Disaster Movie (2008)
Directed by Aaron Seltzer
Over the course of one evening, an unsuspecting group of twenty-somethings find themselves bombarded by a series of natural disasters and catastrophic events.
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I actually stopped documenting the movie's deluge of references after about 30 minutes, but here's a shortlist of some of the stuff that the Friedberg and Seltzer send up: 10,000 B.C., American Gladiators, Amy Winehouse, Facebook, Flava Flav, My Super Sweet 16, Dr. Phil, No Country For Old Men, Superbad/ McLovin, Angelina Jolie in Wanted, WWE Divas, Juno, High School Musical, Kanye West, the Jonas Brothers, the "Souljah Boy" dance, Justin Timberlake, Hannah Montana, Hancock, Sex and the City, Jumper, Step Up 2: The Streets, Twister (notice - the first actual disaster movie of the bunch), Hellboy, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and Cloverfield.
You would think a motion picture called “Disaster Movie” would actually focus on films that have plots revolving around disasters, but aside from a few brief nods to “Cloverfield,” “The Day After Tomorrow” and “Twister,” it's just an onslaught of no-name cast members (What does it tell you when Kim Kardashian and Carmen Electra are probably the best known thespians in the bunch?) going through re-creations of scenes from unrelated movies.
The film's basic structure parallels Cloverfield (which sort of qualifies), and there's a reference to Twister -- from 12 years ago -- and the only joke is that a tornado keeps throwing cows around.
The targets for “Disaster” hold little surprise: “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” “Sex and the City,” “Juno” (I thought that was already a lampoon), “Step Up 2 the Streets,” “Enchanted,” “Twister” (yeah, take that 1996!), “Beowulf,” “Speed Racer,” “The Love Guru,” “Hellboy II,” “Hancock,” and “Get Smart.”
The film also contains the funniest Juno spoof yet.
I actually stopped documenting the movie's deluge of references after about 30 minutes, but here's a shortlist of some of the stuff that the Friedberg and Seltzer send up: 10,000 B.C., American Gladiators, Amy Winehouse, Facebook, Flava Flav, My Super Sweet 16, Dr. Phil, No Country For Old Men, Superbad/ McLovin, Angelina Jolie in Wanted, WWE Divas, Juno, High School Musical, Kanye West, the Jonas Brothers, the "Souljah Boy" dance, Justin Timberlake, Hannah Montana, Hancock, Sex and the City, Jumper, Step Up 2: The Streets, Twister (notice - the first actual disaster movie of the bunch), Hellboy, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and Cloverfield.
The title of this wannabe spoof is completely random, as only a vague notion of Cloverfield's plot is used to hold together irrelevant, never-funny references to everything from Juno to American Gladiators.
Here we have references to Juno (2007), Enchanted (2007), High School Musical (2006) etc., with requisite appearances by Iron Man, Batman, Hellboy, the Hulk, Beowulf, Alvin and the Chipmunks and, of course, tabloid-trash divas like Amy Winehouse and Jessica Simpson for good measure.
The year's worth of films that are less than fondly recalled over the course of eighty eye-scraping minutes: 10,000 B.C., Alvin and the Chipmunks, Beowulf, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, The Dark Knight, Enchanted, Get Smart, Hancock, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, The Incredible Hulk, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Iron Man, Jumper, Juno, Kung Fu Panda, The Love Guru, Never Back Down, Night at the Museum, No Country for Old Men, Sex and the City, Speed Racer, Step Up, Superbad, Wanted and You Don't Mess with the Zohan.
Rushed into production with no better drape for its threadbare gags than Cloverfieldunless you count such proud upholders of the Irwin Allen tradition as Juno, Enchanted, and High School Musicalthis carpet-fouling mongrel of a movie no more deserves release than do anthrax spores.
These days, though, the genre has been taken hostage by writer/directors Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, whose cinematic conveyor belt continues to crank out execrable dross like Date Movie and Meet the Spartans with alarming regularity.
Better yet, the wonder duo manage to rip themselves off with gags borrowed from Date Movie (the transparent appearance of a black man as a white woman's stunt double) and Scary Movie 3 (a person of small stature hits a ceiling fan and is subsequently shot out a window) that had actually been mildly amusing the first time around.
Big question: Is the latest spoof from Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer (“Meet the Spartans,” “Epic Movie,” “Date Movie”) even slightly better than the garbage they’ve done before?
One day after Obama stirred the nation with his DNC speech in Denver, Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer (the hacks behind Date Movie and Epic Movie) unleashed their second witless rehash of pop culture references this year (after February’s Meet the Spartans), one featuring a black “comedian” by the name of G. Thang.
Riding in on the shabby coattails of "Scary Movie," "Date Movie," and "Epic Movie," the film lampoons shock-and-awe blockbusters from "Armageddon" to "An Inconvenient Truth."
Instead writer/directors Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer do what they’ve done in Date Movie, Epic Movie, and Meet the Spartans, spoof big movies and other miscellaneous popular culture from the last six to twelve months regardless of how it fits into the overall title concept.
The “plot” more or less follows that of Cloverfield (2008), until it somewhat inexplicably becomes Night at the Museum (2006) combined with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008).
Huh? There’s also a discernable allergy to special effects, leaving inert takes on “Night at the Museum” and “10,000 B.C.” a little bizarre and conceptually embarrassing.
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It's another opus that, despite opening titles done in the style of Armageddon 's and a feeble thru-line borrowed from Cloverfield (mixed with some of The Day After Tomorrow ), is as much a send-up of disaster-related films as Epic Movie was a spoof of actual epic movies.
Hm, let's see - The Poseidon Adventure, Earthquake, The Towering Inferno, Airport (ok, already done), Twister, Independence Day, Deep Impact, Armageddon, Dante's Peak, Volcano, The Day After Tomorrow, and the Poseidon remake are the first dozen I can think of that they could have used, and without counting Cloverfield, which I think this film uses for its core story (but that could be a fortunate coincidence).
You would think a motion picture called “Disaster Movie” would actually focus on films that have plots revolving around disasters, but aside from a few brief nods to “Cloverfield,” “The Day After Tomorrow” and “Twister,” it's just an onslaught of no-name cast members (What does it tell you when Kim Kardashian and Carmen Electra are probably the best known thespians in the bunch?) going through re-creations of scenes from unrelated movies.
You're thinking The Towering Inferno, The Poseidon Adventure, or The Day After Tomorrow; they're thinking Sex and the City, You Don't Mess with the Zohan, and Juno -- any movie that came out within the last year, in other words.
Here we have references to Juno (2007), Enchanted (2007), High School Musical (2006) etc., with requisite appearances by Iron Man, Batman, Hellboy, the Hulk, Beowulf, Alvin and the Chipmunks and, of course, tabloid-trash divas like Amy Winehouse and Jessica Simpson for good measure.
Bonus: An “Enchanted” princess demonstrates that it’s not a wise decision to run in glass slippers.
Alvin and the Chipmunks fight the princess from "Enchanted."
American comedian Nicole Parker ( MADtv), who spiced up Spartans, does so again here with hilarious turns as Amy Winehouse, Jessica Simpson and the daffy princess from Enchanted.
He hits the streets with pals Calvin and Lisa (Johnson and Kardashian), plus the sassily pregnant Juney (Flanagan), soon hooking up with an Enchanted princess (Parker).
Here we have references to Juno (2007), Enchanted (2007), High School Musical (2006) etc., with requisite appearances by Iron Man, Batman, Hellboy, the Hulk, Beowulf, Alvin and the Chipmunks and, of course, tabloid-trash divas like Amy Winehouse and Jessica Simpson for good measure.
It's another opus that, despite opening titles done in the style of Armageddon 's and a feeble thru-line borrowed from Cloverfield (mixed with some of The Day After Tomorrow ), is as much a send-up of disaster-related films as Epic Movie was a spoof of actual epic movies.
Big question: Is the latest spoof from Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer (“Meet the Spartans,” “Epic Movie,” “Date Movie”) even slightly better than the garbage they’ve done before?
One day after Obama stirred the nation with his DNC speech in Denver, Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer (the hacks behind Date Movie and Epic Movie) unleashed their second witless rehash of pop culture references this year (after February’s Meet the Spartans), one featuring a black “comedian” by the name of G. Thang.
Instead writer/directors Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer do what they’ve done in Date Movie, Epic Movie, and Meet the Spartans, spoof big movies and other miscellaneous popular culture from the last six to twelve months regardless of how it fits into the overall title concept.
The latest "effort" from Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, the guys responsible for Date Movie, Epic Movie and Meet the Spartans, is yet another bottom-feeding cash-grab that exploits current events, ridicules pop culture icons and compromises the integrity of the zeitgeist itself in order to create, oh, one-quarter to one-half of a funny joke within the shortest possible time frame that qualifies as a theatrical release.
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Once upon a time the movie parody genre could be relied on to deliver laughs - Airplane!, The Naked Gun series and Mel Brooks's early movies always had a fair quotient of giggles.
It's aimed squarely at TV- and movie-addicted teenagers, but even Garth and Wayne from Wayne's World would be too cerebral for Disaster Movie.