Latest news with #disastermovies
The Drive
16-07-2025
- Automotive
- The Drive
Volcano Vehicle: The ‘Dante's Peak' Chevy Suburban Is Getting Restored After Years of Rotting
The latest car news, reviews, and features. I can't be the only millennial car dork who developed a reverence for the Chevy Suburban after watching Dante's Peak in 1997. In fact, I know I'm not, because Greg Ward of Greg's Restorations just posted about how excited he was to find it, in a barn in Massachusetts, of all places. Now, it's getting the restoration it deserves. America loved disaster movies in the late '90s ( Deep Impact, Twister, Armageddon, and Volcano all came out around the same time), but Dante's Peak remains my personal favorite. For those of you who might need a little memory jog, Dante's Peak was a fictional story but drew inspiration from the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption, which killed almost 60 people in Skamania County, Washington. In the movie, there's this little mountain town threatened by a volcano that nobody believes is going to erupt, then it erupts, and a hunky USGS volcanologist played by Pierce Brosnan swoops in to save some folks in a spectacularly over-accessorized seventh-gen Chevy Suburban. Movie scene of the truck in action. Universal Pictures The truck gets quite a bit of screen time and is very distinctive with bright orange paint, a huge lift, a big array of lights, a winch bumper, and, of course, oversized tires. I can understand why the studio wanted to use this older model instead of the GMT400, which would have been the current body style in '97—the seventh-gen truck shares a design with the decidedly more rugged K5 Blazer. A video that popped up last year shared some facts about the movie vehicle, including insights into the production (worth checking out for the mini model of the bridge alone). If you'd like to take a brief contextual detour, give this a quick watch: One more sidebar before we get to today's news— Dante's Peak also featured an '80s-era Chevy truck with a service body that's also super cool. You can see it in action heroically crossing lava right here: Anyway, what happened to the Suburban immediately after the movie was wrapped is still kind of a mystery, but apparently it was sold on eBay about a decade ago, ultimately ending up in a barn on the East Coast. And just a few days ago, the truck appeared again, on Greg Ward's YouTube channel, Greg's Restorations. Ward does all kinds of classic car work out of his Rutland, Massachusetts, shop and has a pretty deep catalog of completed projects. He's no stranger to working on movie trucks in particular; his shop worked on a screen-used Back To The Future Toyota, and he'll build you a clone of the black Marty McFly 4×4 if you want one. In the first few minutes of the video, Ward pokes around the Suburban in the dark corner of an anonymous barn where he says he found it. Apparently, it took 'a couple of months' to get a deal done where he could get it to his own place. You can tell that the weather's a lot more pleasant in the last few minutes of the clip. Ward says he plans to get the truck running and have a little fun with it before diving into a full restoration, which makes sense. 'We have a lot of experience with stuff like this, especially here in New England, everything rots out. So a lot of our projects are rust- orations.' In other words, once work starts, the truck's going to be in the shop for a long time before it can come out again. Man, do I hear that. Moving back to New York from California has been such a bummer every time I climb under a car frame. Greg's Restorations/YouTube This old 'Burb does look pretty rusty, but as Ward points out, pretty much every body panel is obtainable from an LMC Truck catalog. And most importantly, all the goofy movie accessories are still there. The only thing that looks like it's missing is the winch, which should be easy enough to source a replacement for. The front brush guard is probably the weirdest accessory to me. It's rocking some bizarre louvers I've never seen in such a spot before. In the comment section under Ward's video, somebody mentioned that they thought they recognized the rig from having worked on it. The vehicle was reportedly sourced by Cinema Vehicle Services, but it looks like it might have been set up by an Arizona shop. From @jdunereaper1 on YouTube [sic]: 'Pretty sure i worked on that suburban right after it was sold when the movie wrapped. It was brought to the offroad shop i worked at in Cave Creek, Az for a suspension lift. The production team had used stock leaf springs with welded blocks under the front end to lift it, which was completely unsafe. I believe we ended up installing a 6' lift with 35' tires and the wheels that are now on it. It originally had the factory rallies with 33' goodyear m/t's from the movie. Everyone there thought that it was awesome that we were working on a 'movie' truck, but also bummed that the snorkel was only for visuals and was never hooked up.' Take a look and see the current state of the Dante's Peak Suburban yourself: I'm really excited that this vehicle was found, and even more stoked that it's in the hands of someone with both the skills and passion to bring it back to life. Here's hoping we get to see the truck brought to better-than-new glory. Seen any other epic movie cars hiding in barns? Tell me about 'em at
Yahoo
04-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The 30 best disaster movies to watch from the safety of your couch
Disaster movies have been a rock-solid staple on the silver screen since the early 1900s — with James Williamson's silent film Fire! (1901) being the first to introduce the genre. From Hollywood's Golden Age and the '70s catastrophe obsession to today, these films have unearthed every pitiless corner of nature's wrath, from towering tsunamis and viral pandemics to all-out apocalypses and more. Whether reveling in epic, large-scale destruction or highlighting the instincts of human beings in crisis, disaster movies tap into that universal question: What would I do in that situation? From Titanic to Twisters, here are the most memorable disaster movies worth watching (from the safety of your home, of course). Way back in 1992, we anointed the comedic masterpiece Airplane! the funniest movie ever, and with good reason. The ZAZ boys (writer-directors Jerry Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and David Zucker) are to humor what Phil Spector is to music. There's so much going on in every frame of Airplane! — which, aside from being positively hilarious, is also a totally legitimate crashing-jetliner disaster flick — watching it feels like being pummeled by a Wall of Laughs. —Marc Bernardin Heck, if we weren't interested in mixing things up a bit, George Kennedy, the undisputed King of Disaster Movies, could easily fill out this whole list. Decades ago, you couldn't come across an Earthquake (1974) or a Concorde: Airport '79 (1979) without tripping over the brawny brute who always survived through sheer guts. That all started with this Best Picture nominee, where his cigar-chompin' Joe Patroni throttles up those engines ("Hold on! We're goin' for broke!") to clear a stuck jet from a snowbound runway — thereby saving squirrelly Oscar-winning stowaway Helen Hayes from a nasty crash and making it safe for captain Dean Martin and stewardess Jacqueline Bisset to have their baby after all. —Mark S. Luckie and Joshua Rich It's hard to tell which is more of a disaster: a giant asteroid careening toward Earth or Ben Affleck's wild sobs of despair. Affleck and Bruce Willis were the stars of this Michael Bay concoction, but it's the antics of the supporting cast that make the movie memorable. Armageddon brought us such "classic" moments as Steve Buscemi playfully straddling a nuclear warhead and a doe-eyed Liv Tyler laying about in a field while Affleck sends an animal cracker stampede across her torso. And while Deep Impact — which was released two months earlier and starred Elijah Wood — also had a deadly comet, it didn't have Aerosmith's "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing." So, Armageddon wins. —M.S.L. and J.R. Curiosity kills more than just the cat in Bird Box, a film set on a dystopian Earth where unseen yet hard-to-ignore entities drive those who glimpse them to madness and suicide. Malorie Hayes (Sandra Bullock) — initially pregnant as the world crumbles around her — must survive this sightless terror, relying on complete strangers or braving it alone to keep herself and her children alive long enough to reach a rumored haven. The A Quiet Place comparisons weren't unwarranted (both films dropped the same year and twisted a basic human sense into a death trap), but Bird Box set itself apart by taking a more Melancholia-like approach — blending the psychological with apocalyptic dread. Instead of spoon-feeding answers, it made audiences think for themselves, which naturally fueled online debates, theories, and memes by the dozen. —James Mercadante Not a disaster movie, you say? The Statue of Liberty begs to disagree with you. Part of the 2000s found-footage wave, Cloverfield follows a monster attack in New York City documented by five young people with a camcorder, as the creature and the military lay waste to the metropolis. Cloverfield is perhaps better remembered for its mysterious viral marketing campaign than for the movie itself, with producer J.J. Abrams' trademark secrecy weaponized to build anticipation over several months. —Tyler Aquilina Director Steven Soderbergh and writer Scott Z. Burns strove for supreme authenticity with Contagion, aspiring to create a movie that realistically depicted the outbreak of and response to a pandemic. The film follows the spread of a devastating virus from the perspective of both citizens and scientists, played by a staggeringly stacked cast, including Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Marion Cotillard, and Jude Law. Setting the presence of so many exceptionally beautiful people aside, Contagion succeeded in its goal of realism, earning praise from disease experts as well as critics and audiences. —T.A. New York City has been the target of many disaster movies, but few have offered a spectacle like the New York Public Library being inundated by a huge tidal wave. To add insult to injury, the entire city — as well as the northern part of the U.S. — is turned into an arctic tundra by some gnarly post-global warming weather. The Roland Emmerich-directed film stars Dennis Quaid and Jake Gyllenhaal as father and son who fight to reunite with one another after the world has become a giant popsicle. If only we had listened to Al Gore... —M.S.L. and J.R. A classic apocalyptic thriller of the Cold War era, The Day the Earth Caught Fire posits a scenario in which the explosions from nuclear weapons testing have shifted the Earth off its axis. This triggers an environmental crisis, as the planet heats up, bodies of water evaporate, and the Earth's orbit begins to drift toward the Sun. Though its anxieties are very much rooted in the atomic age, the film has gained renewed relevance in our current (changing) climate: The devastating changes it depicts may not be so far-fetched. —T.A. Hitting theaters just two months before Armageddon, Deep Impact wound up grossing less, but is considered more scientifically accurate than Michael Bay's asteroid flick. While that really isn't saying much, at least Deep Impact sends a team of astronauts (led by Robert Duvall) rather than drillers to deal with the comet hurtling toward Earth, deflecting Ben Affleck's famous critique of Armageddon. It also provides a compelling on-the-ground perspective, with Téa Leoni and Elijah Wood as ordinary people grappling with the impending disaster. And Armageddon may have Aerosmith, but Deep Impact has Morgan Freeman as the president. How can you beat that? —T.A. Deepwater Horizon is the kind of old-fashioned, star-studded, true-life disaster thriller that Hollywood typically doesn't invest in anymore. Mark Wahlberg, Kurt Russell, and Gina Rodriguez headline the cast as crew members of the titular oil rig, but the jaw-dropping visual spectacle is as much of a star, leveraging blockbuster-caliber effects to depict the pipe bursts, fires, and blowouts that consumed the rig and killed 11 people while causing the worst oil spill in U.S. history. —T.A. When astronomers Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) and Dr. Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio) discover a comet heading toward Earth, they expect alarm, action, maybe even a little appreciation. But between a narcissistic president (Meryl Streep), a sleazy administration, and the country's la-la-land media machine, their world-ending warning is met with yawns and collective dismissal. Adam McKay's four-time Oscar-nominated satire may have drawn criticism for its blunt-force messaging and thinly veiled nihilism — but its brisk pace, caustic humor, and starry ensemble make Don't Look Up a disaster movie that's all too a little too real. —J.M. There probably wasn't a kid in the 1970s who didn't get all giddy over this pleasing and plot-light demolition in amazing Sensurround (yes, the theater seats really did vibrate — sort of)! Starring disaster stalwart Charlton Heston (The Naked Jungle, Airport 1975), the movie won an Oscar for the then-groundbreaking effects it displayed when a massive rumbler topples L.A. Of course, now that such realistic-looking flicks as 2012 (2009) have come along, what was once state-of-the-art looks like some dude was just shaking a table holding a scale model of Hollywood. —M.S.L. and J.R. Maria (Naomi Watts) and Henry Bennett (Ewan McGregor) and their three sons (Oaklee Pendergast, Samuel Joslin, and a pre-Spider-Man Tom Holland) are on a delightful vacation in Thailand when the 2004 tsunami strikes, separating the family. McGregor and Watts elevate The Impossible with powerful performances (Watts earned an Oscar nom), and director J.A. Bayona lends it a striking tension and visual flair, no doubt drawing on his experience directing horror: Watch his brilliant shot selection in the scene when the wave hits. —T.A. An all-star cast including Will Smith as a hunky fighter pilot, Bill Pullman as the troubled president, Jeff Goldblum as a nerdy environmentalist, Vivica A. Fox as a strip club dancer, and a kooky Randy Quaid all fight to survive after aliens obliterate major cities around the world. Independence Day occasionally strays into the megalo-melodramatic, and never more so than when a dog makes a slow-motion leap into a doorway just milliseconds before a wall of flames nearly engulfs him. —M.S.L. and J.R. In Old Chicago starts off as an innocuous film about one family's climb to social prominence in late 1800s Chicago. That is, until an ornery cow named Daisy kicks over a lantern and ignites a fire that quickly engulfs the Windy City. Panic ensues, the screaming masses head for the river and one man is trampled by a herd of stampeding cattle. What makes the film even more disturbing is that it is a fictionalized account of the very real Great Chicago Fire of 1871. —M.S.L. and J.R. Danish auteur (and provocateur) Lars von Trier turned in a very different sort of impending-planetary-doom movie with Melancholia, using the film's looming apocalyptic event (a rogue planet on a collision course with Earth) as an illustration of the protagonist's (Kirsten Dunst) deep depression. Also, the film only becomes a disaster movie in the second half, while continuing to function as an unnerving domestic drama and character study. —T.A. Long before James Cameron infused the Titanic tragedy with a grand, doomed romance, this British film was the definitive cinematic account of the sinking. Like Cameron's film, A Night to Remember was a huge financial undertaking (it was the most expensive film ever made in Britain at the time), but was not blessed with the Avatar filmmaker's box-office Midas touch. Still, A Night to Remember is widely considered the best depiction of the Titanic disaster on film, boasting stark realism, meticulous detail, and as affecting a depiction of the class disparity on board as the ballad of Jack and Rose. —T.A. Outbreak's chillingly plausible setup — a monkey carrying a deadly, Ebola-like virus is smuggled into the U.S., spreading the virus to humans — puts it a cut above your standard pandemic movie. Dustin Hoffman stars as a U.S. Army colonel who must battle a military conspiracy in order to save a California town from the virus, with a packed supporting cast including Morgan Freeman, Donald Sutherland, and Rene Russo. —T.A. Kit Harington plays a Celtic gladiator brought to the doomed Roman city to fight, where he falls into a romance with the governor's daughter (Emily Browning) before Mt. Vesuvius blows its top. Are you not entertained? Apparently not: Pompeii was roasted by critics, and on Saturday Night Live, Harington joked that the film "proved more of a disaster than the event it was based on." (Where does Game of Thrones' final season rank, we wonder?) But hey, what's a list of disaster movies without at least one disaster on celluloid? —T.A. She may be a sweet granny with a little extra meat on her bones who's trapped in a capsized ocean liner in The Poseidon Adventure, but, as talkative Belle (Shelley Winters) will proudly tell you, "In the water, I'm a very skinny lady." Good thing, because when Rev. Frank Scott (Gene Hackman) gets pinned under a submerged slab of metal, it's up to "the underwater swimming champ of New York for three years running" to rescue him. By swallowing her pride (all those comments about her character's weight!) and a big gulp of air, Winters earned an Oscar nomination for pulling off the best moment in the best disaster flick ever. —M.S.L. and J.R. In the first few moments of the movie, Tom Ransome (George Brent) laments "Oh, how I wish the rains would come." And come they did. Rain splashes all over the Indian city of Ranchipur — knocking down entire buildings; causing the ground to collapse; and creating a flood that destroys everything in its path. The destruction and the resulting aftermath is the backdrop between a beautiful love story between Lady Edwina Esketh (Myrna Loy) and Major Rama Safti (Tyrone Power) — kind of like Titanic without the boat. —M.S.L. and J.R. San Andreas is there for moviegoers when one city-leveling earthquake just isn't enough. Director Brad Peyton's disaster flick offers no less than two massive quakes that decimate buildings and cause thousands of CGI citizens to perish in their wake. The film even throws in a massive San Francisco tsunami for good measure. And while he can't save everyone, San Andreas stars the one modern action star you might assume is capable of taking on the forces of nature: Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. —Jonathon Dornbush You might not even realize San Francisco is a disaster picture for much of its running time, as Clark Gable's nightclub owner and Jack Holt's socialite spar for the affection of a singer (Jeanette MacDonald, who performs the famous title song). It's a standard-issue classic Hollywood plot, but the sequence depicting the tragic 1906 earthquake is a jolting burst of fast-cutting mayhem, lending it a chaotic power that transcends any outdated special effects. —T.A. The biggest movie of all time is a disaster flick? You bet! Remember: Without the stunning moment when the boat kisses that frozen hulk, this Best Picture winner is just another Romeo and Juliet knockoff. (And without its monumental love story, Titanic might as well be The Hindenburg.) That said, James Cameron's epic reaches the pinnacle of disaster-movie impudence with the distasteful suggestion that the most celebrated tragedy of the 20th century occurred because a few lookouts were distracted by Kate and Leo sucking face. (Okay, maybe that's just us.) —M.S.L. and J.R. Disaster master Irwin Allen's thrilling Best Picture nominee is overflowing with classic instances of historical import: Paul Newman and Jennifer Jones Lookinland (a.k.a., Bobby Brady)! William Holden wears a scarlet dinner lives to tell about it! Tops is security guard O.J. Simpson putting his mark on the genre's obligatory animal rescue by saving a cat from a scorching skyscraper. ("Say, kitty," he coos, "I almost missed ya.") Watching the star cradle that sweet ball of fur is a timeless reminder that amidst the most hellish chaos and destruction, compassion and humanity still survive. Thank you, O.J. —M.S.L. and J.R. The tornado tale doesn't fit the traditional models established by Poseidon (a disaster's occurred and we've gotta escape!) or Airport (a disaster's about to occur and we've gotta prevent it!). But there's no denying the force of those would-be Fingers of God that terrorize the prairie, scooping up houses, tanker trucks, and, best of all, a mooing steer. Like Walter Matthau's cameo in Earthquake and Owen Wilson's wisecracks in Armageddon, flying cows are the kind of wonderfully out-of-place bits of levity we die for. —M.S.L. and J.R. Twister gets a 21st-century face-lift with a legacy sequel that shows how storm chasing has evolved in the digital age. Lee Isaac Chung's Twisters throws a new generation of chasers (Glen Powell, Daisy Edgar-Jones, and Anthony Ramos) into the eye of the storm, each armed with their own tricks and methods as they test new technology during a series of deadly tornadoes in Oklahoma. As EW's critic notes, the film "revels in a let's-not-take-this-too-seriously vibe, even though, of course, there are real stakes, what with trucks smashing into buildings and people occasionally being snatched by the Hand of God and hurled to a terrifying death." —J.M. Everyone refuses to listen to geologist Amy Barnes (Anne Heche) when she theorizes that a volcanic flow is coursing underneath Los Angeles. It sounds crazy until the volcano erupts and starts flowing in the city streets and destroying everything in its path. It's up to Amy and emergency official Mike Roark (Tommy Lee Jones) to team up and save the day. —M.S.L. and J.R. The crew of the Seaview submarine are trapped underwater while a fire in the sky is rapidly heating the world around them is that a giant octopus? The freakishly large cephalopod is only one of the many perils Robert Sterling, Walter Pidgeon, and the rest of the film's stars have to contend with in this feature predecessor to the popular TV show. —M.S.L. and J.R. It's hard to imagine that when The War of the Worlds was first broadcast in radio form in 1938, it sent people panicking in the streets. Clearly, they weren't ready for Tom Cruise and CGI. The 2005 film incarnation terrorized moviegoers with menacing aliens bent on destroying everything in their path, including one very young and very scared Dakota Fanning. After all the destruction and chaos, the visitors are felled by common Earth germs. So in the event of an alien attack, huddle up with someone sick. —M.S.L. and J.R. Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly
The Guardian
02-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘People would prevail': why The Towering Inferno is my feelgood movie
Among the many reasons I'm long overdue for therapy would be that I consider a feature about a bunch of people trapped in a burning skyscraper as a feelgood movie. But there it is: the stunning effects (which hold up to this day), the sprawling, larger-than-life cast and accompanying who-will-make-it-to-the-end? suspense, the earnest, cheeseball dialogue – whenever I feel anxious or down, something about The Towering Inferno offers solace. The most obvious reason boils down to one thing: nostalgia. My parents were film enthusiasts who would usually take us to a movie every week. And this was no ordinary experience: The Towering Inferno was the crown jewel in the 1970s disaster cycle, disdained by many critics for being trashy (while acknowledging it was entertaining trash). It was the talk of the schoolyard: whose parents were cool enough to actually take their kids to see this big-screen spectacle? Thus it was one of my primal filmgoing experiences: it accompanies fond memories of my parents treating us to something that felt as exhilarating as the circus. As I began film studies at university, the case for The Towering Inferno only became stronger: a genre analysis of the film suggested people were lining up to see it (it was the box office champ of '74) because it reminded them of America itself, enduring the horrors of Vietnam, Watergate, racial strife and a flurry of political assassinations. Disaster movie casts were so full of familiar faces that everyone could find someone to identify with. But as I continued to revisit the film – and all of the 70s disaster movies – it was clear they were also about old-school Hollywood grappling with the reality of the New Hollywood. Young directors were breaking the rules, independent production was expanding, the Hays code had expired and the studio system would never be the same. Stars of yesteryear such as Fred Astaire, Jennifer Jones and (notoriously conservative) William Holden held court with the new iconoclastic superstars like Steve McQueen, Paul Newman (who had made Nixon's enemies list and declared it his proudest achievement) and Faye Dunaway (who, seven years earlier, had starred in Bonnie and Clyde, considered the breakout moment for the New Hollywood period). Each star inhabited their own mini-melodrama: would the ambitious journalist (Dunaway) leave her career to be with her lover? (He was played by Newman; did we have to ask?) Will the con artist (Astaire) reveal to his new crush (Jones) that his initial plan was to trick her into a scam? And really, is anyone actually safe when OJ Simpson is head of security? There were so many stars in this – hell, even one of the Brady Bunch (Mike Lookinland) is here as the obligatory precocious child – it was like watching Hollywood Squares goes to hell. Not only were the actors forced to endure a lot of fiery heat during filming, they also had to utter some mind-numbingly rotten dialogue. When the secretary (Susan Flannery) having a secret affair with the building's publicist (Robert Wagner) realizes they are probably going to get burned alive, she says: 'Well, I always did want to die in bed.' How did anyone survive this screenplay? These lines were undoubtedly always groaners, but they've fermented into high-level camp. The meaning of each of those actors was something I encountered in further adventures in film studies. In his landmark 1979 book Stars, British author Richard Dyer analyzes the ideological meanings of various Hollywood luminaries. When I spoke to him about developing his ideas for the book, Dyer confirmed that The Towering Inferno – with its complex, contradictory gaggle of stars of various levels of fame and clashing symbolic meanings – was part of his inspiration. If The Towering Inferno boiled over with old-versus-new tension, the people making it were clearly in the old-school camp. The film reminded us that even in uncertain times, American heroics, personified by square-jawed masculine protagonists, were alive and well. Sure, America and Hollywood had their downsides and greedy villains, but ultimately, there would be valiant survivors and people would prevail. Despite deep divisions, bad actors (real and literal) and brutal catastrophes, there are still good people around who will perform good deeds. Even in a deeply divided America, a collective challenge reminded us that we were all in this together – that something will emerge from the ruins of a tortured decade. A dozen years after the Cuban missile crisis, the idea that anyone was left standing by the film's final crane shot was in itself miraculous. Come to think of it, it feels like it's time to watch The Towering Inferno again. The Towering Inferno is available to buy digitally in the US and rent digitally in the UK
