Movie Review: Ice (1998)

Ice (1998) - USA - Adventure/Disaster Movie - TV Movie

Directed by Jean de Segonzac

Starring Grant Show, Eva LaRue, Audie England, Udo Kier, Flex Alexander, Michael Riley, Kyle Fairlie, Kristin Booth, Diego Fuentes, Art Hindle

Though watchable, a better element of believability and sympathetic characters would have made it a better movie.

Increased sunspot activity reducing the effect of the Sun warming the Earth is going to plunge the temperatures globally well below freezing. In the Los Angeles area where this story takes place, temperatures will drop to 80-100 degrees below 0 fahrenheit. A group of characters composed of a family, a cop and his girlfriend, a criminal and the scientist who predicted this disaster are trying to make their way to a promised boat that will take them to the equator where it will at least be survivable.

My biggest problem with this movie is in believing how cold it is suppose to be with characters wearing nothing more than simple coats, most not even wearing headgear or gloves; and yet it is suppose to be well below zero. I don't think the writers or makers of this movie have ever been out of the L.A. area. Even at 0 degrees someone would have severe frostbites just with a few minutes of exposure being dressed the way these people are. Perhaps it is a minor quibble, but living in an area that has a winter, and can get very cold, I just found it difficult to believe the story.

The other problem is these characters are constantly fighting with each other. I'm thinking it's probably not a good idea for them to get to safety for the simple fact they could possibly breed in the future and there would be a world with more of them.

The movie is watchable. It moves at a good pace. It also has Audie England and Eva LaRue in it, so for us guys at least the eye candy factor is there.

My Rating: 2 Fingers

It is not available on DVD but can be found on YouTube.

You can see more, and I mean a lot more, of Audie England in Zalman King's Delta of Venus.

Check out a Disaster Movie 2-Pack with Absolute Zero.

Toxic Fletch

Movie Review: Inferno (1998)

Inferno (1998) - USA - Action/Disaster Movie - TV Movie

Directed by Ian Barry

Starring James Remar, Stephanie Niznik, Anthony Starke, Daniel von Bargen, Jonathan LaPaglia, Kathryn Morris, Fredric Lehne, Frank Birney

An entertaining enough TV movie that takes more than a few lessons from the 70s disaster movie formula.

An unprecedented solar flare, for our time anyway, is going to impact the earth. The result will be an increase in temperatures on a global scale with some places reaching upwards of 145 degrees fahrenheit or more. This will only last for a few days before the temperatures return to normal, but who will survive this extreme heat wave? The focus of this movie is on Los Angeles and the individual and interconnected stories of various characters including a doctor, a lifeguard, her stalking ex-boyfriend, a teacher who is also a reservist, a would-be bank robber, and a general tasked with dealing with this disaster.

Inferno takes a lesson from 70s disaster movies (e.g. Earthquake 1974) and runs with it. We are introduced to the threat at the start, then the characters and their individual stories. These different characters will cross paths at some point, either cooperatively or as a disruption. It worked well enough for disaster movies of the 70s and it works in this movie as well.

The main thing that was working against the movie for me was believing that these people were dealing with 130 degree plus temperatures and not collapsing, dying, and still having vehicles running. I just had to increase my suspension of disbelief.

My Rating: 3 Fingers

Though not available on DVD you can get a copy on VHS or you can find it on YouTube.

You can get a 6 Movie DVD Disaster Pack including the movies Scorcher and Miami Magma.

Toxic Fletch

Ticking The Clock With Disaster Movies

#TickingTheClock is my movie review theme/hashtag for the next month or two. It seems fitting in these turbulent times with an utterly moronic, barbaric bigot in the White House ticking the Doomsday Clock closer to midnight. Somehow I am just inspired to watch disaster movies by this. Maybe just for the simple reason that disaster movies represent a more pleasant end to us than what this country will suffer under an incompetent president and republican led congress followed by their army of bigots across this country who dream of a scorched earth America occupied by white supremacists.

But enough about the unfortunate comedy of errors taking place daily in Washington.

Disaster movies have a particular charm to them. They are often simple, well-paced, and provide entertainment for the 90+ minutes long they are. Certainly Syfy has had a successful run for years with cookie cutter low budget movies filling their schedule; and if there is nothing else to watch on TV, most people, whether they admit it or not, can fill the void with a cheesy disaster movie and enjoy it.

Tornadoes, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, or the world facing an eminent ice age, these are things that would frighten us in reality, but somehow watching it on TV entertains us, even puts us at ease. Maybe the reason for that is that we are insulated from a world of make-believe on the screen, and mentally overcome something that if it were real, well we probably wouldn't. Much is the same reason behind enjoying horror movies, and especially slasher flicks, where we imagine we would fare better against the source of the horror better than the characters onscreen.

One element of like 80% or better of disaster movies that has really caught my attention as of late is that at some point the president is contacted. Usually the president is represented as thoughtful, capable, and most of all concerned about the public at large. Could you just imagine, however, if the current president and his clown posse had to deal with such a disaster?

OH DEAR GOD!!!

Well, rather than think too long on that I would rather be entertained to the point of numbness by these disaster movies and will be providing reviews for your entertainment as well.

Toxic Fletch

The Apocalypse Is Coming; Well, Sort Of...Maybe

Sometimes on Friday nights I have what I call a Friday Night 80s Party on my Twitter page, and synchronous with my Facebook page. This event usually consists of my posting links to 80s music videos from YouTube, as well old commercials, snippets of TV programs, and other nostalgia. Each episode, as I call it, has a theme.

This week's theme is a prelude to the coming inauguration of Donald Trump, and the inevitable political apocalypse and economic collapse at the hands of this tyrant and his GOP hate group. This week's theme is #80sApocalypse, with music videos with apocalyptic lyrics, images, or themes associated with the apocalypse. It's not as difficult as you would think finding 80s songs and videos with apocalyptic associations; being the cold war and nuclear arms race were big concerns at the time. But, a difficulty has arisen.

I don't do episodes of Friday Night 80s Party live. Each episode runs from 8pm to 9pm, basically slightly more than an hour, but it takes a lot more than an hour putting an episode together. In order to accomplish this I use scheduled tweets through different services. Twuffer has been my primary scheduler, with Future Tweets and Twittimer being backups. The reason for backups is mainly because Twuffer can only be scheduled for 5 minute intervals whereas the others, with varying degrees of success, can be scheduled to the minute allowing me to fill some time if I'm linking to videos with shorter running time, or if I want to post comments between the videos and other content. 

The reason Twuffer has been my primary is because of its reliability. Well guess what? Twuffer is down. Well, this leaves me with Future Tweets and Twittimer. Being that Future Tweets has occasionally failed on delivering a scheduled tweet and Twittimer has a limit of 10 scheduled tweets without a paid account, and being that Twittimer was down earlier today, this has me on my toes hoping the episode this week is successfully completed.

I always monitor each episode as it is tweeted anyway. I am going to backup my scheduled tweets in case of failed tweets, or if one of the services goes down. Hopefully the episode is a success, or pretty close to it.

I's suspects a GOP conspiracy is at hand. ;)