Earthquake in 35mm Fri, Jan 12 | 7:30pm | DGT A seismologist develops a method for predicting
Deep Impact in 35mm Sat, Jan 20 | 7:30pm | DGT
natural disaster, it becomes clear an eruption is imminent. As lava spews out of the La Brea Tar Pits, the geologist and the city’s director of emergency management (Tommy Lee Jones) do everything they can to warn citizens and halt the spreading lava. Filmed on location around Los Angeles and utilizing a massive recreation of Wilshire Boulevard, Volcano shows the city like you’ve never seen it before. DIRECTED BY: Mick Jackson. WRITTEN BY: Jerome Armstrong, Billy Ray. WITH: Tommy Lee Jones, Anne Heche, Gaby Hoffmann, Don Cheadle. 1997. 104 min. USA. Color. English. Rated PG-13. 35mm.
earthquakes, but too late to save the people of Los Angeles from a 9.9 on the Richter Scale catastrophe in director Mark Robson’s action-packed entry in the 1970s disaster boom. Charlton Heston leads the cast of familiar faces trying to survive amid the falling debris, but the film’s real stars are the Oscar-winning craftspeople—the visual effects team of Frank Brendel, Glen Robinson, and Albert Whitlock, and sound mixers Ronald Pierce and Melvin Metcalfe Sr. The film introduced the theater-shaking audio system Sensurround, which earned its creators a 1974 Sci- Tech Award from the Academy. DIRECTED BY: Mark Robson. WRITTEN BY: George Fox, Mario Puzo. WITH: Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner, George Kennedy, Lorne Greene. 1974. 122 min. USA. Color. Scope. English. Rated PG. 35mm.
LIMITED SERIES BEWARE THE ELEMENTS!
NATURAL DISASTERS ON FILM
JAN 4–28, 2024
Following a summer of record-breaking heatwaves, extreme wildfires, historic floods, and a truly unprecedented “hurriquake,” we find the perilous realities of climate change increasingly impacting our daily lives. Naturally, we see our fears reflected in cinema, especially in the case of the so-called “disaster film.” In 1989, the Los Angeles Times predicted “global warming [was] expected to be the hot issue of [the] 1990s,” and an anxious Hollywood responded with relentless tornados and angry eruptions. And, in proximity to the wake-up call of An Inconvenient Truth (2006), the climate crisis was in the subconscious of many filmmakers in the 2000s and beyond. In considering natural disaster films and the scientists who intervene within them, we can use cinema to envision a world in which humans can harness the elements, tame nature, and save the day. Yet, as real-world climate science has proven time and again, most of these imaginative interventions are too little, too late, and only collective science-based action by government, industry, and civil society can ensure our survival. This screening series considers natural disasters through our planet’s primary elements—earth, wind, water, and fire—and seeks to highlight key moments in the history of the disaster film genre as a source of entertainment, and as a tool to raise our collective consciousness about science-based solutions to the mounting global climate crisis. Programmed by K.J. Relth-Miller. Notes by Hyesung ii, Patrick Lowry, K.J. Relth-Miller, and Robert Reneau.
AVALANCHE
Avalanche Sun, Jan 7 | 2pm | TMT
A wealthy bachelor builds a posh ski resort on the side of a mountain, despite the area being prone to avalanches. After a helicopter collides with the mountain, the inevitable disaster of the film’s title unfolds, leaving humanity to examine its own hubris. This chilly flick is made entertaining thanks to Rock Hudson, Mia Farrow, and Robert Forster, and was one of the most expensive films ever produced by Roger Corman’s New World Pictures. Despite its over-the-top entertainment potential, poor box office returns indicated a downswing in popularity of the massive disaster film boom seen in the early 1970s. DIRECTED BY: Corey Allen. WRITTEN BY: Corey Allen, Claude Pola. STORY BY: Frances Doel. WITH: Rock Hudson, Mia Farrow, Robert Forster, Jeanette Nolan. 1978. 91 min. USA. Color. English. Rated PG. DCP.
This program is made possible by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Program in Public Understanding of Science and Technology.
tornadoes begin a path of destruction across Oklahoma. A retired storm chaser reconnects with his estranged wife, who is working on developing a better tornado warning system, and learns she has completed a device for analyzing tornadoes based on his work. When a rival storm chaser flaunts his own device, an obvious copy of theirs, they jump into action to test the new equipment. Experience the destructive power of wind as it unfolds on screen with Oscar-nominated visual effects and sound. DIRECTED BY: Jan de Bont. WRITTEN BY: Michael Crichton, Anne-Marie Martin. WITH: Helen Hunt, Bill Paxton, Cary Elwes, Jami Gertz. 1996. 113 min. USA. Color. Scope. English. Rated PG-13. 35mm. Print courtesy of the Academy Film Archive.
THE WAVE
The Wave Sat, Jan 13 | 2pm | TMT
A geologist’s worst fears come true when an avalanche causes a tsunami to endanger a Norwegian tourist town— and the geologist’s own family—in this disaster thriller from director Roar Uthaug ( Tomb Raider ). With its combination of big screen spectacle and intense human- scaled danger, The Wave demonstrated once more that Hollywood holds no monopoly on gripping disaster thrillers, and was Norway’s submission for that year’s Foreign Language Feature Oscar. The country’s highest-grossing film of 2015, it led to a 2018 sequel, The Quake , which reunited The Wave ’s principal cast. DIRECTED BY: Roar Uthaug. WRITTEN BY: John Kåre Raake, Harald Rosenløw Eeg. STORY BY: Martin Sundland, John Kåre Raake, Roar Uthaug. WITH: Kristoffer Joner, Ane Dahl Torp, Jonas Hoff Oftebro, Edith Haagenrud-Sande. 2015. 105 min. Norway/Sweden. Color. Scope. Norwegian. Rated R. DCP.
Volcano in 35mm Sat, Jan 6 | 7:30pm | TMT
TWISTER
Twister in 35mm Thu, Jan 4 | 7:30pm | DGT
After a series of earthquakes release extreme heat and gasses in the sewers of Los Angeles, a geologist (Anne Heche) concludes that a volcano is forming under the city. While trying to convince city officials of the impending
This classic summer blockbuster hurdles scientists into the center of an action-adventure as a series of extreme
EARTHQUAKE
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