Recent Event Highlights: Beyond the Poseidon Adventure, The Poseidon Adventure, and 48 more...
Created by dipity on Jan 23, 2008
Last updated: 03/11/10 at 10:49 PM
Transformers is a 2007 live action film directed by Michael Bay and executive produced by Steven Spielberg, based on the Transformers franchise. The film stars Shia LaBeouf as Sam Witwicky, who has the coordinates to the location of the Allspark, an object at the center of the war between the heroic Autobots and the evil Decepticons. The film also stars Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson, Jon Voight, John Turturro, and Hugo Weaving as the voice of Megatron. Peter Cullen, the voice of Optimus Prime in the 1980s cartoon, reprised the role for the film.Producers Don Murphy and Tom DeSanto developed the film, and Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman wrote the script, aiming for a realistic interpretation of the characters. Though not a Transformers fan, Bay was convinced by Spielberg to direct, and he created an intricate design aesthetic for the computer-generated robots. General Motors and the United States military lent their support during filming, to keep the budget under $150 million....,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0418279
Doomsday is an upcoming science fiction film written and directed by Neil Marshall. The film stars Rhona Mitra and Bob Hoskins. Doomsday is slated to be released in May 19 2008.
Doomsday takes place three decades after a lethal virus called the Reaper nearly wipes out Scotland and causes the rest of the world to wall off the country. When the Reaper begins to emerge in another country 30 years later, an elite team and their leader (Rhona Mitra) are sent to the contaminated landscape of the walled-off country to find a cure.Director Neil Marshall originally came up with the idea of Doomsday by having a vision of "a futuristic action warrior fighting a knight in armor". The story was inspired by post-apocalyptic thriller films that Marshall had grown up watching, including Mad Max (1979) and The Road Warrior (1981). Marshall also cited other films for inspiration: Escape from New York (1981), Metalstorm (1983), and The Warriors (1979). In October 2005, Rogue Pictures signed...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0483607
World Trade Center is a dramatic film based on the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center towers of New York City(NY), USA, released by Paramount Pictures on August 9 2006.
The movie was directed by Oliver Stone and stars Nicolas Cage, Michael Peña, Maria Bello, and Maggie Gyllenhaal.
It is billed as an uplifting story about everyday New Yorkers helping one another amid a cataclysmic tragedy, and is the first theatrical motion picture to deal with the World Trade Center attacks on 9/11 and the heroic efforts of countless rescue workers and regular citizens. Critical reception of the film was generally favorable. Many of the re-created scenes at the Twin Towers were filmed at Playa Vista, Los Angeles, California, USA.
As all of the police officers return to the station, they see the TV, and find that one of the massive twin towers of the World Trade Center has been hit by a plane. Sergeant McLoughlin assigns many of the officers to assist in an evacuation...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0469641
10.5: Apocalypse is a 2006 television miniseries written, directed, and produced by John Lafia. A sequel to 2004's 10.5, the film follows a series of catastrophic seismic disasters (earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunami, and sinkholes). Critical reaction was similar to that of its predecessor, with much criticism for its scientific basis and clichéd plot and character development.The miniseries was filmed entirely in the Montreal area, where many of the scenes can easily be linked to areas in the outskirts of the city. The Sun Valley scene was filmed at the Mont Tremblant Resort, a popular skiing resort north of the city. All of the news reporters that appeared on TV in the film are all local news reporters for various news stations in Montreal. The visual effects company that created the visual effects for the movie is called "Hybride", which is based in Piedmont, Quebec, 40 minutes north of Montreal.One of the places destroyed was Las Vegas. Several casinos were destroyed...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0463850
Poseidon is a 2006 remake of the classic disaster film The Poseidon Adventure, based on the novel by Paul Gallico. It was released on May 12, 2006 and stars Kurt Russell, Josh Lucas, Emmy Rossum and Richard Dreyfuss. It is directed by Wolfgang Petersen and was produced and distributed by Warner Bros., in association with Virtual Studios. The film also had a simultaneous release in the IMAX format. Executive Producers are Kevin Burns and Jon Jashni, Sheila Allen and Benjamin Waisbren. It was nominated for a single Academy Award in the visual effects category.The story centers on the Poseidon, a luxury ocean liner, named for the Greek god of the sea, in the midst of a transatlantic crossing.The beginning focuses on a brief introduction to the main characters, as they go about their activities and business throughout the ship: Jennifer Ramsey (Emmy Rossum) and Christian (Mike Vogel) are a young couple hoping to soon be engaged, but her father former New York City Mayor Robert Ramsey (...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0409182
Japan Sinks (日本沈没,Nihon Chinbotsu?) is a 2006 Tokusatsu film directed by Shinji Higuchi, and a remake of the 1973 screenplay based on the Komatsu novel. It stars Tsuyoshi Kusanagi, Kou Shibasaki, Etsushi Toyokawa, and Mao Daichi, and was released on April 15, 2006. Cameo appearances in the film include: Hideaki Anno, a cofounder with director Higuchi of Gainax, with his wife Moyoco Anno as a married couple; Mayumi Shintani, who debuted as a seiyu in the Gainax anime Kare Kano, directed by Anno; and Yoshiyuki Tomino of Mobile Suit Gundam fame. It was later parodied in another film released that same year, in Everyone But Japan Sinks (日本以外全部沈没,Everyone But Japan Sinks?). The film concentrates on the collision of tectonic plates which causes the central plate supporting Japan to break apart. As a result, the country will break apart and sink into the Pacific Ocean in 338.54 days. As an earthquake shakes the country, Toshio (Tsuyoshi Kusanagi) saves a girl, Misaki (Mayuko Fukuda) from...,
Supervolcano is a 2005 BBC/Discovery Channel docudrama centered around the fictional eruption of the volcanic caldera of Yellowstone National Park.
The film begins with a group of hooded people in caribou parkas walking through the snow, finally arriving at a nearly buried building. Inside there, they find a video recorded journal of a man who appears to be dying. The man in the video reports that the Yellowstone caldera eruption has affected nearly everything in the United States, burying much of the country under several feet of volcanic ash.
The film then goes back to five years before the incident, where tourists are seen viewing Old Faithful and exploring the hydrovolcanic features of the Yellowstone National Park. Inside the visitor's centre, the same man from the video journal, Rick Lieberman, a USGS scientist in charge of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, is seen presenting to a crowd on Yellowstone's seismic activity. He states during the presentation, using a fictional...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0419372
Supernova is a movie of the week originally released on the Hallmark Channel. The film is a typical disaster movie and as such it had a large number of special effects. Luke Perry is the star of the film and Peter Fonda, a former Golden Globe winner, is also a part of the story.
A worldwide scientific conference is taking place in Australia when Dr. Austin Shepard (Peter Fonda) suddenly disappears. Dr. Shepard's colleague, Christopher Richardson (Luke Perry) and other individuals are soon faced with the reality of an impending crisis and an attempt to keep the information from the public. While a full-blown supernova does not occur, explosions on the sun cause massive damage in Australia and in various other parts of the world. During the impending chaos an old enemy of Richardson's wife escapes from prison, and immediately sets out to kill her and her daughter. Surviving the near destruction of the earth and the attempted murder of his family proves to be a harrowing adventure for...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0419373
The Day After Tomorrow is a 2004 apocalyptic science-fiction film that depicts catastrophic effects of global warming and boasts high-end special effects, bending the lines between science, reality, and science fiction. Worldwide, it is the 47th top grossing film of all time, with total revenue of US $542,771,772. It is the second highest grossing movie not to be #1 in the US box office (behind My Big Fat Greek Wedding). It currently holds the record for biggest opening weekend gross for any movie not opening at #1 with $68.7 million. The movie was filmed mostly in Montreal, and, as of 2007, is the highest grossing Hollywood film in history to be filmed in Canada.The Day After Tomorrow premiered in Mexico City on May 17 2004 and was released worldwide from May 26 to May 28 except in South Korea and Japan where it was released June 4 and June 5, respectively. The film was originally planned for release in summer 2003.Taglines:The movie was inspired by The Coming Global Superstorm, a...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0319262
10.5 is a 2004 film directed by John Lafia and released as a television miniseries in the U.S.A. The plot focuses on a series of catastrophic earthquakes along the United States' west coast, culminating in one measuring 10.5 on the Richter scale. In an attempt to prevent further damage, the characters race to "weld" the fault closed, using nuclear bombs.
10.5 was widely derided by both reviewers and geologists; nevertheless, it received respectable Nielsen ratings. Reuters reported that 20.4 million viewers watched the television movie[citation needed].
A sequel, 10.5: Apocalypse, was planned to be released in November 2005, but NBC delayed the release until May 21 and 23, 2006.
The beginning of the film shows a biker riding through the Seattle area. As he jumps over a man refilling newspaper stands, the stands tremble and newspapers start falling out. The biker realizes that a large earthquake is underway and desperately tries to postpone his landing. Meanwhile, Dr. Samantha...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0364146
The Core (2003) is a science fiction disaster film very loosely based on the novel Core by Paul Preuss. It concerns a team that has to drill to the center of the Earth and set off a series of nuclear explosions in order to restart the rotation of Earth's core. The Core was directed by Jon Amiel, and starred Aaron Eckhart, Delroy Lindo, Tchéky Karyo, Hilary Swank, DJ Qualls, and Stanley Tucci.
Despite being a big budget sci-fi flick in the vein of Armageddon, The Core flopped at the box office, earning only US$74 million worldwide.
Strange things are happening on Earth's surface: A number of people within a 10-block radius in Boston die simultaneously with no immediate explanation.
Geology professor Josh Keyes and nuclear physicist Serge Leveque are brought together by Gen. Purcell of U.S. government to determine a cause for the deaths in Boston. Keyes deduces that the people who died had one thing in common - they had artificial pacemakers. He initially believes the cause to be...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0298814
The Perfect Storm is a 2000 film adapted from the book of the same title by Sebastian Junger. The film was directed by Wolfgang Petersen and features George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, William Fichtner, John C. Reilly, Diane Lane, Karen Allen and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio.In September 1991, the swordfishing boat Andrea Gail returns to home port in Gloucester, Massachusetts with a poor catch. Desperate for money the captain convinces his reluctant crew to join him for one more fishing expedition. They head out past their usual fishing grounds, leaving a developing storm behind them. They find great success at the Flemish Cap, but when their ice machine breaks the only way to preserve their catch is to hurry back home. However between the Andrea Gail and Gloucester is a confluence of two powerful weather fronts and a hurricane . The crew struggles to sail through pounding waves and shrieking winds, while friends and family worry and wait for a ship that never comes home.The families of...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0177971
Atomic Train is a 1999 action movie about an accidental nuclear explosion destroying the city of Denver. It was originally broadcast on NBC as a two-part miniseries.A waste disposal company has a Russian nuclear bomb to transport, and an employee decides to save money by concealing it on a freight train. This train is also loaded with hazardous and flammable chemicals including metallic sodium which spontaneously ignites on contact with water. The train suffers a brake failure and becomes a runaway heading for Denver. John Seger, a heroic NTSB investigator, boards the train and with the assistance of the railwaymen tries various ways to stop the train, but nothing works. Meanwhile, Denver residents are struggling to collect their families and then leave town, despite rioters and gridlock.The train derails and becomes a terrific wreck. Discovering the now highly unstable bomb on-board, firefighters struggle to put out the fire at the crash site. The misinterpretation of a radio call to...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0144039
Armageddon is an Academy Award-nominated disaster/science fiction film about a group of blue-collar deep-core drillers who are sent by NASA to deflect an asteroid on a collision course with Earth. It was directed by Michael Bay, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and released on Disney's Touchstone Pictures label. It stars Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton, Ben Affleck and Liv Tyler. The film's tagline is "For Love. For Honor. For Mankind."
Armageddon was released at a time when disaster films were seeing a comeback. Another disaster film, involving a comet instead of an asteroid, Deep Impact, was made in the same year as well as Godzilla. The previous year had seen two volcano-based disaster movies, Dante's Peak, starring Pierce Brosnan, and Volcano, starring Tommy Lee Jones.
A novelization was written by C. Bolin, based on the screenplay by Jonathan Hensleigh and the story by Jonathan Hensleigh and Robert Pool.
Before the film’s title appears onscreen, a narrator (Charlton Heston)...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120591
Godzilla is an American science fiction film directed by Roland Emmerich and starred Matthew Broderick, Jean Reno, Maria Pitillo, Hank Azaria, Michael Lerner and Kevin Dunn. It is the American movie remake of the popular Japanese filmGojira (Godzilla).
Tagline:The film's opening credits play over a montage of French nuclear tests in the Pacific Ocean, observed by many marine iguanas. Then, in present days, a Japanese fishing ship is attacked by an unseen monster; only one survived (an old man). Traumatized, he is later questioned in a hospital by a mysterious Frenchman (Jean Reno) as to what he saw. But the man didn't answer until the Frenchman asks in english with a match moving left and right and repeatedly says only one word -- "Gojira".
Another seaborne attack just by the Eastern Seaboard culminated in the eventual destruction of a fishing ship. The crew, however, survived, after witnessing their boat sinking, but it shot up from underneath and landed with a huge splash in the...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120685
Deep Impact is a 1998 science fiction disaster film released by Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Pictures. The film was directed by Mimi Leder, and stars Elijah Wood, Téa Leoni, Morgan Freeman, Leelee Sobieski, Vanessa Redgrave and Robert Duvall. The plot describe events which take place surrounding the discovery of the fictional "Comet Wolf-Biederman," due to collide with the Earth, and the attempt to destroy the comet before impact. It was released on May 8, 1998.
As Leo Biederman (Wood) and Sarah Hotchner (Sobieski), two teenage astronomy club members, observe the stars, Leo discovers a new object. Leo takes a photo and mails it with the coordinates to astronomer Dr. Marcus Wolf (Charles Martin Smith). Wolf confirms the sighting at an observatory, and after discovering the comet will hit Earth he attempts to alert his colleagues, but is unable to get through. He saves the data to a disk, but dies in a car crash after leaving the observatory.
One year later, Jenny Lerner (Leoni),...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120647
Titanic is a 1997 romantic drama film directed, written, and co-produced by James Cameron about the sinking of the RMS Titanic. It stars Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio as Rose DeWitt Bukater and Jack Dawson respectively, members of different social classes who fall in love aboard the ill-fated 1912 maiden voyage of the ship. Bill Paxton plays Brock Lovett, the leader of a treasure hunting expedition, while Gloria Stuart has the role of the elderly Rose, who narrates the story in 1996. The film was both a critical and commercial success, winning eleven Academy Awards including Best Film, and became the highest grossing film of all time, with a total worldwide gross of US$1.8 billion. In 1996, treasure hunter Brock Lovett and his team explore the wreck of the RMS Titanic searching for a necklace called “Heart of the Ocean”. They discover a drawing of a young woman reclining nude, wearing the Heart of the Ocean, dated the day the Titanic sank. News of this drawing on television...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120338
Speed 2: Cruise Control is a 1997 action movie produced by Twentieth Century Fox and Blue Tulip Productions, directed by Jan de Bont. It stars Sandra Bullock, Willem Dafoe, Temuera Morrison and Jason Patric. It is a sequel to Speed, although Keanu Reeves chose not to star in it.[1] In the movie, Bullock is trapped on the Seabourn Legend, an out-of-control luxury cruise liner. Its navigation computers were reprogrammed by a computer hacker, setting the ship on a collision course with a supertanker.
The film, released in the summer of 1997, was generally regarded as a critical failure, though Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel gave it "Two Thumbs Up," according to the video release cover. Although the movie is considered to be a flop in U.S., as it only made $48 million, it made USD $164,508,066 worldwide.
Annie Porter (Bullock) is thrilled when her boyfriend Alex Shaw (Patric) surprises her with two tickets for a cruise to the Bahamas aboard the Seabourn Legend. The trip is a peace offering...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120179
Volcano is a disaster action film starring Tommy Lee Jones, Anne Heche, and Don Cheadle. It was directed by Mick Jackson, and was released in the United States on April 25, 1997, just months after the release of Dante's Peak, another film about a volcano with a similar plot. Geologists consider Volcano to be scientifically inaccurate compared to Dante's Peak.Taglines:Tommy Lee Jones stars as Mike Roark, a Los Angeles emergency official who takes charge when a volcano grows out of the La Brea Tar Pits. A river of lava flows down Wilshire Boulevard, through the Metro Red Line subway tunnel, and creates a fountain of lava next to the Beverly Center shopping mall in Beverly Hills. The lava destroys one subway train in the Red Line, kills the Metro chairman by melting him, burns cars, firemen, homes, and fire trucks, and burns down the Los Angeles Art Museum.In spite of placing himself and his teenage daughter in danger, Mike decides to save the city by diverting the river of lava (with...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120461
Dante's Peak is a 1997 action-adventure film starring Pierce Brosnan and Linda Hamilton. It portrays the effect of a volcano erupting in a small town in the Pacific Northwest portion of the United States. It was released a few months before Volcano and received wider success. It has also been acclaimed for its scientific accuracy, which Volcano lacked.
The film is set in the fictional town of Dante's Peak, Washington, located in the northern Cascade Mountains but was actually filmed in and around Wallace in northern Idaho. The film is somewhat based on the real-life eruptions of Mount St. Helens in 1980 and Mount Pinatubo in 1991. The film is noted to have put emphasis on trying to accurately depict a volcanic eruption.The film begins with the volcanic eruption of an unnamed volcano in Colombia (the script says this is Galeras, and the eruption is presumably the 1993 eruption which killed several volcanologists) where volcanologist Harry Dalton (Brosnan) attempts to evacuate with his...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118928
Independence Day (also known as its promotional abbreviation ID4) is an Academy Award winning science fiction film directed by Roland Emmerich. The film's main plot is about an attempted alien invasion of Earth, and features several scenes of major landmarks being destroyed by the aliens, such as the White House, the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, and the US Bank Tower (then known as the First Interstate World Center) in Los Angeles.The film's success was partially credited to an extensive marketing campaign which began in the United States with a dramatic commercial during Super Bowl XXX. The movie was scheduled for release on July 3, 1996, but due to the high level of anticipation for the film, many theaters began showing it on the evening of July 2, 1996, the same day the action in the film begins. The movie's total worldwide gross was $817 million the 17th highest worldwide gross for a movie all-time.The film has a famous opening: it begins on the moon, at the ...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116629
Twister is a 1996 disaster film starring Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton as storm chasers researching tornadoes. It was directed by Jan de Bont. The film was based upon a script by Michael Crichton and his wife, former actress Anne-Marie Martin.
In the movie, a team of "storm chasers" try to perfect their new instrument, while competing with another team.
Twister also has a famous scene of a flying cow, a scene that was the subject of many parodies. The film also became the theme of a ride at Universal Orlando Resort called Twister... Ride it Out.
According to IMDb, Twister was the first movie commercially released on DVD.
Taglines:Jo Harding: The leader of her storm team. When she was five, Jo's father was killed in an F5 tornado because of a less-than-perfect warning system. Ever since then, she's dedicated her life to creating the advanced warning system. During the film she is in the process of divorcing from Bill Harding, but because she still loves him, she is hesitant to do so. Jo...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117998
Outbreak (1995) is a suspense film starring Dustin Hoffman, Rene Russo, Morgan Freeman and Kevin Spacey. The film was directed by Wolfgang Petersen. In addition, Outbreak features Cuba Gooding Jr., Donald Sutherland, and Patrick Dempsey.
The film focuses on an outbreak of a fictional Ebola-like virus called Motaba. Its primary settings are government disease control centers USAMRIID and the CDC, and the fictional town of Cedar Creek, California. Outbreak shows how far the military and civilian agencies might go to contain the spread.
The film was released in March 1995 and proved a moderate box office success. The film was nominated for various awards but failed to garner any major award nominations. It also raised various "what-if" scenarios: media outlets began to question what the government would really do in a similar situation and the CDC has plans in case an outbreak ever does occur.
The film was shot at various locations in California and Hawaii. The locations used in...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114069
Red Dawn is a 1984 film by John Milius about an invasion of the United States by the Soviet Union and Cuba, and the resulting guerrilla actions of a group of American high school students in the town of Calumet, Colorado. The movie features Patrick Swayze, C. Thomas Howell, Lea Thompson, Charlie Sheen, Jennifer Grey, and Powers Boothe.Produced in the last decade of the Cold War, Red Dawn has become something of a cult classic and has become a touchstone of 1980s pop culture.[citation needed]Red Dawn was the first movie to be released with a Motion Picture Association of America PG-13 rating (The Flamingo Kid was the first film to actually receive the rating, but was not released for 5 months after certification.)The plot of the movie is based on an idea that an unprepared United States stood alone and was then invaded by the Soviet Union and their allies in the then-upcoming late 1980s, igniting World War III. The larger war is ignored, following the lives of a group of young people...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087985
Threads is a 1984 BBC television docudrama depicting the effects of a nuclear war on the United Kingdom and its aftermath. Written by Barry Hines and directed by Mick Jackson, Threads was filmed in late 1983 and early 1984. The premise of Threads was to hypothesize the effects of a nuclear war on the United Kingdom after an exchange between the Soviet Union and the United States escalates to include the UK.
The story focuses on two families from Sheffield, beginning nearly three months before the attack, which happens on Thursday, 26 May; the year is unspecified, but, relative to 1984, the closest years in which 26 May fell on a Thursday are 1983 and 1988. We watch their lifestyle and their reactions, first as fighting erupts and escalates, then as the UK places itself on a war footing, and eventually as strategic bombing commences. We then follow family members as they face, and sometimes die of, the medical, economic, social, and environmental consequences of a nuclear war. The...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090163
The Day After is an American television movie which aired on November 20 1983 on the ABC Television Network. The film portrays a fictional nuclear war between the United States/NATO and the Soviet Union/Warsaw Pact and its effects on the residents of Lawrence, Kansas; Kansas City, Missouri, and several family farms situated next to nearby nuclear-missile silos. The film was written by Edward Hume and directed by Nicholas Meyer. The film was released on DVD on May 18 2004.
The chronology of the events leading up to the war is shown entirely through a series of news announcements on television and radio. The Soviet Union has commenced a military buildup in East Germany, with the goal of intimidating the United States into abandoning its forces and support of West Berlin. The U.S. does not back down. Soviet tank divisions are sent to the West-East German border.
During the late hours of Friday, September 15, news broadcasts report of "wide-spread rebellion among several divisions of the...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085404
Starflight: The Plane That Couldn't Land (re-released on video as Starflight One) is a 1983 television movie starring Lee Majors and Hal Linden. The first hypersonic transport is leaving for its inaugural flight from Los Angeles to Sydney, Australia, a two-hour flight through the stratosphere. Starflight is being prepared for a media-covered inaugural hypersonic flight from Los Angeles to Sydney, Australia, a two-hour flight. The passengers bring some of their problems on board - the pilot, Cody Briggs (Majors), is unfaithful to his wife Janet (Tess Harper) and having an affair with the media relations representative for Thornwall Aviation, Erica Hansen (Lauren Hutton); Hal Parisi married another passenger because she won the trip on TV, but he's only interested in getting his stolen gold out of the country. Freddie Barrett (Terry Kiser) is trying to get his communications satellite launched from Australia to start his business carrying television signals. Starflight's take-off is...,
St. Helens, aka St. Helens, Killer Volcano, is a 1981 film directed by Ernest Pintoff and starring David Huffman, Art Carney, Cassie Yates, and Albert Salmi. The film centers on the events leading up to the eruption of Mt. St. Helens in Washington State, with the story beginning on the day volcanic activity started on March 20th, 1980, and ending on the day of the cataclysmic May 18, 1980 eruption.
The film opens up with an image of Central Oregon's Mount Bachelor and the Central Oregon Cascades, which is the fictional setting for Mount St. Helens itself. On March 20, 1980 an earthquake of 4.1 on the Richter Scale strikes Mount St. Helens, signalling the first signs of volcanic activity in 123 years.
During the first earthquake, a flight of quail becomes disoriented and smashes into the windshield of an Aerospatiale SA341G Gazelle helicopter being used for logging operations. Pilot Otis Kaylor lands the helicopter, only to be accused of nearly killing a group of loggers.
Shortly...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083117
Produced by the "Master of Disaster," Irwin Allen, When Time Ran Out... is loosely based on a novel detailing the factual 1902 volcanic eruption of Mount Pelée on Martinique, which killed 30,000 people in five minutes (by pyroclastic flow). When Time Ran Out... has the distinction of being both the last notable "disaster film" produced at the tail-end of the 1970s cycle of the genre, and Irwin Allen's last theatrically-released picture.
When Time Ran Out... deals with the eruption of a volcano on a remote Pacific island, threatening a newly-constructed, multi-million dollar resort, an oil drilling project, and a volcano observatory perched on the edge of the caldera. After a major eruption causes a lava flow to head directly towards the resort, a small group of people attempt to escape to safety on the opposite side of the island, while others remain behind.
Allen recycled many of the ideas and scenarios presented in his two huge hits, The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081747
The Concorde ... Airport '79 is a 1979 American disaster film (in the UK, it was released a year later as Airport '80: The Concorde). The film was the fourth and final installment of the Airport series and is widely considered the poorest effort of the series. Universally derided by critics, the film made only US$13 million [1] at the box office.
Some, such as All Movie Guide's Bruce Eder have interpreted the film as a self-parody, due to the film's outrageous premise, situations, and casting. In The Concorde ... Airport '79, the airplane rolls inverted, which, among other aerobatcis, would be difficult for even the most experienced pilot to accomplish safely. Also notable is the casting of Mercedes McCambridge as a Soviet Olympics coach. For a period in the 1950s, McCambridge was blacklisted during the Red Scare in America. Plus, McCambridge has been credited as the voice of the devil in The Exorcist , while Linda Blair (who played the little possessed giril in The Exorcist) was in ...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078740
Beyond the Poseidon Adventure is a 1979 sequel to the 1972 film, The Poseidon Adventure. Continuing from the original movie's conclusion (with the Poseidon still afloat) with the six survivors of Reverend Frank Scott's team rescued, a tugboat captain, Mike Turner, discovers the behemoth wreck of the settling ocean liner.Accompanied by his privately ill second mate Wilbur (Karl Malden), and a passenger Celeste Whitman (Sally Field), they head out to claim salvage rights for the catastrophe, as the tugboat (Jenny) lost her cargo in the storm that capsized the ocean liner. (Though the SS Poseidon was actually capsized by a tsunami in the first film.) They are soon followed by terrorists in disguise, Dr. Stefan Svevo and his crew, who claim to be doctors who received the Poseidon's S.O.S., but are really after gold and a lost plutonium shipment. Reentering the flooding time bomb, their lusts cause them to find themselves trapped within the doomed liner.Along their journey of finding a new...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078856
Meteor (1979) is a film in which scientists detect an asteroid on a collision course with Earth and struggle with international, cold war politics in their efforts to prevent disaster. The movie starred Sean Connery.
It was directed by Ronald Neame and with a screenplay by Edmund H. North and Stanley Mann and co-starring Natalie Wood, Karl Malden, Brian Keith, Martin Landau, Trevor Howard, Henry Fonda, Johnny Yune, and Katherine DeHetre. It was one of the last and least regarded films from the 1970's disaster genre.
The opening sequence involves a crew of astronauts that observes a collision between a comet and an asteroid named Orpheus. The astronauts and their ship are then destroyed by a fragment from the collision. Back on Earth, Dr. Paul Bradley (Connery) is dragged reluctantly to the offices of his former boss Harry Sherwood
(Malden). He is given an account about the doomed astronauts and it's explained that Orpheus is on a collision course with Earth.
While the United States...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079550
Gray Lady Down is a 1978 disaster film by Universal Studios which starred Charlton Heston, David Carradine, Stacy Keach, Ned Beatty, Ronny Cox, and featured the first film role for a young Christopher Reeve.An aging, respected commander (Charlton Heston) is on his final submarine tour before his retirement. Returning to port, the submarine, USS Neptune (possibly a Skate-class or Nautilus-class attack submarine), is struck by a Norwegian freighter and sinks to the ocean floor. A US Navy rescue force commanded by Stacy Keach arrives on scene, but Neptune is perched on the edge of a precipice, at an angle that does not allow the Navy's Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicle (DSRV) rescue submarine to complete its work.A small experimental submersible, "Snark," is brought in to assist with the rescue. Snark is very capable, but run by a nonconformist navy misfit (David Carradine). The submersible is the only hope for a rescue and pulls off a miraculous rescue.Ronny Cox plays Neptune's executive...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077629
Rollercoaster is a summer 1977 disaster-suspense film directed by James Goldstone. It was one of three films created in Sensurround by Universal Studios, along with Midway and Earthquake .
The plot surrounds the blackmail of various amusement park companies by an anonymous extortionist (Timothy Bottoms) who places radio-controlled explosives on each park's signature roller coaster (the film opens with a horrific explosion and crash of a sabotaged ride packed with people). A ride safety inspector (George Segal) works with the local police and an FBI special agent (Richard Widmark) to track him down. Helen Hunt also has a supporting role as Segal's teenage daughter / potential victim.
The movie features an appearance by the band Sparks for the roller coaster's openings concert. This role was rumored to have been offered to Kiss who turned down the part. Sparks later cited their appearance in the movie in answer to a question about the biggest regret of their career. 2. Music by Jerry...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076636
Airport '77 is a 1977 disaster film and second sequel in the Airport franchise. The film is generally considered the best of the sequels due to the quality of the writing and acting, even if the technical feasibility of the ditching and subsequent submersion of a fully pressurised 747 might be questioned. The film starred a number of veteran actors, including Jack Lemmon, James Stewart, Joseph Cotten, and Olivia de Havilland. Like its predecessors, Airport '77 was a box office hit earning US$30 million [1] but marked the series' progression into increasingly unlikely plots.
A privately owned luxury Boeing 747, Stevens' Flight 23 (call sign two-three sierra heavy) complete with piano bar, office, and bedroom, is used to ferry invited guests to an estate owned by wealthy philanthropist Philip Stevens (James Stewart). Valuable artwork of the Stevens' private collection is also onboard the jetliner, to be eventually displayed in his new museum. Such a collection motivates a group of...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075648
The Cassandra Crossing is a 1976 British motion picture starring Richard Harris, Ava Gardner, Sophia Loren, Martin Sheen, Burt Lancaster, Lee Strasberg and O. J. Simpson.
This suspense film concerns a group of hapless passengers aboard a European transcontinental train bound from Geneva to Stockholm. They are infected with a viral plague from a Swedish terrorist, who is fleeing a botched attack on the U.S. mission at the fictional International Health Organization.
Burt Lancaster plays U.S. Colonel Stephen Mackenzie, who wants to send the train across an abandoned ex-Nazi railroad line to a quarantine camp in Yanov, Poland. The twist, however, is that the line crosses a dangerously unsound steel arch bridge known as the Cassandra Crossing. Mackenzie understands that the bridge might collapse as the train passes over it. He reasons that, if the train does not make it across the bridge, he can lay the blame for the situation on the terrorists.
The main passengers include Dr. Jonathan...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074292
The Hindenburg (1975) is a movie based on the disaster of the German airship Hindenburg. The film was produced and directed by Robert Wise, and was written by Nelson Gidding, Richard Levinson, and William Link based on the novel by Michael M. Mooney. The movie has an ensemble cast, including George C. Scott, Anne Bancroft, Burgess Meredith, and Charles Durning.
A highly speculative thriller, The Hindenburg portrays a conspiracy leading to the destruction of the airship. In reality, while the zeppelins were certainly used as a propaganda symbol by the Third Reich, and anti-Nazi forces might have had the motivation for sabotage, the theory of sabotage was investigated at the time and no firm evidence for such sabotage was ever put forward.
An interesting aspect of the film was its transition from black and white to technicolor and back to greyscale. The film began with a Universal Studios newsreel that gave a lighthearted view to the history of the lighter-than-air craft. Afterwards...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073113
The Towering Inferno is a 1974 disaster film directed by John Guillermin, adapted by Stirling Silliphant from the novels The Tower by Richard Martin Stern and The Glass Inferno by Thomas N. Scortia and Frank M. Robinson, and starring Steve McQueen and Paul Newman.
After the success of The Poseidon Adventure, Warner Brothers bought the rights to film The Tower for $390,000. Eight weeks later, Irwin Allen discovered The Glass Inferno and bought the rights for $400,000 for 20th Century Fox. In order to avoid having two similar films produced at the same time, the productions were combined, with a budget of $14 million (over $58 million adjusted for inflation 1974-2005). Each studio paid half of the production costs. In return, Fox was given the United States box office receipts, and Warner Brothers got the profits from the rest of the world. The movie's 57 sets and four complete camera crews established records for a single film on the Twentieth Century Fox lot. In addition, songstress ...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072308
Airport 1975 is a 1974 disaster film and the first sequel to the successful 1970 hit Airport. Unlike the original film, Airport 1975 was a bona fide "blockbuster" disaster film, with an "all-star" cast and extensive promotional campaign. The film is one among many of a class of campy 1970s disaster movies. Its plot devices and shallow characterizations, including a singing nun (Helen Reddy), a former glamorous star (Gloria Swanson), an alcoholic (Myrna Loy), a child in need of an organ transplant (Linda Blair), and a chatterbox (Sid Caesar) were parodied in part in 1980's Airplane!. The characteristics of Airport 1975 were also used in numerous similar films to come, including the film's own sequels: Airport '77 and The Concorde: Airport '79.
Though derided by the critics upon its release, Airport 1975 was ultimately a success. With a budget of US$3 million, the film made over US$47 million [1] at the box office. Helen Reddy was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Most Promising...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071110
Juggernaut is a rare British entry into the 1970s disaster film cycle. It was produced by David V. Picker Productions and released in 1974 by United Artists. The film was directed by Richard Lester, who took over after directors Bryan Forbes and Don Taylor each left the project in pre-production.
On taking over the film, Lester completely rewrote the script with writer Alan Plater, as he recounts to biographer Andrew Yule. Producer/Writer Richard Alan Simmons, unhappy with the new script, had himself credited as Richard DeKoker on the finished film.
The film was shot mainly aboard a real ocean liner. The Hamburg had recently been sold by its German owners to the Soviet Union. Before the Soviets began operating the liner for paying passengers, they rented it to the film company.
The liner was painted in the livery of a fictional shipping line, very similar to the livery used by the Soviet Morpasflot line, and renamed the Britannic. Advertisements were run in British papers, soliciting...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071706
The Poseidon Adventure is a 1972 action adventure/disaster/thriller film based on a novel by Paul Gallico. It concerns the capsizing of a luxurious ocean liner by a tsunami and the desperate struggles of a handful of survivors to journey up to the bottom of the hull of the liner before it sinks.It won the Academy Award for Best Song for "The Song from 'The Poseidon Adventure'" (aka "The Morning After"), which became a hit single for Maureen McGovern, as well as winning an Academy Award for Special Achievement in Visual Effects. Shelley Winters was also nominated for an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress for her role in the film, and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress in a film for the role.The plot centers upon the SS Poseidon, an aged luxury liner from the golden age of travel, on its final voyage from New York City to Athens before being sent to the scrapyard. On New Year's Eve, it is overturned by a tsunami wave caused by an underwater earthquake, trapping...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069113
Skyjacked is a 1972 disaster film starring Charlton Heston, James Brolin, and Yvette Mimieux. The film is based on the David Harper novel Hijacked.
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http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069278
The Omega Man is a 1971 science fiction thriller starring Charlton Heston. The movie is based on Richard Matheson's 1954 novel, I Am Legend. The screen play was written by John William and Joyce Corrington, and the movie was directed by Boris Sagal. It was filmed in technicolor with mono sound and ran for 98 minutes. The movie received a MPAA rating of PG in the U.S.It is the year 1977, two years since biological warfare between the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union wiped out the entire world population. This is revealed through flashback newsreel foootage. Also in flashback, we learn that Neville, at the time a military scientist, had in the midst of the military and social upheaval which resulted from the spread of the deadly disease, injected himself with an experimental vaccine. The vaccine, for reasons that were not explained, had rendered Neville immune to the plague. In Los Angeles, several hundred somewhat resistant albinos calling themselves "The Family"...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067525
Terror in the Sky is a 1971 television movie based on Arthur Hailey's book, Runway Zero-Eight. It stars Doug McClure, Lois Nettleton, Roddy McDowall, Leif Erickson, Kenneth Tobey, and Keenan Wynn. Passengers on a plane headed from the Midwest (Winnipeg in the book) to Seattle (Vancouver in the book) get sick after eating the fish entree. Both pilots also ate fish. A man who hasn't flown since the war (helicopters in the movie, single-engine planes in the book) is reluctantly pressed into flying the plane, where he makes a rotten, but survivable landing. The theme was later used in Airplane!. ...,
Airport is a 1970 film based on the 1968 Arthur Hailey novel of the same name. This film, which earned over $100,000,000 at the box office, centers around an airport manager trying to keep his airport open during a snowstorm, while a suicidal bomber plots to blow up an airplane (a Boeing 707) in flight.Although it had a complex plot, Airport paved the way for the disaster film genre and established many of the conventions for that genre.The movie was written for the screen and directed by George Seaton. Seaton was assisted by Henry Hathaway, and Ernest Laszlo photographed it in 70 mm Todd-AO. It was the last film scored by Alfred Newman before his death.The story takes place at the fictional Chicago-area Lincoln International Airport. The majority of the filming was done at Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport. Only one Boeing 707 was used in the filming: N324F, a 707-349C, was leased from Flying Tiger Line by Universal Studios and sported an El Al cheatline over its bare...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065377
Crack in the World is an American science-fiction disaster movie filmed in Spain in 1965.
An international consortium of scientists, operating as Project Inner Space, is trying to tap into the Earth's geothermal energy by drilling a very deep hole through the Earth's crust into the mantle below. The scientists are foiled by an extremely dense layer of material at the boundary between the two. To penetrate the barrier and reach the magma below, they intend to detonate an atomic device at the bottom of the hole.
The leader of the project, Dr. Stephen Sorenson (Dana Andrews), who is (secretly) dying of cancer, believes that the atomic device will gradually burn its way through the barrier, but the project's chief geologist, Dr. Ted Rampion (Kieron Moore), is convinced that the lower layers of the crust have been weakened by decades of underground nuclear tests, and that the detonation could produce a massive crack that would threaten the very existence of Earth.
The atomic device is...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059065
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea is a science fiction film produced and directed by Irwin Allen. The film was released in 1961 by 20th Century Fox. The story was written by Irwin Allen and Charles Bennet. Walter Pidgeon starred as Admiral Harriman Nelson, with Robert Sterling as Captain Lee Crane. The film had a supporting cast including Joan Fontaine, Barbara Eden, Michael Ansara and Peter Lorre. The theme song was sung by Frankie Avalon, who also appeared in the film.Meteors piercing the Van Allen radiation belt cause it to catch fire, resulting in a world-threatening global heat wave.The heat is generated by a literal fire in the sky, a skyfire. The fire is making the world's temperature rise alarmingly each day. If it is not extinguished, it will soon end all life on Earth. Meanwhile the new, state-of-the-art atomic submarine Seaview is on diving trials in the Arctic Ocean. The Seaview is being put through these trials by the scientific genius who designed and built the futuristic...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055608
The High and the Mighty is a 1954 disaster film released through Warner Brothers. The film starred and was co-produced by John Wayne, directed by William A. Wellman, and written by Ernest K. Gann, who also wrote the novel (The High and the Mighty) on which the film is based. Dimitri Tiomkin earned an Academy Award for his score, and the film's theme ("The High and the Mighty") was nominated for an Oscar. The High and the Mighty was one of the first all-star disaster films, which paved the way for the Airport films (and eventually the parody, Airplane!, whose cast included Robert Stack, a star player in The High and the Mighty).
Island in the Sky and "The High and the Mighty" are film oddities as they are two of the first all-star disaster films, which paved the way for Airport and its sequels twenty-plus years later. Both films are also two of the early John Wayne co-productions and starred Wayne. This production practice would not become widespread until the 1980s and 90s, when...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047086
Island in The Sky is a 1953 film released through Warner Brothers. The film starred and was co-produced by John Wayne, directed by William A. Wellman and written by Ernest K. Gann who also wrote the novel on which the film was based.
The film follows a pilot and crew of a World War II-era C-47 Skytrain (the military version of the DC-3) who try to survive after a forced emergency landing in the uncharted wildlands near the Quebec-Labrador border. The pilot, Dooley, is a former airline pilot who like many others was pressed into duty hauling war supplies across the northern route to England. Icy weather forces the plane to land, and with the difficulties of navigating far from settled country, they can provide only an approximate position to rescuers. After finding a frozen lake for a landing field Dooley must keep his men alive in deadly conditions of extreme winter cold while waiting for rescue. Fellow airmen (Lloyd Nolan, James Arness, Andy Devine, Paul Fix) are determined to find...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0045919
No Highway in the Sky is a 1951 British disaster film directed by Henry Koster and starring James Stewart and Marlene Dietrich. The film is based on the novel No Highway by Nevil Shute, and was one of the first films that involved a potential airplane crash.
The film follows Theodore Honey (James Stewart), an aeronautical engineer leaving London to investigate a plane crash in Labrador, which he theorizes occurs because of a structural flaw in the plane's design. It isn't until Honey is aboard the Reindeer class plane that he realizes he himself is flying one such plane, and that it is due to crash in a matter of hours. Honey decides to warn the passengers and crew, including actress Monica Teasdale (Marlene Dietrich), despite not being sure of his theory.
James Stewart as Theodore Honey Marlene Dietrich as Monica Teasdale Glynis Johns as Marjorie Corder Jack Hawkins as Dennis Scott Janette Scott as Elspeth Honey Elizabeth Allan as Shirley Scott Ronald Squire as Sir John,...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043859
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