What Makes Disaster Films Great

Disaster films are surprisingly tough to define. What makes them different from an action movie or a monster movie? Who cares? They’re great! Escape with us as we cover the the ins and outs and the history of disaster films and recommend some good ones. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Josh Clark?

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• 1:03Speaker 00

  Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio.

• 1:13Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and it's just us today and that's okay, because we're just going to be sitting around rapping about one of our favorite things to talk about. And that is movies.

• 1:25Speaker 02

  Let's go to the movies.

• 1:29Josh Clark?

  You had a little Katharine Hepburn thing going on there.

• 1:33Speaker 02

  Ethel Merman? Katharine Hepburn?

• 1:35Josh Clark?

  It was Katharine Hepburn singing Ethel Merman.

• 1:38Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:39Josh Clark?

  That's how I took it.

• 1:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:41Josh Clark?

  Yeah, we are going to go to the movies, Chuck, and in particular, a specific kind of movie that the more I dug into, the more I realized is one of my favorite types of movies.

• 1:50Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah?

• 1:51Josh Clark?

  Yeah, disaster movies. I had no idea, but remember we were talking, this whole thing was kicked off by me watching The Day After Tomorrow a couple of weeks ago.

• 2:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:01Josh Clark?

  And I was like, yeah, it's one of my favorite movies. And the reason why is because I love disaster movies. Love them.

• 2:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, I like a lot of these. It's not my favorite genre overall, but like I found myself saying like, oh yeah, that was pretty good, or I like that, all right. But generally, if we're in this, this is a subgenre of action movies, and I think I prefer action movies overall more than disaster movies.

• 2:29Josh Clark?

  Okay, all right. Well, yeah, we'll get into that because it is a subgenre of action. And that makes a lot of sense. Disaster movies are packed with action. And there are some that are like, okay, this is definitely a disaster film, like The Towering Inferno.

• 2:47Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, I'd be.

• 2:48Josh Clark?

  Okay, but then there's also movies like Speed, and Speed checks off a lot of the boxes.

• 2:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, not a disaster movie.

• 2:55Josh Clark?

  You would not call it a disaster movie, even though it really could, if you really wedged it in there, it would qualify. But there's just a couple of little things that are different.

• 3:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:04Josh Clark?

  That make it definitely an action movie. And then you have other ones like The Birds, Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds.

• 3:12Speaker 02

  Not a disaster movie, to me.

• 3:14Josh Clark?

  It ends up on lists. It's part of the animal attack subgenre of disaster films, which is a subgenre of action.

• 3:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's interesting, because I'm sure you did the same thing when reading off some of these. It's sort of like just a gut feeling sometimes, and you can't say exactly what it is that you feel personally like doesn't count, but someone, you know, someone else might think it counts. It's not like this is something you can say is very cut and dry, you know?

• 3:40Josh Clark?

  Right. And because of that, I looked everywhere on the internet to try to cobble together this list of like, basically the basic defining characteristics of disaster films.

• 3:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:54Josh Clark?

  And it was hard. Nobody's ever sat down and said, here they are. Some people have kind of piecemeal, but people don't talk that much about disaster films, which I find. Sad.

• 4:05Speaker 02

  Well, maybe this can be that, and maybe you can like, I don't know, start a website. Joshdefinesdisaster.com.

• 4:12Josh Clark?

  And I'll just put this article on there and that'll be that.

• 4:15Speaker 02

  All right, should we go through some of these? Because you did a bang up job.

• 4:18Josh Clark?

  Thank you.

• 4:19Speaker 02

  The first thing you needed in a disaster movie is a disaster.

• 4:23Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 4:23Speaker 02

  But this can be a lot of different things. A lot of time, it's a human made thing, and that varies from climate change movies, which we've seen a lot more of lately, to like pandemics.

• 4:36Speaker 02

  And sometimes like, I guess, some things like Towering Inferno are a bit of a mashup, because you can have like, the threat of a structural collapse, so that is a human made thing, but it might be brought upon by like, a fire or flood or something.

• 4:49Josh Clark?

  Yes.

• 4:50Speaker 02

  There's overlap.

• 4:51Josh Clark?

  Nobody said you can pin down disaster movies pretty easily.

• 4:54Speaker 02

  That's right. What else?

• 4:56Josh Clark?

  There's like, extraterrestrial's a big one. It can be an alien attack, it can be a comet or an asteroid headed toward Earth.

• 5:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:05Josh Clark?

  Transportation is huge.

• 5:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:07Josh Clark?

  People love screwing up like cruise ships and trains and boats and airplanes. Love it. And then one of the other things about it too, the disaster is ongoing, right? So it's not like the people survive a five minute earthquake and then the rest of the movie, they all like, go out to dinner and everything's fine. They spend the rest of the movie negotiating all the problems that that disaster created. So they're negotiating sub disasters, or it can be like, an ongoing disaster, like a flood or something like that. Like, that can happen the entire movie. But one way or another, the entire movie takes place over some sort of disaster and

• 5:51Josh Clark?

  all of its after effects.

• 5:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. Impending or in, in what? In?

• 6:00Josh Clark?

  Oh, that's a good point, too. Yeah, sometimes there's a lot of lead up to it.

• 6:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. But what am I looking for? In process? In progress?

• 6:08Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 6:09Speaker 02

  Oh, good lord. Uh, it's usually a pretty large disaster. And for me, this is like, can be a real big differentiator in my personal opinion. And, but again, it's a gut check. Like, sometimes if it's just a local thing, to me, I'm like, well, that's not really a disaster movie because it has to be more big and sweeping to truly qualify.

• 6:29Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 6:29Speaker 02

  But then sometimes it is sort of a smaller thing and I feel like it does qualify. So, uh, like, like in the case of, um, you know, like a, a bridge collapse or a collapse tunnel or like Daylight, Stallone's movie about the, wasn't that one of the, the New York tunnels was collapsing or collapsed? Like, I, I considered that a disaster movie. So I'm like contradicting myself and that's what makes this all fun.

• 6:54Josh Clark?

  Yeah, on one end of the spectrum, the world can actually be ending. That could be the premise. Or, like you said, a little tunnel collapse, the rest of the world's just going on

• 7:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:03Josh Clark?

  business as usual. Exactly. Let them die. Like that guy in Airplane?

• 7:08Speaker 02

  Uh, I don't remember that. What happened?

• 7:11Josh Clark?

  There was like a, a debate TV show, like on the news or something like that. And one was like, we need to take better care of people and the FAA has to step it up. And the other guy was presenting counterpoint. And he was like, I say let them die.

• 7:26Speaker 02

  Oh, my God.

• 7:27Josh Clark?

  It's way funnier in the movie.

• 7:29Speaker 02

  Yeah. Obviously, surviving the disaster is a big part of the plot point. Uh, we know some people won't make it out alive, but, um, usually like most of the A-list cast will make it out alive unless they're really trying to like pull one over on you in a, in a scream sort of way.

• 7:46Josh Clark?

  Yes, and you, um, teased something just now. You, you, uh, some people will definitely not survive. One of the things about disaster movies is all you have to do is basically see one. And the next one, maybe you don't even need to see a second one. You can pick out very quickly who's going to die.

• 8:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:06Josh Clark?

  Who's going to live? And the reason why is because Stereotypes are pervasive in disaster movies. Like you have like a dumb brawny guy.

• 8:18Speaker 02

  Right.

• 8:18Josh Clark?

  Or, you know, a smart scientist. Damsels in distress, like to this day, disaster movies are sexist. I could not come up with a single disaster movie where the hero was a woman. Not a single one in all the decades of disaster movies. It's men. Most of the main characters and leads are men.

• 8:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:40Josh Clark?

  And the woman is basically there to essentially be saved and maybe help out some.

• 8:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I guess more recently, they may throw you a bone with like a woman as president. But then then she's like commissioning the team of men to usually solve the problem. Good point.

• 8:56Josh Clark?

  Right, so you know very quickly who the hero is, but there's also plenty of other people. You're like, I think they're going to live. And you can really kind of cut them into three moral categories. Good, bad, and redeemable. And redeemable can be like the guy's ex-wife's new boyfriend. Who you hate, but really he actually turns out to be a good guy. He probably dies, but he'll die a good noble death. He could also not die and become like a sidekick. And then there's like the shady rich people, often the people who are who are responsible for the disaster through like their greed or something like that. You know, they're going to die a very bad death.

• 9:36Josh Clark?

  And the the point is, is like, it's a really simplistic way of looking at humans. And I think that's one of the reassuring things about it that make them enjoyable.

• 9:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. And I think we would be remiss if we didn't bring up a little bit of a prickly topic. For our African American listeners. It has long been a movie trope in horror movies, disaster movies, or whatever. Where the black characters will die, almost certainly. And usually first. And that has become a such a trope. It's become a joke and lampooned in like, you know, the parody movies and stuff. But we have to mention that. And what I'm curious about, and hopefully we'll hear from some of our listeners, if that has now. Become so ridiculous and crossed over to where it's now just sort of funny and expected and a movie thing and not like truly upsetting.

• 10:27Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 10:27Speaker 02

  So I'm curious how our African American listeners feel about this at this point in 2025.

• 10:33Josh Clark?

  Yeah, there's usually about as many black characters as there are women characters in disaster movies.

• 10:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:41Josh Clark?

  But like you said, similarly, they're often the president, like Morgan Freeman or Danny Glover or something like that.

• 10:48Speaker 02

  I'd vote for Morgan Freeman.

• 10:50Josh Clark?

  Yeah, for sure. But I heard the reason, you know, he wears those diamond studs in his ears all the time?

• 10:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, he's been rocking those for a while.

• 10:59Josh Clark?

  I heard the reason why it's his old Pirates thing where you wear some sort of jewelry or whatever, so that if you die away from home, you have enough currency or value or something on you to pay for your funeral.

• 11:12Speaker 02

  That's why he does that?

• 11:13Josh Clark?

  That's what I heard.

• 11:14Speaker 02

  That's incredible.

• 11:15Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it makes you want to vote for him even more, huh?

• 11:18Speaker 02

  I just want to hear that State of the Union.

• 11:21Josh Clark?

  Yeah, whatever speech he's delivering, it would be really smooth.

• 11:25Speaker 02

  I was gonna try and bust out of Morgan Freeman, but I just, I think it would, I would embarrass myself. I've never tried, so it's never good to launch into your first attempt live on the air.

• 11:35Josh Clark?

  Well, maybe we'll workshop it off air.

• 11:40Speaker 02

  Well, we have to talk about the hero. The hero most times is not like a typical hero. It's usually an everyman kind of character who just like Armageddon, for instance, you know, they put together a rough and tumble team, you know, Dirty Dozen style. It wasn't a bunch of like elite problem solvers. It's, they were like oil rig guys, right? Like drillers.

• 12:04Josh Clark?

  Yeah, they weren't even astronauts for Pete's sake.

• 12:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, they had to train them. I only saw Armageddon once, so I'm pulling a lot of this from distant memory.

• 12:13Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I'm more a Deep Impact dude.

• 12:15Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah? That's what I heard.

• 12:18Josh Clark?

  As a matter of fact, I'm not entirely certain I've ever seen Armageddon.

• 12:21Speaker 02

  Uh, you know, it was okay. It was fairly, you know, schlocky, big budget sort of stuff.

• 12:29Josh Clark?

  You just described almost every single disaster movie ever made and the response to your judgment of it. Almost every single disaster movie ever made. Like, they don't get you to jump off the couch at the end and scream Bravo. Or encore, you know what I mean? You just kind of like them. They're just kind of fun.

• 12:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's a summer movie popcorn fair. I still love these kind of movies. I think there's a place for all kinds of movies and I still love going to the theater and seeing. These sort of big budget like it probably isn't a great film, but it might be a fun movie.

• 13:01Josh Clark?

  Right. So within these, the structure, these constrictions, people have learned over the years how to kind of play with them. And make it make new forms of disaster films. And a really good example, I think, so we said that. Either a big disaster affects tons of people or a small disaster affects a little amount of people. Something that kind of combines the two is Leave the World Behind, Ethan Hawke movie.

• 13:27Speaker 02

  I don't know that one.

• 13:28Josh Clark?

  Oh, it's great. It was on Netflix.

• 13:30Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 13:31Josh Clark?

  Ethan Hawke and Julia Roberts. So basically the, there's a cyber attack that just causes civilization to essentially collapse. But we're just following like two families who are kind of having to figure out what to do and what's going on and all that.

• 13:48Speaker 02

  I like that approach.

• 13:49Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it was, it was definitely worth seeing. And then other ones, rather than having kind of a schlocky humor. That really started to develop in the late seventies and then it kind of turned into like. Quips, I guess, in the nineties.

• 14:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:06Josh Clark?

  There's some very, very serious ones too, like the impossible. Not a schlocky.

• 14:13Josh Clark?

  Depiction of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. It's

• 14:17Speaker 02

  Incredible movie, though.

• 14:18Josh Clark?

  It is. It's so, it's probably the most realistic film I've ever seen in my life.

• 14:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I remember, I think I remember when it came out, we might have even talked about that on the air at some point when we did the tsunami episode with the, how they recreated that was just harrowing.

• 14:34Josh Clark?

  Exactly. So that's disaster films in a nutshell. And I feel like we could probably take a break here and then come back and talk about the history of disaster films. What do you think?

• 14:45Speaker 02

  Let's do it.

• 15:01Speaker 03

  First thought is like, wow, how are we going to do all this?

• 15:04Josh Clark?

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• 15:30Josh Clark?

  That includes field services manager, Drexel Jones. His team made sure it all came together and held up on game day.

• 15:36Speaker 04

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• 15:53Josh Clark?

  AT&T, connecting fans to what they love.

• 15:57Speaker 05

  Connecting changes everything. AT&T.

• 16:03Speaker 02

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• 16:15Josh Clark?

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• 18:23Josh Clark?

  So unlike some other things, disaster films are one of those things you can explore and find that there's an actual beginning. And it's not like this thing developed over time. There were disaster films because there's these definitions, these characteristics that you have to have. There were films along the way that just happened to have those. And the first one was Dayluge from 1933, where if you watch it, there's several minutes of New York City being destroyed by a tsunami. And it's pretty impressive for 1933.

• 18:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. And it also sort of, as we'll see, and usually they're the schlockier ones, but you get a lot of these one-word title disaster movies.

• 19:07Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 19:07Speaker 02

  Especially in the 70s. But then again, as we'll see in the 90s, resurgent, things like tornado, flood, stuff like that.

• 19:14Josh Clark?

  Yeah, you put an exclamation point at the end of a natural disaster or a force of nature and you're set.

• 19:20Speaker 02

  So I didn't know, I didn't know any of these early, early ones, but one from 1936, it was called San Francisco, right?

• 19:28Josh Clark?

  Yep.

• 19:28Speaker 02

  And it was made 30 years after the 1906 earthquake and about that earthquake.

• 19:34Josh Clark?

  Yes, but it's also, apparently people break into song in it here or there. So it's sometimes listed as a musical drama.

• 19:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:41Josh Clark?

  There's another one called Old Chicago about the 1871 Chicago Fire that came in 1938. Titanic apparently was a favorite subject of early disaster films and actually stayed that way over time.

• 19:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:57Josh Clark?

  But it wasn't until nuclear anxieties really started to develop as the Cold War picked up. And it was reflected in movies that people started imagining, what would happen if all these nuclear weapons went off?

• 20:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:08Josh Clark?

  And that actually kind of created the first crop of what you could really point to was the earliest disaster films.

• 20:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, kind of like the ones as we know it. In the early 60s, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea was one in 61, when a nuke-powered sub that was...

• 20:26Speaker 02

  Radiation fire coming from space. They were gonna bomb that radiation fire from below. Like anytime you're using a nuclear bomb to, you know, launch it into a disaster, like I feel like that's happened a couple of times at least.

• 20:39Josh Clark?

  Sure, for sure.

• 20:42Josh Clark?

  What else? There's the day the earth caught fire.

• 20:45Speaker 02

  Not a good day.

• 20:46Josh Clark?

  No. That, that kind of wondered what would happen if a couple of nuclear bomb tests that happened to be carried out simultaneously by the US and the Soviet Union. What would happen? And they said, oh, well, probably the earth axis would be shifted and we would be knocked out of orbit and we would start heading toward the sun. That is cut and dry disaster plot.

• 21:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. Also, in the 60s, we had crack in the world and for me, one of the great movie titles of all time, Panic in Year Zero. Such a great title.

• 21:17Josh Clark?

  It is a great title. And then, of course, The Birds, an undisputed disaster film.

• 21:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, I take issue with that. The Night of, Night of the Living Dead is listed. That is not a disaster movie.

• 21:27Josh Clark?

  Well, that's a great question because is a zombie apocalypse that a handful of survivors have to survive and negotiate? That's an ongoing disaster. You have a group of people from different walks of life, sometimes stereotype coming together.

• 21:40Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 21:40Josh Clark?

  Their lives intersect through this disaster.

• 21:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:43Josh Clark?

  And then they have to survive. Some people do, some people don't. There's a hero. I mean, in that sense, Night of the Living Dead definitely qualifies. World War Z would qualify.

• 21:54Speaker 02

  No.

• 21:55Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I think that there's like a, I mean, there's room for debate there. Like those could also be horror monster movies, too.

• 22:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, I consider those subgenres. I think as soon as you add any zombie, it becomes something else.

• 22:08Speaker 02

  Something else entirely. That's, again, these are all just my dumb opinions.

• 22:11Josh Clark?

  Did you see Godzilla minus one?

• 22:13Speaker 02

  No, but I've heard a lot about it.

• 22:15Josh Clark?

  Dude.

• 22:16Speaker 02

  Is it garbage or great?

• 22:17Josh Clark?

  No, it's great.

• 22:18Speaker 02

  Oh, okay.

• 22:19Josh Clark?

  It has a great plot, great acting, great dialogue, and then the action sequences are unbelievable.

• 22:25Speaker 02

  Oh, I gotta check that out, then.

• 22:26Josh Clark?

  It's a really good movie. Again, is it a disaster movie? If you add Godzilla. I don't know, could make it a monster movie. Let's see what Chuck says. Chuck?

• 22:36Speaker 02

  Monster movie.

• 22:37Josh Clark?

  Okay, it is officially a monster movie then.

• 22:42Speaker 02

  Well, you know, I did host a movie show for a couple of years.

• 22:44Josh Clark?

  I know you did, that's why I deferred to you.

• 22:46Speaker 02

  That makes me an expert. The 70s is when really things start get cooking.

• 22:53Speaker 02

  With all manner of disaster movies from things like The Andromeda Strain in 1971.

• 23:00Speaker 02

  You know, a Michael Crichton novel, so one of his early novels that was adapted.

• 23:04Josh Clark?

  I tried to watch that the other day, and the animal torture, I could not get past, man.

• 23:09Speaker 02

  That's when they just didn't care about depicting that stuff with any kind of tenderness at all, you know?

• 23:14Josh Clark?

  Well, I stopped the movie and went and looked it up, like, did they actually kill this monkey and these rats?

• 23:19Speaker 02

  Did they?

• 23:20Josh Clark?

  And, no. Luckily, they did not, and the ASPCA was on hand and signed off on it. But what they did was they suffocated it with carbon dioxide until it passed out. And then the moment it passed out, they cut and then they revived it. But that monkey was still suffering from asphyxiation during that, those moments where they filmed it. It's awful.

• 23:44Speaker 02

  Did someone do mouth the monkey resuscitation?

• 23:47Josh Clark?

  Well, there's this, when the monkey dies, if you look closely, before they cut, there's a shadow of somebody moving toward it already.

• 23:54Speaker 02

  Are you serious?

• 23:55Josh Clark?

  So I think they used a little tiny oxygen mask to revive it.

• 23:58Speaker 02

  Oh, God.

• 23:59Josh Clark?

  But it's, yeah, I mean, that makes it a little better in that they didn't kill him, but they still tortured him, so I couldn't finish that movie.

• 24:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't blame you. I never saw it, but I remember that kind of as a holdover, you know, it came out the year I was born, so, but I remember it just being a thing.

• 24:14Josh Clark?

  Yeah. So, okay, yes, you said we started off with Andromeda Strain, right?

• 24:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, Airport was in 1970, and that's the one that, you know, kicked off a huge, I mean, it had sequels. It led to Airport 75, Airport 77, and then Concord, Cola, and Airport 79.

• 24:32Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 24:33Speaker 02

  Which all eventually led to Airplane, as, I mean, that had to be the first spoof, right?

• 24:40Josh Clark?

  Disaster spoof? That's as far as I could tell, unless, I would qualify or include Attack of the Killer Tomatoes as a disaster spoof. And I'm not sure if that came out before or after Airplane.

• 24:53Speaker 02

  I think it was before, but Airport was a very lauded film. It got 10 Oscar nods. It actually won, Helen Hayes won for Supporting Actress. And it, and this is something that we'll see over and over again. Most of these movies, they make a huge, huge return on, even if they cost a lot to make. Like that cost 10 million bucks in 1970, which was a lot. But it brought in a hundred million dollars in 1970.

• 25:18Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And so that really caught the attention of the studio bosses. They're like, let's do that again. And like you said, there were three sequels to it. This is probably one of my favorite movie franchises.

• 25:29Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah?

• 25:29Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I would make the case that the sequels, at least the first two sequels, are better than the original.

• 25:36Speaker 02

  I didn't see any of these.

• 25:37Josh Clark?

  They're so great. I watched 77 and 79 in the last 24 hours.

• 25:42Speaker 02

  Oh, really?

• 25:43Josh Clark?

  I love them so much. And Airport 75 is probably the best of the bunch.

• 25:47Speaker 02

  All right, I'll check that out. And Airport 77, of course, brings in the Bermuda Triangle, because I think 1977 was peak Bermuda Triangle paranoia.

• 25:56Josh Clark?

  Yeah, for sure. And then the Concorde, the Airport 79, the Concorde, it's... People keep shooting missiles at it. They have to make, like, evasive action. And you're like, okay, this is definitely when the genre really started to die, or died. It had already started. But one of the, one of the big things that Airport kicked off, in addition to eye-popping box office returns, was that huge cast of, like, where you recognize every single person. Especially, I mean, if you were alive at the time and an adult at the time, you would recognize everybody in there. Sometimes there were cameos. And what they were following, Airport was based on a novel by Arthur Hayley. And he had written Hotel. He, one of his things was a ton of different characters,

• 26:41Josh Clark?

  whose lives kind of intersect in this issue, or this problem, or this disaster. So basically, Arthur Hayley, the novelist, inadvertently invented the disaster film through, like, his format.

• 26:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, and you know, they movie posters back then reflected that too, because I remember stuff like Towering Inferno, there would be the more artistic, like the inferno, you know, the building on fire. But then, like, at the top or the bottom, they would literally just have, like, frames of people's faces of the cast, like, just tagged on there, like, look at all these, all the star power.

• 27:17Josh Clark?

  Right. And as time went on, the stars got a little schlockier.

• 27:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:22Josh Clark?

  In Concord, Charo makes a hilarious one-minute cameo.

• 27:28Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 27:29Josh Clark?

  J.J. Walker is one of the major minor characters.

• 27:33Speaker 02

  I love it.

• 27:34Josh Clark?

  And he smokes grass the whole time.

• 27:35Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 27:36Josh Clark?

  I think in Earthquake, which we'll talk about in a second, Walter Matthau makes this inexplicable cameo a few times, where he's dressed like a 70s pimp with a curly wig and everything, and he's drunk out of his mind.

• 27:51Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 27:52Josh Clark?

  That's his character.

• 27:53Speaker 02

  That's interesting.

• 27:54Josh Clark?

  Like, they're definitely known for cameos, but yeah, those sweeping, huge casts of generally A-list and then former A-list stars, that was a big hallmark of disaster films that came around in the 70s.

• 28:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know, they're trying to appeal to a broad demographic, so they would definitely bring back, like, some of the stars from, like, the golden age of Hollywood when they were in their later years would be in these, like, Fred Astaire was in one of them, right?

• 28:18Josh Clark?

  Yes, he, I can't remember, I think he might have been in the Towering Inferno.

• 28:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, so, you know, they're clearly trying to appeal to all age groups. Another thing they, a lot of these had in common, at least in the 1970s, was a man named Erwin Allen.

• 28:32Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 28:33Speaker 02

  The master of disaster. He came up in the 1950s, but he really hit his stride in the 70s with things like Poseidon Adventure, the aforementioned Towering Inferno. Each of those was the top box office hit of their respective years.

• 28:47Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 28:48Speaker 02

  Poseidon Adventure, very famously, was about a, an ocean liner that flips upside down and sinks, basically.

• 28:54Josh Clark?

  That's a good movie, too.

• 28:55Speaker 02

  So, everybody is upside down on this boat, on this ship, trying to, trying to get out while they're underwater. Pretty great.

• 29:03Josh Clark?

  Yep, and it's a bunch of different people who are stereotypes from different walks of life, who are led out to safety by an everyman, in this case, a priest named Gene Hackman.

• 29:11Speaker 02

  Ah, RIP.

• 29:12Josh Clark?

  That's not the character's name, that's the actor's name. That'd be pretty coincidental, that Gene Hackman played a character by named Gene Hackman.

• 29:19Speaker 02

  Such a brutal, tragic, very upsetting end for such a wonderful person.

• 29:26Josh Clark?

  Yeah, upsetting's definitely a good word for it.

• 29:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, god, can't stop thinking about it sometimes.

• 29:31Josh Clark?

  You should probably try to, I think that would be for the best.

• 29:34Speaker 02

  I know. Towering Inferno, of course, you know, we mentioned there was a fire. If you don't know this movie, you should check it out, for sure.

• 29:40Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah.

• 29:40Speaker 02

  It's one of the good ones. But Faulty Wiring, of course, makes it catch fire, people are trapped at the top. But you've also got, you know, sometimes it can work in other mini disasters within it, and that's the case here, where there's a flood scene, because they're trying to douse the fire, and then all of a sudden, you've got a flood to reckon with.

• 29:58Josh Clark?

  That's like a prestige disaster film. They played it straight ahead, there's no schlock to it, the cast was just amazing. And they did something that would be picked up again in like the 90s and then today's disaster films, where they had two heroes who kinda had to work together. One was Paul Newman, who played the architect of this 135-floor skyscraper.

• 30:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:21Josh Clark?

  Just totally fictional at the time, especially.

• 30:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:25Josh Clark?

  And then Steve McQueen was this fire chief, and they had to work together to figure out how to get the people out of this building and keep the, or quetch the fire.

• 30:35Speaker 02

  Man, McQueen and Paul Newman, does it get any better than that?

• 30:39Josh Clark?

  Not really, maybe Paul Newman and Robert Redford?

• 30:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's been done too.

• 30:44Josh Clark?

  Weren't they Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid?

• 30:46Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, that was great.

• 30:47Josh Clark?

  Okay, so, yes, if you see one disaster movie, see The Towering Inferno.

• 30:53Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah, agreed. If you, if you wanna see one that's kind of super schlocky, if you wanna go down that avenue, you could start with Earthquake from 1974.

• 31:03Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 31:03Speaker 02

  Uh, Old Charlton Heston was in that one. People are, in this case, again, trapped in a skyscraper, once again, but this time, it's an earthquake. Lot of, uh, you know, when you see these earthquake movies, there's, they're always shaking the camera. But what's funny is, if you ever see them being shot, obviously, nothing is moving except the camera, so the people are all just going, "Whoa!" On just, you know, solid ground, it's always fun.

• 31:28Josh Clark?

  So Earthquake did not really mean to be schlocky. It just kind of ended up being schlocky.

• 31:34Speaker 02

  They did a great job of doing it unintentionally.

• 31:37Josh Clark?

  And it wasn't the film that like led to the end of the seventies boom, but it was definitely one of the early signals that this is not, this party's not going to last forever. And it's a good movie. I watched it last night. No, I watched it early this morning. And Charlton Heston, who's a regular in these disaster movies, he did great. Everyone did really good in it. It was just some of the premises and then also some of the special effects. Like there's a scene where the earthquake tremors are rocking the street in LA. And they're just pushing over the facades. So you can see that it's just this cardboard facade coming down, stuff like that. And then there's a very famous elevator scene.

• 32:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's on YouTube.

• 32:22Josh Clark?

  It drops like all the way down, killing everyone inside. But the way they show the impact is they just freeze the frame. And then some animated blood splatters across the screen for some reason.

• 32:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, it looks, it looks really, really bad and is so abrupt and jarring and weird. But it's, like I said, that part is on YouTube. If you just, you know, type in earthquake movie elevator scene.

• 32:47Josh Clark?

  There you go.

• 32:48Speaker 02

  It's so, you know, it's a good scene if someone has taken the time to clip it out and put it on YouTube.

• 32:53Josh Clark?

  Right. Yeah, it is definitely.

• 32:57Josh Clark?

  But, um, okay, you want to take a break now and come back and talk about the end of the seventies? Or push on through until the nineties?

• 33:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, let's maybe push on and then we'll stop at the nineties.

• 33:06Josh Clark?

  Okay, sounds good. So like I said, it was kind of clear fairly early on that this wasn't going to last forever. And it definitely did not make it out of the decade. It really kind of came to an ugly end, starting around 1978.

• 33:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, and you know, one person's great disaster movie is another person's schlock. It all kind of depends, because some of the ones listed here is sort of being the lazier versions. Avalanche and Meteor are not, that's not one movie that would be pretty great, though, actually.

• 33:38Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 33:40Speaker 02

  It'd be Meteor, then Avalanche, probably, but those are two different movies. The Hindenburg, I thought that was okay, as from being a kid and watching it.

• 33:47Josh Clark?

  I didn't see that one.

• 33:48Speaker 02

  Haven't revisited, but then Roller Coaster, I, as a child, loved, loved that movie about a terrorist.

• 33:55Josh Clark?

  Oh, I've not seen it.

• 33:56Speaker 02

  It's, you know, again, I don't know if it holds up, but it's about a terrorist that's gonna blow up a roller coaster, you know, he's targeting amusement parks, so.

• 34:04Josh Clark?

  Are the people on the roller coaster, like, having to go on it, like, or stay on it over and over again, like, it can't stop, or something like that?

• 34:11Speaker 02

  I don't think so, but like, there's, the bomber is in the park, and I just, you know, I'm having these fleeting memories, it's probably terrible, but, you know, as a, you know, 10 or 11-year-old, it was great.

• 34:23Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I gotcha. And then there's Flood with an exclamation point.

• 34:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:28Josh Clark?

  Shout out to Laura, who helped us with this, who came up with this list of lazily-named disaster movies, kind of like they were phoning it in.

• 34:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, Roller Coaster isn't the best name, I'll admit to that.

• 34:38Josh Clark?

  Okay, all right, I'm gonna watch that one, though.

• 34:40Speaker 02

  All right.

• 34:41Josh Clark?

  But a lot of people who think about this kind of stuff point to The Swarm from 1978 as the one that was like, yeah, this is over. Not only was this over, but Erwin Allen's career was over, because he had not one, not two, but three disaster film flops from 1978 to 1980, and that really ended the boom.

• 35:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was pretty much it. The Swarm, kind of, I don't know if Nicolas Cage, if they were referencing or paying homage to that with the bees thing. Later in The Wicker Man, it became a very popular meme, the bees.

• 35:19Josh Clark?

  Oh, I didn't know that.

• 35:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, from Nicolas Cage, but in this movie, In the Swarm, there's a pilot that yells, bees, bees, millions of bees.

• 35:28Josh Clark?

  Right, and the bees take down an Air Force helicopter.

• 35:32Speaker 02

  Of course they do.

• 35:33Josh Clark?

  And the way that they're overcome is somebody figures out how, I think it's Michael Caine leading the cast, he's the hero. He figures out that they can lead these bees out to an oil slick in the ocean and then set the oil slick on fire and no more bees.

• 35:48Speaker 02

  That's, hey, I think that's a pretty decent, you know, disaster movie solution.

• 35:54Josh Clark?

  Okay, fair enough, but I was reading a criticism of that movie by Tyler Sage, I think on a site called Ultimate Classic Rock, of all things. And Tyler Sage says that the cast seems either faintly embarrassed by the proceedings or confused about what's supposed to be actually happening.

• 36:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:13Josh Clark?

  And that's all you need to know, like, that's not supposed to happen in a movie, you know?

• 36:17Speaker 02

  No, it's not. So Alan had a black mark on his record with that, with the Swarm, and then beyond The Poseidon Adventure, they tried to recapture that magic in 1979. Movie released seven years later, even though it took place the very next day of the original movie.

• 36:34Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and that was Michael Caine, too, but also Sally Field, Telly Savalas, Peter Boyle, and like, if your cast like that can't keep a movie.

• 36:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:42Josh Clark?

  Like, make it good, then there's something really wrong with it.

• 36:45Speaker 02

  Oh, I thought you were about to say afloat.

• 36:47Josh Clark?

  I almost did, and then I was like, no, Josh, do not say that.

• 36:52Speaker 02

  He did produce perhaps one of the worst entries, or when Alan did, of the genre, with, I don't think it was his swan song, but it was definitely the end, in 1980, a movie called When Time Ran Out, that did have Paul Newman, it was about a volcano at an island resort, but he was very much. Forced into this movie because of his contract. I don't think that he at all wanted to make it. They cut the budget, Warner Brothers did. So they didn't even have the money to make it look OK. And it was just, it was really bad. There's a pretty good quote in here, too, right?

• 37:25Josh Clark?

  Yeah, the eruption, when it finally comes, is a wonderfully cheesy amalgam of wobbly back projection, bathtub tidal wave, and scared expressions from the cast.

• 37:35Speaker 02

  Oh, man.

• 37:36Josh Clark?

  So then, because of all this, because these movies just got worse and worse. But then also, like, the high drama that was played straight. It was just ripe for parody. And like you said, Airplane was the one that, you really don't need to mention any other parody.

• 37:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:51Josh Clark?

  It's it, as far as disaster film parodies go. It just completely captured it perfectly.

• 37:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, and that movie holds up pretty well, I have to say. It's still a fun watch, yeah.

• 38:01Josh Clark?

  For sure. OK, I think we've made it to the end of the 70s. The first real disaster boom has come and gone, and things quieted down throughout the 80s. And we'll let you think about this quietly through this ad break.

• 38:33Josh Clark?

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• 38:50Speaker 02

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• 39:05Josh Clark?

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• 39:18Speaker 02

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• 39:42Josh Clark?

  World Mental Health Day takes place in October, and it's really meant to be more than just awareness. It's about actually taking the next step and getting support if you need it.

• 39:51Speaker 02

  But a lot of people still talk themselves out of therapy. They think it's too expensive. They're not sure if it'll actually work. They don't know how to find the right therapist, or they just get overwhelmed trying to navigate the whole system.

• 40:01Josh Clark?

  And that's exactly what Rula is built to fix. Rula makes therapy feel a lot more approachable, a lot more human. You can find a therapist who actually fits your needs, not just whoever's available. And with insurance, sessions average around $15 copay.

• 40:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, you can sign up in just a few minutes. You can get matched with the right provider and even book something as soon as the next day.

• 40:20Josh Clark?

  And it's not just about starting. Rula helps you stay consistent and actually make progress because taking care of your mental health isn't a one-time thing. So if you've been thinking about therapy, don't talk yourself out of it. This is a really easy way to take that first step.

• 40:33Speaker 02

  So turn off the talk track that's keeping you from progress and head to rula.com. That is R-U-L-A dot com to find a therapist the easy way.

• 40:56Speaker 02

  All right, we're back and we're going to talk about the resurgence of disaster movies of the 1990s. And I may have mentioned it on this show before. I'm not sure, but this is one of my legendary predictions, my friend. I can't remember it, but it was one of the very, very, very early 90s disaster flicks came out. I wish I could have pinpointed which one it was, but I remember very distinctly at the time in college telling my friends. I was like, you watch. I was like, they're going to start making all of these movies again, just like they did in the 70s. And there's going to be a ton of disaster movies. And it literally happened like starting that year.

• 41:36Josh Clark?

  Man, did you hear that from the ghost standing in the middle of the street?

• 41:41Speaker 02

  No, no, no, no.

• 41:42Josh Clark?

  She whispered it to you?

• 41:43Speaker 02

  It's probably pre ghosts, but yes, Sharknado, Jared from Subway, Hugh Jackman, and Disaster Movies. The only four things I've ever predicted.

• 41:51Josh Clark?

  I don't know. I think some are going to come to the fore over the coming years.

• 41:56Speaker 02

  Chuck Stradamus.

• 41:59Josh Clark?

  It could only have been one of just a few movies because-

• 42:03Speaker 02

  I can't remember what it was. Yeah.

• 42:05Josh Clark?

  This whole, this 90s disaster boom started and peaked in, within a two-year period. And it got started off, you could say in retrospect, it was started off by Outbreak, which came out in 1995. It's an epidemic disaster movie.

• 42:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, that counts, I think.

• 42:22Josh Clark?

  Most people don't point to that and say that kicked it off. It's more like they say Twister or Independence Day in 1996 kicked it off. And then, yes, you would definitely lump Outbreak into it. But it was probably one of those two movies.

• 42:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's, there was a movie called Avalanche in 1994. So they were dabbling in that world, but it was not a big movie at all. As far as capturing attention, I think Twister for sure. And that may have been the one, actually, where I was like, oh, man. Because that is what I think of as typical disaster. I don't, I know this is controversial, but I'm not sure I put Independence Day in disaster movies. There's something about when you add zombies or aliens and stuff. It just tweaks it slightly for me from classic disaster. But again, just my opinion.

• 43:10Josh Clark?

  Well, okay, so even if you accept, and not with an A, but an EX,

• 43:16Josh Clark?

  Independence Day from this list, then you still have Twister.

• 43:19Speaker 02

  I think it was Twister.

• 43:20Josh Clark?

  I remember the entire country was talking about Twister.

• 43:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, I famously said Emily's favorite movies of all time are every independent film ever made and Twister.

• 43:32Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and I mean, it's a really good movie. Bill Paxton's amazing in it. Helen Hunt does great, too. Like, it's a good movie. And one of the reasons I think that it did kick off that second boom in disaster movies was that you could take the disaster formula, but then apply emerging CGI, computer-assisted special effects.

• 43:55Josh Clark?

  That were at the time, it was like, holy cow, we can do this now. Like the White House being blown up by the, the alien ship in Independence Day, like, you just had not seen stuff like that before. This was all very new. And they were using it sparingly enough too, that it didn't look fake.

• 44:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. It, it was like, those are really great special effects at, at the time. Twister looked really, really good. Um, we should also mention too, I know we didn't go over this, but the, uh, it's just now occurring to me, Philip Seymour Hoffman in Twister is also a kind of a classic disaster movie trope character, um, which is sort of a, a side character to the, the guy in the chair. Uh, you ever heard that? Like the, the computer expert that just literally sits in a chair the entire movie and figures stuff out.

• 44:41Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And usually has a smart mouth.

• 44:44Speaker 02

  Always. Uh, this is sort of an adjacent thing though, Philip Seymour Hoffman's character, which is sort of, he's not in a chair, but it's the wisecracking, irreverent kind of, uh, you know, he's wearing the Hawaiian shirt when everyone else has on like tactical gear.

• 44:59Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 45:01Speaker 02

  Uh, that's, you know, but super smart and figuring stuff out. I'm not sure what they call that in disaster movies, but it's their version of guy in the chair, I think.

• 45:07Josh Clark?

  I don't think people have written enough about disaster movies for anyone to name it. So call them, call them what you want.

• 45:14Speaker 02

  Uh, a Hoffman.

• 45:15Josh Clark?

  There you go. That's the hot, he was the Hoffman of the movie and maybe one of the first.

• 45:21Speaker 02

  Uh, we gotta talk about Titanic. Um, it's a disaster movie, but it's got so much story and, and romance. It's definitely a subgenre within it, I think.

• 45:32Josh Clark?

  Bill Paxton was in that too.

• 45:35Speaker 02

  Yeah. R I P, man. What a great guy.

• 45:37Josh Clark?

  Oh, I forgot he was gone.

• 45:39Speaker 02

  That was so sad.

• 45:41Josh Clark?

  Um, yeah, it was sad. So one of the other things too, that, that fueled this nineties resurgence of the disaster boom is that these movies, some of them Titanic, Independence Day, Twister, they're among the highest grossing films of all time.

• 45:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:57Josh Clark?

  So just like in the seventies, um, studios were like, we can spend lavishly in a production, but we're still going to make back 10 times or more what we put into it. So they're like, good, let's start making disaster films. And very quickly after some of these really creative, original disaster films, you could see in theaters virtually at the same time, disaster films about the exact same topic.

• 46:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was the thing for a little while. Uh, I think I was still getting Premier Magazine at the time. And I remember they started writing about, you know, these productions being kind of out, trying to outrace one another to get to the box office first. Uh, maybe to their disadvantage as a production, but very famously, the, the two biggest examples, or I guess four, are Armageddon and Deep Impact, about a meteor striking the earth, you know, to, to basically wipe out humanity.

• 46:47Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 46:47Speaker 02

  And then Dante's Peak and Volcano. Neither of those were that great.

• 46:53Josh Clark?

  No, they weren't. I don't, I, was Volcano with Tommy Lee Jones? Is that the one?

• 46:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, and, and Hesh.

• 46:59Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 47:00Speaker 02

  R I P again.

• 47:01Josh Clark?

  Uh, yeah, and Dante's Peak was Pierce Brosnan and, um, Linda Hamilton.

• 47:06Speaker 02

  Ah, Linda Hamilton, that's right.

• 47:08Josh Clark?

  And that's a really good example of like, just how disaster films like minimize women and their contributions. Linda Hamilton was well-known by this time as a female action star.

• 47:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:19Josh Clark?

  Like she was in the Terminator movie. She was a total B A.

• 47:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, Sarah Connor.

• 47:23Josh Clark?

  Right. And, but in, in this movie, apparently she's, she's like a single mom who's totally dependent on Pierce Brosnan to help her and her kids. She's like, um, kind of, she whimpers at times, like.

• 47:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:35Josh Clark?

  That's just one of the big problems with the, the genre. Like if you can just kind of hold your nose and make it through stuff like that, then you're, you, you can enjoy them. But if you focus on things like that, you're probably not going to like disaster films.

• 47:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, agreed. What a waste of Linda Hamilton. What a shame. Uh, I gotta shout out a few more that weren't listed here from the nineties. Uh, Hard Rain, remember that one? Christian Slater and Minnie Driver?

• 47:58Josh Clark?

  No.

• 48:00Speaker 02

  It was a, it was a flood movie. It's about, you know, what was it about? It's about a very hard rain.

• 48:04Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 48:05Speaker 02

  Just won't stop raining. Uh, friend, shout out, a friend of the show, Minnie Driver.

• 48:11Speaker 02

  Uh, listen to her wonderful podcast on our own network, Minnie Questions.

• 48:14Josh Clark?

  Very nice.

• 48:16Speaker 02

  I don't know if you remember this one, Firestorm with, uh, NFL legend Howie Long.

• 48:21Josh Clark?

  Hmm, no.

• 48:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was one of the bad ones. I think he was a, like a forest fire, like a fire jumper kind of guy.

• 48:29Josh Clark?

  So far, these ones you're shouting out sound like Rift Tracks candidates.

• 48:33Speaker 02

  They probably are. And then also some of the one word titles. There was a movie called Tornado. There was a TV movie called Tornado Warning that starred Gerald, Gerald McCraney from Simon and Simon.

• 48:45Josh Clark?

  Nice. I love that guy.

• 48:47Speaker 02

  There was another movie called Flood, a second movie called Flood.

• 48:50Josh Clark?

  Wow.

• 48:50Speaker 02

  And then there was one from 1999, which is sort of when things started to peter out, called Storm, with Luke Perry and Martin Sheen.

• 48:58Josh Clark?

  Wow, that is, that's some 90s casting. It's Mini Driver and Christian Slater. That screams 90s pretty hard, too.

• 49:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure.

• 49:07Josh Clark?

  But like you said, there's one other thing. The 90s definitely contributed to the hero scientist. Where it wasn't, it wasn't necessarily some, you know, tough dude. It was a guy who had the smarts to figure out how to deal with this, or knew what was coming. That's another trope from disaster films, especially now. Usually the hero is the only one who can see the impending disaster. No one will believe him, and then he ends up having to save everybody else's tokus because no one believed him and didn't take any measures to thwart the disaster from happening.

• 49:42Speaker 02

  Right. And once again, you are saying he because all of these movies fail the Bechdel test.

• 49:48Josh Clark?

  For sure, 100%.

• 49:50Speaker 02

  And there's also a thing that popped up in the 90s, which was the, like, the rival scientist. If there was a hero scientist, a lot of times there was an, well, not anti-hero, because that's still a hero. Just the anti-scientist who was still a scientist. I'm clumsily working my way through this, but they thwart the hero. It's, you know, like usually a government scientist or something, or maybe an official, and they dismiss everything like that the hero scientist is saying.

• 50:20Josh Clark?

  Right. That's a, it can also be a government official very frequently. They get their comeuppance pretty commonly in 90s on disaster movies.

• 50:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, what do you call like Die Hard? That's not a disaster movie, is it?

• 50:34Josh Clark?

  I've seen it listed.

• 50:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, I guess it could be.

• 50:37Josh Clark?

  To me, it's just a straight ahead action film.

• 50:40Speaker 02

  I totally agree.

• 50:41Josh Clark?

  But it does.

• 50:41Speaker 02

  Slash Christmas movie.

• 50:42Josh Clark?

  Like you would say, all the people in, all the people in Nakatomi Plaza, that's a disaster to them.

• 50:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:49Josh Clark?

  The world's going about its business as usual, but to them inside, they're in the midst of a disaster, they have to survive. I don't know, I think just, I don't know. I think, so the same thing with Speed. In Speed, Keanu Reeves, the hero, was a SWAT member.

• 51:04Speaker 02

  Right, not an every person.

• 51:05Josh Clark?

  Right, Die Hard, John McClane, he's a cop. Even though he's off his beat, he's still a cop. Like, the hero has to be some sort of everyman, who may or may not possess some special sort of skills or knowledge that help him overcome this problem. And then his medal, that he may not even have known that was there, is tapped and he leads other people to safety.

• 51:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. But, you know, as the 90s wore on with things like Luke Perry's movie, R.I.P. once again in 99, things really kind of stopped in the wake of 9/11. It just wasn't something that people wanted to see for a little while. So there was, there was a lull. You knew it would come back. Early 2000s had a few of them here and there. There was one called The Core in 2003, where the inner core of the Earth ceases to rotate and scientists, once again, have to bomb it to get that thing kickstarted, just like, like using the paddles in the ER. Clear!

• 52:10Josh Clark?

  Yep, what was it, 2003? So yeah, the very next year was the day after tomorrow. And that, to me, is the bridge between the 90s disaster films and the ones that kicked off in the 2010s.

• 52:23Speaker 02

  Agreed.

• 52:23Josh Clark?

  It is awesome. It's got a great cast, the scientists are the heroes. There's a bunch of different stuff going on. The world is being threatened. There's amazing special effects of things just going haywire.

• 52:36Speaker 02

  There's wolves?

• 52:37Josh Clark?

  There's wolves, yep. And then that scene of the tsunami flooding New York. There's a shot that's the exact same shot of, in deluge, of the tsunami coming to New York.

• 52:47Speaker 02

  Oh, interesting.

• 52:48Josh Clark?

  I've read that it was probably an homage to that.

• 52:51Speaker 02

  Oh, that's kind of cool.

• 52:52Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I thought so too.

• 52:54Speaker 02

  2009 was a pretty big year. This is when they really started to come back, you know, pre 2010s with the movie, the Mayan calendar anxiety movie. 2012 came out.

• 53:07Josh Clark?

  Do you remember that?

• 53:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was Roland Emmerich, right?

• 53:11Josh Clark?

  Yes. No, but I mean, do you remember living in that time where people were actually like a little nervous about it? It was like Y2K lite?

• 53:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, we did a podcast on it.

• 53:19Josh Clark?

  We totally did.

• 53:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:21Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And if I remember correctly, we told everybody it's totally fine. The Mayan, the Mayan calendar doesn't actually say the world's gonna end because a new calendar starts.

• 53:31Speaker 02

  That's right. And we're all here right now. So thankfully that came true. 2012 was not a great movie, but it did because of the scope of like just the world ending. They could be, they could be like, hey, let's just do any disaster we want anywhere all across the world.

• 53:46Josh Clark?

  Not a great movie. I watched that one yesterday, too.

• 53:50Speaker 02

  I didn't think it was very good.

• 53:51Josh Clark?

  Oh, I liked it a lot. I think to me, and I know you know this, but to me, 2012 is basically up there with The Towering Inferno as far as like best examples of a disaster film go.

• 54:06Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 54:07Josh Clark?

  There you go.

• 54:08Speaker 02

  My favorite disaster film is not listed here, but it is from the 2010s. As far as being an actual great, great film is Steven Soderbergh's 2011 film, Contagion.

• 54:18Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that is a good one.

• 54:20Speaker 02

  It is. I mean, it's a disaster movie, but it doesn't play like one because it is so realistically scary and doesn't have that sort of summer movie kind of schlocky appeal. But it's, it's a disaster movie for sure.

• 54:33Josh Clark?

  Did you, like me, detect a note of hostility when the medical examiner pulls Gwyneth Paltrow's face like roughly off of her skull during her autopsy?

• 54:43Speaker 02

  I don't remember that.

• 54:44Josh Clark?

  It seemed like they, that was gratuitous. Like they, there was like Soderbergh had a problem with Gwyneth Paltrow.

• 54:50Speaker 02

  Gwyneth Paltrow? Oh, maybe so.

• 54:51Josh Clark?

  Yeah. That was a really good movie, too. And that would be an example of some of the highbrow ones that started to come out in 2010. Like, like we said, The Impossible. There's a Korean one called Pandora that came out in 2007 about a nuclear meltdown. Sully about Captain Chelsea Sullenberger's landing in the Hudson River where not one person died.

• 55:14Speaker 02

  I didn't see that one.

• 55:15Josh Clark?

  The plane, I should say, landed a plane.

• 55:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was Hank's, right?

• 55:19Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Yeah, he was in every single movie that was out at one point, I think.

• 55:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, he went through a string of playing real-life characters here and there.

• 55:29Josh Clark?

  That's right.

• 55:30Speaker 02

  Some of those weren't great, but I did like the one about the Somali pirates, Captain whatever his name was.

• 55:38Josh Clark?

  Captain Hoffman.

• 55:40Speaker 02

  That was it.

• 55:41Josh Clark?

  So, one of the other things that the 2010 onward disaster films did was, at the very least, the studios figured out like, hey, these are kind of like easily translated internationally. And we don't mean the dialogues translated easily, although it definitely is.

• 56:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure.

• 56:02Josh Clark?

  And because everything's so morally cut and dried, people anywhere can get what they're seeing, even though it's an American-made film about Americans. But also, in these movies that are like a worldwide catastrophe, you have the opportunity to take down landmarks all over the world. So, in France, they can see like the Eiffel Tower going down, they're like, woo, France, you know? And then one of the other things too is because of these huge all-star casts, you can easily cast foreign actors or actors who are really big in the country they hail from, and that'll up the box office too in that country.

• 56:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's all a formula. The Rock started being in a lot of these. There was, one of the few movies I've ever walked out on was San Andreas in 2015 with Dwayne The Rock Johnson. I did not think it was very good at all. He followed that a few years later. You liked it?

• 56:59Josh Clark?

  I didn't see it in theaters, though. I think if I had paid 20 bucks to see it, I probably would have been upset.

• 57:04Speaker 02

  Yeah. And then he was in Skyscraper, not to be outdone by San Andreas, another not-so-great movie, a few years later in 2018. But again, some people love all The Rock's stuff.

• 57:15Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 57:15Speaker 02

  This is my dumb opinion.

• 57:17Josh Clark?

  I had a, um, an idea or a thought that I wanted to share Chuck.

• 57:21Speaker 02

  Let's hear it.

• 57:22Josh Clark?

  About the 2010s boom.

• 57:24Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 57:24Josh Clark?

  It didn't burn out in one decade. It's still, they're still making

• 57:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:29Josh Clark?

  Straight ahead 2010s style disaster films. And I was thinking that the reason why is because there's so many more studios now putting out so many different types of movies that it hasn't become a glut of so-so movies. Or even if there are so-so disaster movies, there's still room to make other good ones. Rather than just three or four studios going all in on disaster films for the same few years.

• 57:55Speaker 02

  Right. Yeah, just spacing them out as, you know, like just a, something you can return to. That's a pretty dependable release, but not like, hey, let's release nine of these in the next two years.

• 58:05Josh Clark?

  Exactly. There's a wider variety, so it's been allowed to just kind of continue on. And in my, I, my opinion, it's gotten better. Like Leave the World Behind was really good. The Wave, a Norwegian one that came out in 2016 was like highly acclaimed.

• 58:21Josh Clark?

  Don't Look Up, did you see that? The satire from Adam McKay?

• 58:25Speaker 02

  Yes, I did.

• 58:27Josh Clark?

  Uh, it was pretty good, actually. I liked it a lot, but it's a, it satirizes government and people not taking climate change seriously. But it's, and it's a disaster film, but it's not a parody of disaster films.

• 58:39Speaker 02

  Right.

• 58:39Josh Clark?

  It uses disaster films to satirize that stuff.

• 58:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, which is, that's an interesting take for sure, you know?

• 58:46Josh Clark?

  You got anything else?

• 58:48Speaker 02

  Uh, no, I, I, I feel like I need to watch more. I didn't actually watch any full disaster films again in preparation like you did. So this has inspired me to go back and watch some of those from the seventies that I never saw.

• 58:59Josh Clark?

  Definitely watch Earthquake and watch Airport 75.

• 59:03Speaker 02

  75, and I still haven't seen Towering Inferno.

• 59:06Josh Clark?

  Oh, definitely see that too.

• 59:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, all right, done.

• 59:09Josh Clark?

  Okay, great. Well, since Chuck agreed to see some movies that I thought he should see, we've unlocked listener mail.

• 59:17Speaker 02

  I'm gonna call this follow up to Morgana the Kissing Bandit. Hey Chuck and Josh and all that helped make your show awesome. My wife and I are longtime listeners, but first time writers. My wife Jennifer and I love having you entertain and educate us, especially on long distance trips with the family. You help keep us awake and focused with a pleasant side effect of putting our five year old Ben and seven year old Eleanor asleep. That's great. I love it when we can lull children to sleep.

• 59:42Josh Clark?

  We live to give.

• 59:44Speaker 02

  We are on spring break traveling to my in-laws' house right now. And during the drive, one of our episodes we listened to was Morgana the Kissing Bandit. When we arrived at our destination, I asked my father-in-law if he remembers her, since he is the biggest sports enthusiast I know. Get this dude. He said, of course. He sees her all the time because she lives down the street.

• 1:00:03Josh Clark?

  What?

• 1:00:05Speaker 02

  You ended your podcast with a mention that you didn't know she was still alive and what happened to her, and we wanted to let you know she's still alive and enjoying retirement with a full life.

• 1:00:13Josh Clark?

  That is awesome.

• 1:00:14Speaker 02

  And cherry on top, this is written to us by John Ritter.

• 1:00:19Josh Clark?

  Wow. My mind is coming apart at the seams right now, Chuck.

• 1:00:24Speaker 02

  Maybe best listener mail ever. So, big hello to John Ritter and your wife Jennifer and Ben and Eleanor.

• 1:00:32Josh Clark?

  Yes, hello, and happy travels to you guys. And hats off to your dad, too, for knowing Morgana the Kissing Bandit.

• 1:00:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, and hats off to Morgana. I'm glad you're, I'm glad you're doing great. Hopefully this message gets to you.

• 1:00:44Josh Clark?

  Yes. This message brought to you by John Ritter. If you want to be like John and get in touch with us, you can send us an email. Send it off to [email protected].

• 1:00:58Speaker 00

  Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 1:01:13Josh Clark?

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  these perspectives highlight that life is more than a moment, a condition, or a tough day. Living with a rare disease can be challenging, but it does not define the Voices of Vivart. In these episodes, they share their stories, from diagnosis to working with their care team on their treatment plan. Listen to Voices of Vivart on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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