Let's talk about Roland Emmerich's approach to film-making

Come anticipate a dour, foreign language film about the apocalypse with me

The astonishing thing to me about the disaster movies of the seventies disaster flicks is how, even with all the movie put into them, the production level is often comparable to your seventies TV movie. Not just the FX (which are really quite astoundingly primitive) but the sets, the interiors, the scuzzy lighting...bad, bad, bad. And, god, Earthquake had an quasi-Evil Kinevil subplot!

-> Easier to focus on the collapsing old buildings instead of saying "Hey look! That's Fred Astaire acting. " (For this anyone who avoids using film*stars* gets a bonus point.

"What drives him to make his films that way?"

Uh, money? That's how I see it. He's here to entertain you now, not make a lasting art-product.

Well, unless the movies comes out on self-destructing DVDs, he's made a lasting art-product whether anyone likes it or not. (I think NBC was showing The Towering Inferno every once in a while on prime-time before 9/11.)

Is matthew broderick a film star/novelty value?
Well, there was a third option: A hasbeen. I mean, in what parallel world do you live when you consider Matthew B a star?!? On this planet he's only know as Ferris, Sarah's husband. (Partially joking here.)

Wasn't Fred Astaire a hasbeen (albeit a glittering one) in 1974?

(IMDB's him)

Everything else he's done is crap though.

his interviews are funny, he takes really really seriously questions like "should the tidal wave have knocked down the empire state building or no?"

it takes a lot of skill to be a film director, let alone a director of high-budget movies like this. he deserves my respect for that.

1996: walls of flame
2004: walls of water

Haha, me too. Even though it's not a very good movie it's the only film of his that shows any hint of originality. By "originality" i mean combining aspects of several different types of movies (in Stargate's case aliens, desert epics, military thriller, etc.) rather than ripping off one kind of movie (like Independence Day, which is simply War of the Worlds 1996). That's not much of a compliment I guess, but still I prefer his style of big-budget schlock to Michael Bay's.

(a) the white slave trade
(b) king tut

downloading movies? to me that's science-fiction. i felt like i was seeing an ad from 2525.

But wait - there are CGI wolves that aren't in the trailer. CGI wolves. Yes. Scary.

-- s1ocki (parrisactava...) (webmail), May 31st, 2004 2:16 PM. (slutsky) (later) (link)

it's funny how a certain notion (and degree) of "realism" is required, even in this context. that's always the case with art, but it's still worth a laugh here.

http://unknowncountry.com

Strieber has a fascination with apocalypse/end of the world scenarios which go back to his novel Warday, written before his alleged alien abduction.

King Tut - destroys New York.

The White Slave Trade - destroys New York. And Los Angeles. And a token European/Asian City for that international appeal.

http://www.graceleewhitney.tf/batman1.jpg

now we just need some assimilationist fables à la the jazz singer

xpost

hmm, can they really sell this just on "Our CGI mammoths will give Jackson's olyphants a real run for their money!"

http://www.avclub.com/articles/director-lined-up-to-ruin-asimovs-foundation,22791/

prefer emma emmerich

10,000 BC was megalolz

it’s likely Roland Emmerich will direct the Independance Day film after his latest film Anonymous about the life of William Shakespeare

yawaya??

doh xpost, but I had to exclaim.

hahaha an oxonian movie?!?! jesus wept

oxfordian, i mean.

still, make a 9/11 truther movie, why don't you

Mr. Teall had originally planned to put a life-size waxwork statue of Mr. Emmerich under the stairs. After discussing news coverage of Pope John Paul II's death with Mr. Emmerich, though, he decided it would be much funnier to depict the pope reading his own obituaries.

hahahaha I want emmerich to be my uncle

Ignatiy V. on Anonymous as a secret autobiography of Emmerich:

http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/secret-defense-roland-emmerichs-anonymous

thanks for that. fun read!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AXbiCdmXgw

lol there was already a white house down movie this year

i feel like there are eight or nine of those movies this year

i can't really tell this year's blockbusters apart

what's that will smith one, after earth, and how is it different from the tom cruise one?

and what's that world war Z or whatever with brad pitt and how is it different from whatever roland emmerich was doing last year and the next?

oh god world war Z is about zombies

that shark was jumped several years decades ago no?

The most annoying thing about World War Z for me (at least until if/when I see the movie, which I probably won't) is how the press (cover stories in Vanity Fair and Entertainment Weekly) has been covering it as if it were some really personal, risky project for Brad Pitt rather than just another summer blockbuster based on some stupid book about zombies.

yeah brad pitt makes risky projects but this (directed by the guy who directed one of the highest-grossing bond movies fairly recently) is not one of them

unless all the dialogue is in aramaic or something

this guy's movies are the worst

World War Zzzz amirite y'all

the (short-lived) left-wing politics of WHD!

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/113668/white-house-down-reviewed-isaac-chotiner#

lol i'd never seen stargate. they go to "the other side of the universe" and the only scientist they take is james spader as david foster wallace the egyptologist

That op-ed is as good a prompting as any to put forward that Rocky IV might be the only mainstream release ever to argue that unchecked patriotism - regardless of nation - is a serious hindrance.

http://www.avclub.com/article/roland-emmerichs-next-movie-about-explosion-gay-ri-203326

Can't wait for the Armond review!

Meanwhile, his history with gay characters is mostly limited to Independence Day’s Harvey Fierstein

...whose death in the movie, I seem to remember, was played pretty much for laughs?

Verbatim quote from this guy, back when I interviewed him:

Also, don’t forget, Independence Day is now called a disaster movie, but it’s about an alien invasion! Hello!? And then Godzilla got called a disaster movie, but in the *original* Godzilla Tokyo is in ruins. I only destroyed Madison Square Garden, a couple of buildings, and the Brooklyn Bridge. New York is still standing … on purpose. So it’s a little unfair when people say I’ve done the same movie three times. They’re very different from each other.

Anyway, fast forward, I dunno, 15 years?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xx97DuHGr2o

Ron Howard should have hurried up with his adaptation of Neal Stephenson's Seveneves so they could open on the same weekend.

Oh man, that shit’s gonna be hilarious. SOLD. What was the name of that movie where Aaron Eckhardt and Hilary Swank and Stanley Tucci tunnel through the earth? This looks even “better” than that.

you mean THE CORE

that looks like total hot garbage i totally want to see it

TRAILER

STARTS

NOW

omg, I just saw the title and thought 'surely that can't be intended literally, not even Emmerich is that stupid' but it totally is and he totally is.

From the director of EARTHSPLODE and GALAXYMELT comes MOONFALLDOWNGOBOOM

This dude, Michael Bay, dudes of their ilk, it's never the ridiculousness of the premise that makes me turn it off, it's always all the bullshit in between, the shallow melodrama, the broad stereotypes, that bullshit. The moon crashing I can handle, what always sinks this shit is, I dunno, Patrick Wilson and Halle Berry are exes who have to learn to love each other again for the sake of their daughter, who is, like, trapped on an off-shore oil rig that's on fire and sinking and radioactive and under attack by aliens.

And she's got to get back in time for her wedding.

so otm. "i guess i was so busy being a nuclear laser moon scientist, that i forgot how to be... a dad."

i saw the moonfall trailer before a movie and it came off like a mr. show parody of a roland emmerich film, so i kinda wanna see it

It will be awesome when the movie ends with the moon hoisted back into place.

"If we just fill it with enough helium, that should be enough to get it back into orbit!!!"

And then the entire climax, all the actors will have squeaky helium voices.

I would love to see a straight-up mashup of a Garry Marshall romcom and a Roland Emmerich disaster flick. Kinda like Miracle Mile except super trashy and filled to bursting with mid-level stars getting over their commitment issues while dodging pieces of falling sky.

https://i.imgur.com/bCjofEz.png

I got the full IMAX treatment of this trailer when it ran before Dune the other day. The audience essentially shrugged in response.

Maybe because it's the opposite of "Dune." You really have to see it at home on the *small* screen to get the full effect.

Yeah, this is made to be watched on TV, or even better, a laptop, with headphones on to avoid embarrassing questions from friends, coworkers or loved ones.

Or a transatlantic flight

I think that's how I saw 2012

Or the one with John Cusack

Which might be 2012 now I think of it

Terrible movies all

I had to look this up to make sure it really does exist and wasn't a weird fever dream:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_(2015_film)

This will be the clip they play at all the awards shows

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taXQNho3WyE

That Bad Moon Rising remix is unforgivable

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L02gl9YoSFg