Many years ago realistic "disaster" movies (eg The Towering Inferno ) were ridiculed by such films as Airplane! and almost disappeared from our screens. Of more recent times the disaster has returned contained within other genre (eg Titanic – Romance and Independence Day - Science Fiction ) but recently the disaster itself is beginning to return to the classic structure with such films as the fact based A Perfect Storm and on a grand scale with the science fiction/dubious science based The Day After Tomorrow and 2012 . The disaster is centre stage once more, pitching ordinary people against the destructive forces of nature. 2012 may be a special effects masterpiece (which in my view it is!) but it’s also a very good example of the art of genre writing. Go see!
On another subject I’m toying with changing the name of my short A Martian Eclipse to "The Triumph Of Venus". Some how the calligraphy
of The Triumph of Venus looks pleasing to the eye and rhythmically more enticing. This may sound trivial but an effective title is a very import part of any project. For example, had the Baktun cycle of the Mesoamerican (Mayan) calendar ended in 2013 rather than 2012 then the title of the film above would have been more symbolic to the superstitious amongst us but may have been misinterpreted as comic or cliché by those of a sceptic nature. Lucky for the filmmakers that it ends December 2012, giving them a nice neural number to work with!
