Monday, May 10, 2021

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Twister (1996)

Melissa: When you used to tell me that you chase tornadoes,
deep down I thought it was just a metaphor.

That's one of my favorite lines in Jan de Bont's classic disaster movie Twister (which is turning 25 today!) because it's an acknowledgment that this movie is a place where metaphors go to die. This is a movie about tornados, man -- that's it! Welcome to the Suck Zone!

And it's been enough, for me at least, for 25 years -- I will always get sucked into Twister (heh) if I stumble on it on TV, and every thought I have in the world just drifts drifts drifts right out of my head. I certainly don't need all of my cinema to be escapist but there is a place for it, and Twister's place is in the pantheon of dumb fun.



4 comments:

Tom M said...

We've been watching lots of 80's and 90's popcorn films with our neighbors and their kids during the pandemic (safe screenings outdoors on their garage wall) and Twister has been the surprise winner for the kids. And the adults. Also, watching it outside is extra spooky.

Jason Adams said...

That sounds like so much fun, Tom. I remember going to Universal Studios back in the late 90s and they had a Twister ride and it captured some of that "spooky outdoor" feeling -- they had you wandering around a country gas station and suddenly the roaring sound was overhead and things went still and it was effective! The movie has good moments like that, for sure

Ben said...

I saw this movie as a teenager with my mother, a native Dallasite with the authentic accent. She still says Melissa is one of the best examples of an actor doing a Texan accent she's ever seen. She vies with Meg Ryan in "Courage Under Fire."

John said...

I went to Universal Studios in July 1997 and they were advertising the Twister ride for Summer 1998. I remember going to see the movie