out i didn't really think it was very good and it's not nothing against any of the actors i think it's got a great cast and it's pretty fun i just revisited it this week but i thought it was a little bit of a letdown at the time okay even though it was a big hit did you have like a do you see it in theaters you remember seeing it back then i remember seeing it in theaters i remember the cow swirling you know that that stayed with me indelible imagery but i think i was i was in my entertainment weekly phase at that point but as you said like i was turning 12 so i wasn't fully into the you you know, let me make like critical judgments

about this hasn't lived up to like the effects of Steven Spielberg. Do you know what I'm saying? I'm just kind of like, wow, look at that cow. I just think when you say Jurassic Park, you're raising the bar very high. But again, like I was 11 turning, you know, it's like you only, I wasn't there yet.

It was also sold as the guy who made Speed's next movie. Right. Which was also, you know, a very critical summer blockbuster for me at that time. And so I really was anticipating it. And, you know, going back to it, it's it's pretty good. It's pretty. I actually think Twisters is better. Like maybe even much better. I do as well.

I do as well. But Twister is also, and when we do our like top five natural disaster movies, we decided that Twister was off the list. Off the list, yeah. Because it is sort of like the holy mother of all of these films. It definitely kicks off the huge wave in the 1990s

all the way into the early to mid 2000s. There's like a 10 year period, just like in the 70s, there was a 10 year period where there were tons of natural disaster movies. The 90s had the same thing. And Twister, I think was the first one. I think that was the one that became clear

it was box office. It was like the big deal. Yeah. You know, and then it also, Bill Paxton, Helen Hunt, who I think I probably went to the theater being like, wow, it's the Mad About You lady. Were you a Mad About You fan?

Yeah, I was. Because like I was finally allowed to watch all the NBC shows on Thursday night. What was the general premise of Mad About You? How would you describe it? I didn't Google this. So Helen Hunt and Paul Reiser were an early 30-something couple.

Then they lived in New York. And I guess they were opposites attract type people. Were they? Kinda. I mean, they had like light marital disagreements. That was the whole show. But then it worked out. That's why I'm asking you, you know?

Yeah. It's not even like Cheers where you're like, oh, they all went to one place or Seinfeld where it was like all they kind of convene in this series of places, this quartet of friends. It's like two married people hanging out. Yeah. That was the whole show.

Can I tell you a very short Paul Reiser anecdote? Sure. I went into a bookstore yesterday. I saw a friend from college who was in town. And I picked out a novel that I've been wanting to read, Caledonian Road by Andrew Hagan. And the bookseller told me, oh, we carry that because of Paul Reiser. And he was like, he's a big friend of the store. And I was like, oh, okay.

Well, thanks, Paul Reiser. Is that because he requested it? Don't know. I don't know. Maybe he was just like, this is really great. And you guys should stock it. Interesting. Would you like to get to that place in your life absolutely that's an interesting level of fame where you can you can force local retailers to carry products because you insist upon them yeah that's good i like that um so happy for him and i what where's

helen hunt these days still performing she's been in some movies she was in a couple of sundance films was recognized for her work in the late 2010s um but has not is not at the level that she was actually this this was the movie that kind of shotgunned her into an a-list style movie fame and then as good as it gets the following year and winning an academy award for best actress The 90s were quite a time. And that was an unusual road, that transition. Remember all of the ink spilt about whether George Clooney could pull it off or not, appearing in The Peacemaker, you know, like, was he worthy of the big screen?

And Helen Hunt was like, it's good. I got a Twister. I'm getting in there and I'm taking off. Twister's fine. Twister's is not necessarily revolutionary in its construct as a story. It's a fairly simple story about a woman who has some trauma. Yeah. And then she has to render that trauma into a career.

Yes. We've seen this quite a bit recently. Right. And then she's pulled back to the source of her trauma and has to make peace with it in order to save the world and collapse tornadoes. That's really what she's there to do. I guess if you don't really want to hear anything else about Twisters, we're going to spoil this movie because it's, you know, not, it's pretty spoilable. Yeah. That being said, we both heartily recommend Twisters.

Go. Go with your friends. Go biggest screen possible. Let joy into your heart and go have some fun spoiler warning so daisy edgar jones plays kate cooper she's a as you put it weather chaser turned meteorologist i guess as a college student when she was learning about meteorology she's chasing these tornadoes through through the southwest, she's chasing these tornadoes through the Southwest. And she's trying to get a grant

for her new technology, which is, I'm not joking, this is not pandering to me and Sean, it's releasing like the filler in diapers, the anti-absorbent technology. I was going to say, be careful with filler in diapers,

what you mean there, you know. She says it's non-toxic in the movie, which we... Good joke. Which I enjoyed. Anyway, this stuff

that they use to absorb some of the liquid in diapers, which I have to say, after like two and a half years of exposure,

really marvelous technology thanks to all of those people. I agree. Yeah, they... I feel like diapers like 20 years ago made the leap where they're like, these are just, they're more or less foolproof. I mean, I can't really attest to that. I don't remember the old stuff, but. I remember some conversations with my parents about how we have come a long way.

Nevertheless. I'm still really hoping for a pamper sponsorship for this podcast, by the way, if anyone's listening. The road is long. I'm brand loyal. Well, just keep having babies, you know, I'm sure it'll work out eventually. But, so she's going to take this stuff, whatever that is, and just inject it

into the tornado and then it will absorb all the moisture and collapse the tornado. Cool theory. I mean, it's genius. So we see in this opening.

It's back to basics in many ways. And Dorothy is featured prominently from the original film in that first sequence, right? Yes. They're basically, they're using Dorothy. I don't know whether they're like attaching the little capsules to the Dorothy things, but, or they're measuring Dorothy. And then when they have it, they're using Dorothy to measure when they have it just right.

They're sending up the gust. Right. There's no way in the original film to really measure the size, scope, magnitude of the twister without being from the inside. And so the Dorothy is kind of created by both Paxton and his crew to measure it and they

attempt to drive to the vortex of the tornado, send it up into it, and then we can get a reading on it. And this movie kind of like, the reason I ask, is this a legacy sequel, is that's really the only thing in the movie that feels connected to the original. Am I right? No. Well, the basic story structure is also the same.

Once you get past this traumatic event that opens the film. Just that a young woman encounters a twister at a crucial stage of their evolution as a person there are a couple scientists who are rivals that's true turned maybe more there is a corporate interest that they are also competing against in the development of new and improved tornado technology because somehow we still can't measure tornadoes there's a there's a great amount of science corner coming later in this episode um but so the like just the basic plots of scientists woman man will these tornadoes bring them together and will they make scientific breakthroughs

uh and or die by a tornado it's pretty much the same stance one of the reasons why i think this movie is better is very practical which is that our ability to render tornadoes on screen is significantly better and the opening sequence of this movie that we're describing where um the kate character is on this kind of tornado chase with her a group of college students who are like-minded who are all kind of part of this like chase culture that they're building i think they're also scientists i think they're still in school right yeah but they're trying to get a grant okay okay maybe i don't know if they've gone pro yet they seem like amateurs to me well especially based on what

happens to them yes Yes, yeah. Which is that, as I noted to you, instantaneously in the movie theater, as these characters were introduced, despite the fact that many of them are young, promising actors in Hollywood, I was like, those people are all going to die. And the only person who's going to survive

is Daisy Edgerton. I literally said to you, that's Kiernan Shipka. But you were right. Yeah, and so her cohort, Javi, Anthony Ramos' character, survives and she survives. But everybody else in this opening sequence, in a very harrowing sequence, and Daryl McCormick's death in particular, was traumatic. Yeah, really upsetting. You can imagine that Kate carries this with her for a long, long time.

That's her boyfriend in the film. And then we have a hard cut. And then, I don't know if i said out loud to you whatever it was 10 years later or seven years later five years later i remember how many years later it was kate is in new york right working as a professional meteorologist and the movie does the thing they didn't specify her job title so she seems to be working for like some version of noah or the national weather tracking i think the latter is what it is supposed to be. Okay.

I love this little tight little sequence at the beginning of the movie. I don't know why. I don't remember like everything so well. We saw this movie a couple of weeks ago. But the one where there's like an anxious guy who's trying to show how good he is at his job at the desk. Right.

And his supervisor is standing over his desk and asking him his take on something, some sort of weather event that is happening. And then in the background, we can see Kate's character and she's very calmly sitting there and the supervisor is not interested at all in what the guy has to say. And he's like, Kate, what's your take on this? And she very clearly, quickly, and scientifically sums up exactly what's happening. But also she's looking into's, like, looking into another realm. You know, like, her eyes aren't at the screen. She's, like, seeing the weather, like,

beyond the veil of all of us. Or maybe Storm is more appropriate. They're X-Men. Okay, great. X-Women. Yeah, Jean Grey becomes Dark Phoenix. The Dark Phoenix. Yes, very good.

And that was bad. Wasn't ideal. Yeah. It wasn't exactly what you wanted. You were unhappy. If you were Jean Grey. That I remember. Oh, the movie was bad.

I thought you meant the turning into Dark Phoenix, which was also bad. You don't want to turn into a Dark Phoenix. You don't want to turn into a Dark Phoenix. Definitely.

Well, you can have immense power, but there's some real consequences. But then don't you rise from the ashes every time? You do, but we don't want to see you rising

from the ashes, you know, because you come with a great vengeance. This has been your x-men recap uh yes she she has a kind of preternatural skill a sensory power yeah where she can pick up on weather stuff yeah she's like the weather whisperer which i just think is cool yeah i just think it's cool when people have gifts like that that's like me when i see a movie trailer and i'm like, I know that's going to be good. I know it's going to work. Or we might have a problem here. I'm sorry to say it's not going to work. And so that sets her up really clearly.

And shortly after that, she reconnects with Javi. And Javi's still working in Oklahoma. No, he's still working in Oklahoma, but now he has a new startup. Yes. And he has new technology where they can it's like basically like 3d military imaging and for some reason they still have to get very close to tornadoes on three like but then if they do there is just like an amazing scientific upside in terms of what they can measure. And as he sells to Kate, what they can do in terms of warning systems to help people in Tornado Alley and, you know, in the parts of the country.

That's what he says. That's what he says. He says that and he lures her back. And she's very resistant because trauma, but she says, I'll give you one week. And so she comes back for a week. What? I'm just, I want to be in a situation like this where I've left somewhere and someone's like, you have to come back because of this. This has never happened to me. I've never gone back to work at a place where I used to work. You know, I've never been lured

back to Long Island with the promise of something. It's honestly, it's just going to be like October, November. And it's like, Sean, we need you to blog again. Well, yeah, I mean, it's, it's just gonna be like october november and it's like sean we need you to blog again well yeah i mean it's i'm capable i'm capable that's all i can say uh so she goes back and when she goes back you we get this introduction of this kind of rival faction that you pointed out turns out on the in this case the the real differentiator in this movie is she is originally a part of the corporate team right and. And the bandits, the roughhousing group of unlikely tornado chasers. I think you mean the tornado wranglers. The tornado wranglers. As they're known on YouTube.

They are YouTubers who are expert at tracking tornadoes and capturing their anarchy on camera. Right. And that crew, which is Glenn Powell, Sasha Lane, Brendan Perea, Katie O'Brien, Tunde, they are, they're really the Paxton team.

You know, they're Phil Seymour Hoffman, they're Alan Rock, they're that very memorable ensemble from the first film. And they're portrayed as like outlawish,

a little too dangerous, a little bit like, kind of like riding on the coattails of the people who are more serious about this work right and and they're youtubers also so they're doing everything for the camera shot they have a british journalist i believe they say he's from the guardian coming to like following them around like, a story on American tornado chasing. So they sell merch. Their merch says, this isn't my first tornado.

Rodeo. Yeah, tornado. Yeah, that's how you would say it, right? Sure. It's a play on rodeo. Yep. Put a pin in that. Yep.

But so they seem like craven, dilante Logan Paul esque type people. And then, and you know, then the movie continues. So at the center of it is, is Glenn Powell in a cowboy hat and that's where I was going. And a truck that has, what will we call the bolting technology? I don't know.

It's like if you had, it's like if you had wine corkscrews on the bottom of your car. Right. And so, and their theory is basically we drive straight to the tornado and then bolt our forerunner or whatever down and then just like sit in the middle of the tornado.

And just hope we've found some hard soil that is not going to be lifted off the earth. Right. We did all that as a kind of like a setup for the characters because basically

what happens from there is exactly what happens in the first film which is they chase a series of tornadoes. Right. Some people realize maybe they're not enemies

as much as they thought they were. Some people have been shielding the truth about their corporations and what it is that they're actually interested in. And then we get you know this series of very exciting set pieces concluding with a kind of mega tornado finale. Glenn Powell in the trailer of this movie is presented as a very specific type of guy.

It's the same guy we meet in the first, you know, 20 minutes. Yeah. Slick, white t-shirt, cowboy hat, yeehaw. Right. Logan Polish, I think, is very accurate and then of course we learn this is a man with some dimension right and we learned that in just one of like the great moments in recent cinema history which is two movie stars in a basement spouting like fake science jargon to each other and like falling in love yeah and it's like really really special i don't know

anything that they said i think it was all made up it's very sorkiny yeah sequence so i'm not surprised that you lighted to it but it's just like it's so here is the exposition and here's where we have to prove that glenn powell's character tyler i think is like actually a meteorologist and studied xyz and and he finds the flaw in Daisy Edgar Jones's modeling and really you got to put the diaper stuff over here instead of here. This was also my thought about it being sorkiny because I was like look at this man explain how things work to this woman. Isn't this great? Doesn't this make all the men around the world feel more comfortable that he helped her figure out the flaw in her design um i think they're really good

together and i think this is a somewhat predictable but perfect kind of part for powell to take like obviously he got very famous off of top gun maverick but that's a supporting part hitman it seems or anyone but you you know two-hander hitman very big with the online crowd seems like it did really well on netflix but we haven't had a blockbuster yet right and it's it's actually quite hard to be a great star and a good actor in a blockbuster yes and i feel like he pulls that and that's what i'm saying like he they are both but he is really selling some absolute horseshit um yes and in a way that is so familiar and exciting for me of just being like, okay, so you've made some stuff up and we got to move this along at a clip and he sells it and the lighting is just so,

and they look at each other just so that you're like, sure, yeah, whatever, diaper jets, go for it. The movie works really well because every time there was a major tornado, I actually was concerned for the people in the frame. Like that's kind of how you know, even though we were only 48 minutes in, in the second big sequence, I was like, this seems really dangerous.

Who's going to die? I would argue not enough people died in this movie from the main cast. Just for taking so many from us in the first 10 minutes. Well, that's true. But like at some point, you're going to run out of actors, I guess. Yeah, a lot of them survive for the most part.

So the movie turns on this big revelation that Javi is in fact, Javi and David Cornsweat are working for this company that is backed by a kind of real estate mogul who is capitalizing on families who've lost everything in tornadoes and natural disaster crises. And kind of swooping in after the destruction. Yes. In order to gobble up property at a low. A discount. Yeah.

And so maybe their desire to be able to track tornadoes is not quite so generous. Yes. And from there, we see basically she jumps teams. She's more aligned with Tyler and his band of misfits. Right. And they're trying to figure out how to collapse tornadoes. They don't quite figure it out in time because it leads to this extremely dramatic kind of. Well.

Actually, there's a moment before that that is actually really exciting. Oh, the pool. I don't want to overlook. The rodeo. Oh, my God. They go to a rodeo together. Right. Hence your rodeo they go to a rodeo together right hence your rodeo and because also because glenn powell's

character is like let me show you like all that the the culture that this part of the woods has to provide and then she's like no i grew up here yes she is like this is not my first rodeo she might actually say she literally says that yeah so here's the thing i don't understand about that part yeah to pick too many nits but da Daisy Edgar Jones is just doing an Oklahoma accent. Right. So Tyler's like, I don't, I can't tell that you have an accent.

He's like, come on, city girl. Yeah. Where is she? She's from Oklahoma City? Like, what does he,

where does he think she's from? It's a great question. Like, I don't, what? I mean, you know, he doesn't seem too interested in her past life.

You know, she presents as the person in from New York. So he's not asking the right questions. You know, do you think that is a larger critical statement on how heterosexual men approach potential partners? Could be. Could be. Anyway, at this rodeo, a twister kicks up and that another incredibly harrowing sequence. They just got to evacuate the rodeo very quickly.

Very, very frightening. And then they wind up hiding in a pool. In the deep end. And Glenn Powell is like fighting a refrigerator. Yeah. And it's reminiscent of that opening scene in the original Twister to me where the cows are flying away. And also the opening scene of this movie and the way that Daisy... And there's also a child in the pool with them.

It's very scary. Very scary. Very upsetting. It's really well done. And because these... The movie works because these sequences work. You know, like, I really like Glenn Powell and Daisy Edgar Jones. But if this stuff didn't play, it wouldn't work.

And then it concludes, as I said, with the arrival of this kind of mega tornado. That they're going to chase. Yes, that they're attempting to. Yeah, right. Because they think that they've figured out the algorithm or whatever, or the modeling for the diaper stuff. And so. They figured out the algorithm to make this movie for us.

That's how they did it, yeah. And so they're on their way, Glenn Powell and Daisy Edgar Jones. And then they decide that like Daisy Edgar Jones has a moment of conscience. And then Glenn Powell does too. And like what they need to do is go back to the town because they need warning. And if the tornado is going to absolutely devastate and kill a lot of people unless they get there first. So instead of, they put people before science. And that leads us to everyone having to take shelter in a movie theater.

And people screaming, we need to get everyone into the movie theater in this movie. It was just so funny. And at some point, there's no way that this is realistic or how a tornado, how to survive a tornado in a movie theater. But at some point, the screen of the movie theater and the wall with the screen is ripped out. And so the tornado is just in frame where you would be watching the movie and the people are all hiding in the audience. And I just, I thought that was magical. So this, I thought of this again when I was listening to the Rewatchables episode about Twister, because Bill in that episode is positing a theory

that the original Twister was kind of a sign of what was to come at the movies, that it actually feels more like a superhero movie in a way because of like the definition of the evil force and Chris and Van didn't really agree with that but I liked that he was trying to figure out like what a big noisy event movie like this could mean for Hollywood

and this movie actually locates it which is that it's a monster movie like this is our contemporary monster movie because I think they're watching are they watching Frankenstein or are they watching I can't recall or is it Dracula they're watching, are they watching Frankenstein? Are they watching, I can't recall, or is it Dracula? They're watching, it's an old style movie theater in Oklahoma with an old marquee,

and they're watching a 1930s universal horror movie. And that's what these movies are. They're like, they're movies where you've got people who probably are in love, or at least are working together. And three to four times in the movie, they encounter a monster. And they're trying to figure out how to kill the monster

they're trying to figure out how to evade the monster and that's exactly how this movie is structured. Steven Spielberg is obsessed with movies like that. All of his movies are also framed like that.

All like you know his War of the Worlds and Minority Report style movies. This being the Ambulin movie that it is it feels like very much in conversation with all those movies.

The movie theater thing at this moment of struggle of crisis for the movie theater. It's just wonderful. It's a great bit. And that scene is also very effectively staged. Yes. And pretty scary.

And then Daisy Edgar Jones' character, obviously, she being the lead of the film. Right. She grabs the truck with the posts, whatever they're called, that screw into the ground and drives into that tornado, screws in and releases the diaper stuff and it works she collapses a tornado yeah now this brings us to amanda's science corner well yeah which is which is going to be in two parts okay uh and this applies both to i guess the original tw, but certainly this one and our fantastic military-grade,

quote-unquote, technology, which is just like, we've put people on the moon. Like, why can't we measure a tornado from farther away? Do you know what I mean? I do. It feels like we're not trying. It feels sort of like the science has been there, which, you know, is true of a lot of things, including, like, most issues in women's health. It's just like, we haven't studied it.

But I do wonder whether maybe someone should think about just figuring out a way to not have to be inside a tornado to measure war collapsing. What are you doing to further this cause? I'm asking the questions. It's so helpful. Okay. And then this analogy, are you kind of like,

you're kind of like JFK, where you're like, we got to get to the moon first. You're basically our JFK. Exactly. By the end of this decade, we will be able to measure the tornado from a safe house. I don't care how you get there. I don't care if it's real or not. We just got to know the answer. Yeah, exactly.

So then part two has to do with the collapsing, the tornado technology. And again, I want to say thank you once again to the makers of diaper stuff for all that you've contributed. But I am a little bit like... Were you worried about getting sued potentially by them? No, no, no. I'm just like, that's good technology, right? Like that is people really solving problems and making our world a better place. I'll answer this question before you even ask it, which is that what you're describing is a consumer product,

which is something we like to make in this country or elsewhere, and then have it imported into this country. Right. But what you're describing, you know, what's the financial upside there? Of collapsing a tornado? Yeah. Well, I just want to adjust the plan, D.C. Air Gretens' plan. Again, I'm concerned about how close people are getting to tornadoes.

And I'm just wondering why we can't shoot a missile into the tornado. Or drones are featured quite heavily. Thank you, Sasha Layton, in this movie. Let's use a drone for good. Just drone some stuff right in there. So drones are not going to work. Why? Because as soon as a drone gets close, it's going to get destroyed.

Well, but then won't it just like explode with all the stuff? Potentially, but I think it will be at a distance. Couldn't you load the drone with the missile, which is also a technology I know a ton about. This is now like Amanda's military corner. Yeah. Careful here with what you come up with because someone might remember.

I'm just trying to collapse tornadoes with no civilian casualties. Yeah. Yeah, you should ask Obama about this. I just mean, there we go. This is what I'm saying. I just, it's like, I think everything probably could be done at a

greater distance if we really put our greatest minds on it, but we're not putting our greatest minds on it. What are they working on? I think, you know, I don't know. They're working on meta. Yeah. You know, they're working on, you can. An augmented reality. That's what they want to give us. What about the reality at home? Remember at the last show when Chris was like, what if I would just watch a Gladiator AI movie every day? That was a tough beat for CR. I don't know where that came from. I think these are good questions.

Okay, thanks. I think you should probably spend as much time as you can when you're on leave getting these projects going. Okay. Just funding them, attending all the meetings keeping track of how the technology is developing i think that would be a really good just hobby okay you um i don't but it's a it's a fair question which is like all weather events we're still very much at the mercy of mother nature you know we are very much you know and i understand that's like it's

some of that we need to learn about our own humanity. We've gone too far. We need to respect the earth. I'm like with all that. Okay. But I also, I. You just yada yada human responsibility. No, I mean, that's really important.

Yeah. But I am also like, I do think that we should spend less time on AI and more time on studying these problems and also anything having to do with women's health. I see. That's just what I'm putting out. We just don't know enough. How do you feel about woke Hollywood insisting it's climate change that is making these things happen? I mean, it probably is. Of course it is.

And I wouldn't say that they weren't like insisting it they just were like yeah there have been a lot more tornadoes and then they showed the devastation of the tornadoes and what it means to a community i thought like effectively without preaching and then it turns out that all the merch goes to benefit the youtube merch benefits um disaster relief locally which is just like one more win for YouTubers. You have a problem with YouTubers as you speak into YouTube? I didn't choose to be a YouTuber. Well, we all did in a way.

How many tornado ravaged communities in Oklahoma have you gentrified? I've never been to Oklahoma. Is that true? Yeah, I have. I have never been to Oklahoma. It's a fine state. I really like Tyler Parker. As do I.

Bill Hader, one of my guys from Oklahoma. Many great Oklahomans. Natural disaster movies in general are tricky. I sat down with my wife

this morning. We woke up at 6.30 in the morning. Our daughter was still sleeping. We had a nice cup of coffee together. We were just talking about natural disaster movies. I was like, we're going to do this on the pod. What are your favorites? And she was like, oh, great question.

Great topic. Gene, let me think. She's like, I'm not a huge Armageddon fan. And then she sat there for two minutes and she was like, I can't think of any other ones. I thought I liked this subgenre. So she Googles it and she looks at the list and she's like, a lot of these movies

aren't very good, are they? And I had a somewhat similar thought. And I feel like I've kind of tried to get very creative in talking about this because there are a lot of them.

Right, but they aren't very good. I have some actually not good movies on my list. Yeah. Well, I have one not good movie and one movie that I will defend to the death. I think your list is good and very reasonable. But it's funny. I also had this conversation with Zach before I left.

I was like, hey, what's your favorite disaster movie? And then he sat there for a while and he was like, I don't know. And I was like, great combo. I have to go to work. You guys are a bang up team. I did have fun thinking about this, though. I revisited a couple of things, or just like bits and pieces of a couple of things,

to be reminded of things. As I mentioned, I feel like there is a pretty distinct, like the early 70s and the late, like mid to late 90s to the early 2000s are the two hallmark generations for these kinds of movies. They're not a ton from like 1950 or 1930 you know you need right some stronger technology to render them exactly um you want to go first you want me to go first um would twisters make your because we i think twisters would make

my list would make my list as well and and we did disqualify Twister because it sort of is the impetus for everything that came after, including this podcast. And I was also thinking about how The Wizard of Oz could be on this list. Aha. But I didn't do it. I told you. That would have been a really good idea. Yeah, thank you so much. I would have accepted that.

We showed Knox the first 15 minutes of Wizard of Oz and then it was bedtime. So then last night I was like, should we watch the Wizard of Oz again? And he was absolutely petrified and was like, no Wizard of Oz, no Wizard of Oz. Too scary. Yeah, well, we turned it off during the tornado. So it was on my mind. Wow. Maybe he'll grow up to be a meteorologist.

Maybe that's his traumatizing event. If he grows up. Even more twisters. I think I would want him to grow up to be the YouTuber meteorologist, you know? his traumatizing event for even more Twisters, the film that'll happen 20 years from now. I think I would want him to grow up to be the YouTuber meteorologist, you know?

What do you think the name of the next Twisters movie should be? Because we've had Twister, Twisters. Mm-hmm. I mean... These Twisters are fucking now.

Like, where do we go next? I'm trying to figure out how to put the three in Twisters, you know? Like, in the logo. Twisters, you know, like in the logo. Twisters. Twisters. That's what it is.

But it's spelled like T-W-3-S-T. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Thank you so much. I just realized why you picked your number five. Oh, why? Because you didn't say the name of the movie.

My number five is Dante's Peak. It's because it stars Pierce Brosnan. Pierce Brosnan. And Linda Hamilton that's right um no this is not a this is not a great movie um but I did also find myself thinking about this in terms of that like the natural disaster events that could happen and this is the the quote-unquote best volcano that I could come up with. But it does have some very vivid moments,

including people just like boiling to death in a hot spring, you know? Yeah. And in general, I think lava coming out of a volcano sounds pretty scary. I don't want to make light of this because it's very serious. I watched that documentary The Volcano Rescue from Wakari that was on Netflix a couple of years ago. Okay. Horrifying.

Yes. Like, volcanoes are not a game. No. Like, it is, I will never visit one. This movie actually traumatized me. These people, their lives have been destroyed

by this experience. And that's also the problem is that many of the most beautiful places on earth are near volcanoes or, or are like the hardened lava. Like, you know, Hawaii is basically like,

listen, this is from Wikipedia a long time ago. So this isn't a man of science corner. Don't, don't play it. Yeah. Thanks for bringing this expertise to the show today. You know, but it's like it's bubbling up.

And that's how Hawaii formed. Yeah, absolutely. Definitely. You got that right. Dante's Peak, I definitely saw in a movie theater and thought that kind of sucked. No, it's not good. I rewatched some of it and it's like not that good. But memorably, you know, had a showdown with the film

volcano yes starring tommy lee jones another movie that i seem to recall thinking kind of sucked i don't think that either are very good but dante's peak is more memorable so mick jackson directed volcano mick jackson also directed uh the bodyguard not another not good movie. L.A. Story starring Steve Martin. Oh, wow. Not a bad movie. Not a bad movie. Dante's Peak comes to us from Roger Donaldson. He directed a great movie called No Way Out.

All-timer. He also directed 13 Days with Kevin Costner. It's a pretty solid movie. If you get asked back to Kevin Costner land, I think that speaks highly of your diplomatic skills at the very least. He also made two critical movies to my adolescence. The first one is called Cocktail starring Tom Cruise. The next one is called Species starring Natasha Henstridge playing an alien. I don't think I need to know anymore. What's your number five? My number five is The Poseidon Adventure. This is my acknowledgement of the 1970s. I think it's

the best of the 70s movies. When I said the Poseidon Adventure to my wife this morning, she was like, that's not a natural disaster movie. Lo and behold, it is. The capsizing of the cruise liner in the film is started by an under-the-sea earthquake that then leads to a tsunami. So it does fit the bill. I don't have any tsunamis on my list because that is one of my great fears. It's very scary. I don't want to watch my greatest fears realized on film. This movie was based on a novel. And when we think of these movies, we think of like airport and earthquake and the swarm and towering inferno, all the erwin allen movies from the 70s we think

of them now as like kind of junky they were of their time like what the valentine's day style movie is where like a lot of famous people who are like maybe just an inch past their prime are showing up to like place you know these like omnibus parts in a movie i mean no disrespect to i don't know jennifer garner jennifer was she in valentine's day hold on valentine's day movie isn't he's just not that into you also like one of these kinds of yeah it is but it's like not one of the holiday movies okay so julia roberts and jennifer garner were both in valentine's day and hathaway that was rude to your girl jessica beale bradley her prime for 20 years. Bradley Cooper. You know who else is in Valentine's Day?

Taylor Swift. Well. So. Has there been a prime? Someone let me know if she's had a prime. The Poseidon Adventure stars Gene Hackman. Yeah. As a strapping hero who guides people to safety throughout the film.

It also features Ernest Borgnine, Red Buttons, Carol Lindley, Roddy McDowell, Stella Stevens, Shelley Winters, Pamela Sue Martin, Leslie Nielsen, huge cast. It was a huge hit. It was nominated for, I want to say it was nominated for Best Picture, was it? I'm wrong. It was not nominated for Best Picture. But Cinematography, Editing, Supporting Actress for Shelley Winters, it won Best Song, The Morning After. Okay. You familiar with that the morning after. Okay.

You familiar with that one? No. Okay. It won also Best Visual Effects. Okay. It's a pretty fun movie. This movie, like all of those disaster movies, feels roughly nine and a half hours long. But it's pretty fun.

What's your number four? In honor of Chris Ryan, it is the perfect storm which i re-watched this morning um as you listen to this i will also be on vacation uh in a beach community and then in the northeast so i'm i i like the vibes um like george clooney in a in a john deer hat did i tell you that why you were just trying to shade your whereabouts for where like where you are at just in case the paparazzi show up i'm not gonna be in like gloucester or wherever the hell they are you know in like october um yeah god forbid who would ever want to go there right i actually that lovely working class community of gloucester new england in the fall

is wonderful okay um but i'm going for more of a beach vibe okay anyway i did did you notice mark walberg is obviously in the perfect perfect storm and the recipient of uh much adoration and accent work from diane lane yes he's in a lot of these mark walbert yes well like what are some other examples well like i guess all the like the drilling movie. Deep Water Horizon. At least one of the fire movies. That sounds right. Like a couple more where if you just Google disaster movies, it's like a movie you've never heard of.

And like Mark Wahlberg with ash on his face. Of course, Ted. That was a natural disaster. Kidding. I like Ted. I do too. I still laugh when the bear comes on the commercials. You know, that's Ted, right? Ted's the bear. That's Ted. That was a natural disaster. Kidding. I like Ted. I do, too. I still laugh when the bear comes on the commercials. You know?

That's Ted, right? Ted's the bear. That's Ted. Yeah. Anyway. I mean, this movie is made by Wolfgang Peterson. It's pretty good. This is iconic.

It's pretty good. It's like, you know, an upsetting. And we'll always have Chris's accent work. Did you read Clooney's Biden op-ed? I didn't. You didn't, huh? Interesting. You know, I swore off the New York Biden op-ed? I didn't. You didn't, huh? Interesting. You know, I swore off

the New York Times op-ed section a very long time ago. Okay, but not even in this case. I'm also, like, right now, I'm on vacation with my wonderful in-laws, like, who are so wonderful. And, like, they know

that I have explained. They understand now how the New York Times op-ed section works. And they started the conversation. They were like, well, Amanda, like, it was an op-ed. I know we're supposed to be careful on Times op-ed section works. And they started the conversation. They were like, well, Amanda, it was an op-ed.

I know we're supposed to be careful on the op-ed section, but... And then they just... But how does it work? What do you mean? I don't understand. Okay.

My number four is a movie that I'm trying to figure out if it actually is a natural disaster movie. And I think it is, but I want to get your ruling on it. It's called Only the Brave. Right.

It's the Joseph Kaczynski movie from 2017 starring Miles Teller and Josh Brolin and a number of other very manly men who play hot shots

who go into really dangerous fire zones and attempt to put out fires. Now, obviously the fires in the film are a natural disaster. This movie is

something I revisited for Top Gun Maverick and was blown away by. I was like, this is one of the saddest, classic, masculine American dramas I can remember that really don't make movies

like this anymore. Great performances, beautiful movie. But my wife had an interesting thought, which is, if you put yourself in the line of the natural disaster purposefully does that eliminate its eligibility

no i don't think so okay so then i have a follow-up question yeah because what spurred that thought does the taylor sheridan angelina jolie movie qualify because i thought about it that movie is not better than only the brave um should titanic be eligible i also thought about it and i've i've basically just like put titanic on too many lists okay okay and it is like but here's the thing what it's the glacier's fault but as bowen yang asked, like, is it, you know, is it like, or is it the people who weren't paying attention? You know, is,

is. Okay. So that glacier was just glaciering. That glacier actually was minding its own business. Yeah. And they were, they built a really big boat and then they were partying. Yeah. And they didn't turn fast enough.

This is what this show is about. And they didn't put any. Revealing the truth about the carelessness. They didn't put any lifeboats yeah no it's a great point i'm with you absolutely so titanic eliminated but only the brave eligible i mean i think that you could put titanic on this list okay but you didn't i i think that that teaches us that's not the lessons that i took away from titanic you took away that vehicles are the best place for fornication i gotta say i i strongly disagree that titanic would qualify there's no disaster the glacier

is just there all the time like nothing changed they just ran into it i kind of agree i we certainly don't want to lose glaciers we want to lose tornadoes yeah yeah you know we don't Like, nothing changed. They just ran into it. I kind of agree. We certainly don't want to lose glaciers. We want to lose tornadoes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, we don't want to have fewer glaciers, right? So there was no, like, we got to go take care of that glacier after the Titanic went down. I mean, technically, the inciting incident is that a human creation interacted with nature. And nature had the upper hand.

But I would agree that the human is way more responsible for everything going on. Right. And nature didn't do anything out of its common practice either. You know, it wasn't like a hurricane threw them off course. Listen, you know, tornadoes are just tornadoing. True. That is true. You know?

Someone's got to defend the tornadoes. Do tornadoes have a soul? I say no. So yeah, number four for me is Only the Brave, which is a very beautiful, very sad movie based on a true story that I highly recommend. Right. My number three is force majeure i thought this was a brilliant choice yeah which is the like the by the way the ruben

oslin original and not the american remake with all respect to julia julia louis dreyfus one of my favorite people but force majeure is just like way meaner uh and that's what i like about it this is this is an avalanche happens at a ski resort and then what happens afterwards. But it's not a fight for survival. I guess it's a fight for family survival of sorts. A fight for masculinity in the modern time. That's what it is really.

Can one man not be the worst person of all time? Yeah. It's a great movie. It's really, really, really good. Really smart. Really brilliantly written and acted. can one man not be the worst person of all time yeah it's a great movie it's really really really good really smart really brilliantly written and acted

my number three is related to your number two should I hold it so we can have this conversation in league or maybe I should just say it

and then you can say your number two so we roll along so my number three was released the same year as your number two sure my number three is Deep Impact that year as your number two. Sure.

My number three is Deep Impact. That's your choice. Now I'll explain my choice. You're like betraying your ideals here. Well, one, you had already taken Armageddon by the time I got the document open. So I couldn't take that. But I'll tell you a little story. Now Deep Impact, I believe, was released before Armageddon in this summer showdown. I think Deep Impact was the May movie and Armageddon was the July movie.

Deep Impact, directed by Mimi Leder, the more emotional, more dramatic, you know, asteroid end of the world movie. Right. I didn't see it in theaters. I was pledging loyalty to Michael Bay and to a young J.J. Abrams. There are like nine very famous screenwriters ultimately ended up working on that movie.

And I also love Bruce Willis. A lot of which is like we need to drill a hole in the asteroid. It's one of the stupidest movies ever made. You can talk about it. I mean, I love it dearly. But Deep Impact, I honestly don't even know if I rented it from Blockbuster. I don't even know if I rented it from Blockbuster. I don't even know if I watched it on cable. But I, because I can only remember just fragments of it when I saw it six years ago on a vacation with my wife

where it was like 10.30 PM and we were in bed in a hotel and we were like, what are we going to do? We're like, we need to go to sleep. And I was like, let's just put on something that will just like put us to sleep. But it is familiar. So on the cable box in the hotel we found like old older movies and picked deep impact i just i have so many thoughts about your sleep habits we both stayed up for the entirety of the

movie yeah and we were in tears we were like this is a moving portrait of a nation in crisis and i can't believe how good this is now had I had six mojitos that day it's in play like I don't remember but I do know that I thought it was great yeah and I felt like maybe something inside me shifted from a Michael Bay boy to a deep impact man I let me counter that by saying that I was 14 years old when I saw Ben Affleck sing Leaving on a Jet Plane to Liv Tyler for the first time. And then I watched Bruce Willis close the tube and hold his hand up or whatever he does. And I don't think I've ever cried more in a movie before or after. So I guess both movies found us at the right time this is it is it is so stupid I mean it's just Bruce Willis like you know being on various oil rigs for like two hours and people in in bunkers

being like what will we do and then they train to blow up an asteroid. Again, it is like the kind of practical thinking I like. Well, as famously noted in the film's commentary by Ben Affleck, why wouldn't they just train astronauts who are some of the smartest people on Earth to learn how to drill rather than oil rig workers to learn how to be astronauts? Listen, as you know, I stand with Ben Affleck and all his great points in general I'm like I think they they've

they've made space a little more VIP than I think they you know it needs to be you know where you can only only an astronaut

or like a really like Jeff Bezos are allowed to go to space but what I could train and go to space can I make a small recommendation for a movie

that is related to these two movies sure you don't think I could go to space I don I make a small recommendation for a movie that is related to these two movies? Sure. You don't think I could go to space? I don't. Why? I don't feel that you would be able to withstand the training.

I don't think right now I could. You are quick to barf. That's not fair. That's just when I'm growing humans. I think it takes a tremendous amount of physical aptitude. Yeah, so does growing two humans. I don't deny that.

I'm not denying that. It is in a different way. I could do it. Okay. Well, we have a summer project for 2025. You're sending Amanda to space. I'd be fine, you know? You'd be fine.

And also, don't you think the technology has gotten better since Apollo 13 or whatever? I mean, I wouldn't enjoy a cracked heat shield. It's obviously what we have to do is we have to go to Cape Canaveral and put you in the flight simulator and film it. And just see how it goes for you. See how you do. And see whether or not you vomit all over the lens. That's all I wanted as a child was to go in the flight simulator. Time to live your dreams.

Zero gravity. Time to live your dreams. Yeah, thank you so much. You've earned it. I wanted to recommend Greenland did you ever watch this no

it was released during the pandemic it's a Gerard Butler it's like a Gerard Butler B movie okay but also like weirdly excellent

and it's a movie about it's not even a meteor it's like a meteor fragment is coming to hit the planet and the movie only takes place like basically

in the real world of this family. And it follows them as they're trying to figure out what to do and where to go. That sounds really stressful. It's really stressful. It was really, really well done.

It was kind of overlooked because of COVID. Oh God, and the son's diabetic so they have to have insulin all the time. Yeah, that's really, I'm just reading the plot summary. It's super quality

of a Gerard Butler movie. That sounds great. In general, you do kind of have to hand it to Earth that like no meteor has hit us yet. Or handing it to Earth? I mean, it's pretty impressive.

I mean, I guess some of them have because of the Grand Canyon. And the dinosaurs. I think perhaps the dinosaurs were made extinct. Do you believe in dinosaurs? I do. I do, too. Yeah. Where do they get those bones?

Well, like, we're at, like, a really target age for believing in the power of dinosaurs. Yeah. Man, when am I going to show Alice in Jurassic Park? Geez. No, she'll be so scared. I know. I told you my Jaws story, though. Yeah.

Well, can I tell you when I watched The Perfect Storm, it just auto-played right into Jaws. Nice. And I was like, that's great programming. Quality programming. Yeah. Okay. My number two is Children of Men. Now, here's the thing.

Yeah. Okay. My number two is Children of Men. Now, here's the thing. Yeah. Children of Men, which is about a world in which infertility has struck the entire world. No one can give birth because of a kind of ecocide. Like, something has happened in the environment. Right, and also because, once again, we're just, like, not studying these things at all. That's a good point. I mean, honestly, there should be more work going into this because we need to continue to expand as a species.

But this movie, actually, when you look at it and look at everything that happens in it, is really similar to these 70s disaster movies where it's like following a very impressive ensemble

of actors through a series of noisy, scary set pieces because the world is falling apart. Yeah. And obviously, it's considered one of the great movies of the 21st century, one of Cuaron's masterpieces, great performances, great actors.

It's a prestige movie, but it's also just a disaster movie. You know, like that's really all it is and basically like what humans do to each other when confronted with these things and how they can work against each other or work for each other, which is what all of these movies also do really well

um so at first i was like is it really but i think actually in many ways it is no it is and it's like that sets up my number one which is like it is a disaster movie but it's not confronting it in the traditional like oh we got to blow up this meteor type survival story. And it's Melancholia, which is one of my favorite movies of the century. Directed by Lars von Trier, starring the one, the only, Kiki Dunst, who's on vacation with Sofia Coppola right now.

Or recently was. They were just posting Instagram photos. That's great. What do you think they're doing? They were in the Mediterranean on a boat. Did they just drink a lot of alcohol? I mean, I hope so. They have kids. Well, maybe their kids are different ages, though. Interesting. Maybe they left them at home.

Well, I don't know. Do you see Romy Mars is now going to be on an FX show? Good for her. How'd she get that job? I think she would be the first to tell you. Has she acted? Well, apparently she's in Megalopolis. Oh, right.

Of course. And I learned about it from her grandfather's Instagram. So still the number one Instagram out. I'm pro. That family is wildly talented. Anyway, Melancholia is different than Armageddon because it's a planet and not a meteor that's coming. And also just because of the nature of the film and what it is exploring in terms of human reaction they're not really trying to do anything about it no well i love that about it yeah no i mean that that is confronting

the acceptance of the movie yeah um but so i think that it counts but it's it's the first thing that popped into my mind it's a brilliant movie great pick uh my number one is the birds yeah this is a great pick thanks um alfreditchcock's 60s masterpiece. So I think that part of, obviously what's so effective about the movie is the way that, what it would be like if birds just suddenly turned on humanity

and started attacking humanity is terrifying. And it's staged so incredibly well by Alfred Hitchcock. Like what's great about it is it's just so confusing. Like there's no explanation really. We don't really understand what's going on. is it's just so confusing like there's no explanation really we don't really understand what's going on and it is exactly the same as when a hurricane happens

and you're like what we can't control this we can't stop it there's no how would we take out the bird technology we have to poison the atmosphere we don't know enough that would kill us and there's not enough movies like this where an entire category of animal turns on humanity. Like, you get the occasional, like, I gotta fight this shark, or I gotta fight this lion in the jungle kind of movie. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But what if, like, all the lions were, like, fuck humans?

I mean, it's so terrifying that you can't even think about it. I mean, it's just a great idea. No, it's a great idea for a movie you know what if all the rhinoceroses were like it's curtains for i mean i'm i mean they're you know unfortunately we've killed most of them but um good point good point but that's what if that's it what if it's a revenge tale i mean that's a good idea you've tried to wipe out like but i i'm just just actually afraid. Did Eileen tell you about, I was like looking for Airbnb, like vacation spots. And there is this lovely community that I won't name.

It seemed lovely. It was like two hours from LA in the woods. And I was reading the reviews and everyone's like, this is perfect. I had the best time. Even when a mama bear came and like knocked on our door at 6 a.m. And I was like, can you imagine just being in your house or on a vacation? And there's a mama bear knocking on the door. Then I Googled it and they've had 17 bear break-ins in the calendar year.

What? I think everyone's okay. The bears are just looking for food, apparently. They don't want you. I can, what would you do if a bear was just knocking on your door? I don't know what I would do. You're not a camper, of course. Yeah, for that reason.

When you camp, there's all this kind of material and technology that you need to prepare for. You know, the bear box and the bear. Yeah, and Zach grew up camping a lot and he always wore bear bells because he was very afraid of this as well. Yeah. And the spray and everything. I mean, it's pretty gnarly.

I mean, we're not thinking enough about it because they could really easily. You know, and just like the fear. Maybe it's bears. Maybe that's what it is.

Maybe it's the bears. They're just knocking on the door. All the bears of the world have had it with humans. And they're like, we are hungry and we're sick of this shit. Yeah.

And we're coming for you. So it's not like cocaine bear. It's like a million cocaine bears right how many bears are there on earth right now bobby come on help me out with this how many living bears are in the world googling generating don't give me your ai bullshit that's just brown bears that's brown brown bears okay but we got polar bears we got Can I submit rats? You're like a little New York pill. You guys got to tie up your garbage and get a new mayor and just sack up. I'm sorry. I mean, didn't you hear?

Our mayor paid $4 million to management consultants to figure out how to get rid of trash and use trash cans. I did hear that. But what I'm saying is get some lids, tie it up, get a bear bag if you need to. But there's like a whole human history of rats turning on humans, you know, bringing plague, bringing all these different things. Yeah, they're natural enemies. There's a historical context here, as our favorite vice president might say. But that's what I like about the bears thing is that deep down, bears are not violent towards humans.

For the most part, there have been bear attacks, but that's not primarily. They have to be provoked, as we learned in the wonderful film Grizzly Man. They just want food. Yeah. Well, I think we've come up with some great ideas. Thanks to our lists here. I feel really good about this. Did I tell you about all the parrots that are just wild parrots in our neighborhood that live in that tree outside my office?

Yeah, I told you this when we first moved into our house. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This flock of parrots just landed on a tree outside. But there's like two weeks a year where all the parrots, like I guess they just like move from, you know, pocket to pocket, tree to tree, just like trying to intimidate everyone in the neighborhood. They go to Homestay in Highland Park. Yeah, yeah. But like a week ago, they were just, they were like, now we live in this tree.

And they make the craziest noises and are really, and it's effective. Their intimidation tactics work. You're afraid of parrots. I'm afraid of all birds. I really, really don't. And like when they're organized and they're just like flying around

and I know like this all the intersections in LA where they gather on the electric wires you know not all of them but my frequently traveled routes and I'm just like

there are going to be a lot of birds here there are going to be a lot of birds here and I'm just like driving down Glendale Boulevard being like no no

not the birds you are incredibly weird it's important to underline that I do think that anytime you're afraid it's really funny because you're just not afraid of like any people. You know, you're just like, fuck you. It's like the sitting president or whatever. And I'm the only one.

That's true. I'm trying to think of a better example here. But the idea that harmless birds terrify you is amusing. There are like 45 of them and they make those screeching noises. And what do they do? They just sit there. No, they don't. Sometimes they get in formation, you know, and they're just like swooping and they get really low.

And it's just like, it's evidence of they have some technologies that we don't. And I don't like it. Can I throw a little wrinkle at you? Are you aware of the theory, the conspiracy theory that birds aren't real and that they were replaced by ronald reagan and that they're robot surveillance now are you aware of this like conspiracy theory out there so like they're fully robots or they're like microchips no that they like individually real birds away and they replaced one by one with robots that seems far-fetched.

But if you told me that they were like microchipped, you know, and spying on us. Uh-huh. You'd be in on that. You know. No, I mean,

I could see it. It seems more efficient than drones. Yeah, that's true. We have a lot of drones out there in the world. Brought it all the way back to Twisters.

That's a really good point. We've done excellent work on this show as usual uh twisters is excellent natural disaster movies they're okay some of them some are good some are good some are bad bob do you have a favorite natural disaster movie not really this is not really a genre i mean when you put it when you put children of men and the birds i wasn't really thinking about those as natural disaster movies like when it came to my mind it was like okay here's 2012 here's sharknado and i used to enjoy going to the movies

for you know like a c minus movie like that or a d plus movie like that but i don't really hold many of them close to my heart in particular i was not that engaged with the 2012 the day after tomorrow like that kind of post yeah that second wave of roland emmerich style movies as much like i was not when those movies came out i was like i'm not interested. I did rewatch a bunch of them recently. I rewatched The Core this week too. Did you ever see that?

I don't think so. Aaron Eckhart and Hilary Swank, Delroy Lindo, Stanley Tucci. Oh wow. It's like terrible but kind of great.

Like a lot of those movies have like great casts and they're clearly paycheck movies for great actors and they stink and the effects are bad but also they're

so watchable, you know, they're so like. Well bad but also they're so watchable you know they're so also now it just seems like that you know that show 9-1-1 yeah yeah i mean i only follow it through like the billboards that they put up with and but it seems like now it's just like a disaster a week and some of them aren't natural some of them are like you know the cruise ship like split in two or whatever but it does it just seems like that's what they're doing now and maybe maybe broadcast tv is the right home for it could be yeah we love to see people there was that movie um that nick cage movie knowing i think nick cage was in that right that was that was a big movie like when i was in middle school i went and saw that in the theater

it was a dud i think i think it wasn't really uh great but it's kind of what you're talking about amanda where it's like okay we there's like a somewhat predictable pattern of a combination of human you know plane crashes natural disasters all these things that we have to anticipate um so maybe tv is a better better case for that since it is kind of like serialized twisters rules go see it thanks amanda thanks so much for all your work on this pod i hope you're enjoying the vacation that you're on while we're recording. Thanks, me too. Thanks to Alea Zanaris.

Thanks to Jack Sanders. Thanks to our producer, Bobby Wagner, for his work on this episode. When we come back, and when you're back. Yes. New mailbag. Haven't done a mailbag in a few months. Okay, great. We're going to talk about Fly Me to the Moon.

Yeah, I got to figure out how to do that. Which is the new Scarlett Johansson, Channing Tatum, Apple film that is definitely a real movie that is coming out that everyone thinks is going to be real. It's about the space race. It's about me and Cape Canaveral. Maybe we'll talk about Sing Sing if you get a chance to see it. Yeah. You think that's going to happen?

I don't know. Okay. Because you don't think it's a good day for a film and you don't think Colman Domingo should be allowed to be in movies. I love Colman Domingo. I just don't know if I'm going to be able to see all these movies. Okay. While you're jet setting. Yeah.

Shame on you. Honestly, shame on you for not living up to your standards. I have an incredible stack of books that I'm really looking forward to reading. Are any of them novelizations of films? I'm thinking. Okay. Well, stay tuned. We'll talk about it when we come back.

Amanda, thank you. We'll see you guys soon.