| View Larger Image | Disaster Movies: A Loud, Long, Explosive, Star-Studded Guide to Avalanches, Earthquakes, Floods, Meteors, Sinking Ships, Twisters, Viruses, Killer Bees, ... Fallout, and Alien Attacks in the Cinema!!!! | Paperbackby Glenn Kay (Author), Michael Rose (Author), Mike Nelson (Foreword)
| List Price: | $18.95 | | Price: | $16.20 | | You Save: | $2.75 (15%) | | | Available: | Usually ships in 24 hours |
| | Binding: | Paperback | | Publisher: | Chicago Review Press | | Page Count: | 416 Pages | | Publication Date: | August 01, 2006 | | Sales Rank: | 996,716th |
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
Complete with a foreword by Mike Nelson, host of Mystery Science Theater 3000, this dynamic guide to one of Hollywood's most popular and enduring genres provides a history of the disaster genre, descriptions of its trends and unusual traits, portraits of famous stars, and reviews of more than 150 disaster movies. The films reviewed include everything from famous titles such as The Poseidon Adventure, Titanic, and The Towering Inferno to more obscure movies such as The Night the World Exploded, Terror on the 40th Floor, and War Between the Planets. Casual disaster-movie fans, as well as die-hard lovers of the genre will benefit from the rating system, which ranges from "Highly Recommended" to "Avoid at All Costs," and the dubious "Recommended for All the Wrong Reasons." |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 3.0 based on 5 reviews)
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Great Concept With Some Hiccups In Execution by The Angry American (Charlotte, NC USA)  3 Stars
February 02, 2008
For disaster-movie fans like myself, there aren't many choices among books devoted to the subject. In that regard, "Disaster Movies" functions as a treasure trove of commentary on well-worn classics like "Earthquake" and "The Towering Inferno", as well as some more esoteric selections, notably the camp classic "Kingdom of the Spiders".
Aside from the fact that the commentary is light on serious criticism, my primary problem with the book is how some elementary facts get mangled. For example, in reviewing the feature film "Deep Impact", the authors incorrectly refer to Elijah Wood's character as an amateur astrologist as opposed to an amateur astronomer. A slip-up like that might have been overlooked had they also not made the same mistake in describing Annabella Sciorra's character in the made-for-TV mini-series "Asteroid". (She was a professional astronomer in that movie.) And I was really disappointed that they didn't at least mention the best movie from the death-from-above sub-genre, the 1978 made-for-TV drama "A Fire In The Sky".
Understand that if you decide to pick up this book you're not going to get the same level of criticism that you would if you were reading a pro like Roger Ebert or Michael Medved. "Disaster Movies" is what it is--a fun, if error-riddled, book about the terrible things that happen when Hollywood star power and crazy screenwriters collide.
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Merely uninformed opinions, nothing more by Emil Franchelle (Bay Area)  1 Stars
January 04, 2007
This book reads like the author sat down, watched each film once and then tried to write up a "funny" opinion. No research (beyond maybe IMDB), no insight, no context, no behind-the-scenes information, no interviews --- nothing. In other words, anyone could have written this book. What's worse is he gets a lot of information wrong -- it's so lazy. For example he delights in describing how confusing the TV movie "Flood!" is, but he is clearly reviewing it from the old edited VHS release, not the original movie. This information is so easy to locate, but I suppose research might have gotten in the way of the "jokes". Maybe it would be forgivable if the jokes were funny, but they're not -- just boring and obvious. If you've ever been trapped standing in a movie line and forced to listen to some "know-it-all" guy's self-absorbed and wrong-headed yammering about movies he feels superior to -- that's exactly what reading this book is like. A real shame.
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I'm still waiting for the ultimative Disaster-Movies-Reference-Work by Cyberbambi123 (Zürich - Switzerland / Europe)  4 Stars
December 28, 2006
In meantime there exists more Disaster Movies on the screens, than stars on heaven. For the fan it becomes harder and harder to keep the overview. It seems that the autors had the same problems. They write about all sub-genres from water, lava, earthquakes,to airplanes, snow till radioactivity and fire. They even have chapters about swarms of killeranimals, parodies and invasion from outer space, but they only grat on the surface. For a reference-work this book is far too incomplete. Not a must for the filmbuff but ok for a beginner. For a filmbook they could have included more pictures !
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Very Disappointing!!! A Total Waste Of Money!! by Kenneth Allen 1 Stars
September 22, 2006
What a huge disappointment! Really boring infantile reviews and some Really throwaway extras. I would love to have my money and time back. It's written by 2 Canadians and their choices are really lame. The color posters in the middle are the biggest disappointment. What kind of Disaster genre book wouldn't include The Poseidon Adventure (the greatest disaster poster of all time), Titanic or any of the good movies. Save your money!!!
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An Entertaining Look at Cinematic 'Guilty Pleasures!' by Michael OConnor (Wausau, WI USA)  5 Stars
August 29, 2006
Movie fans who have either marveled or groaned their way through the likes of 'Earthquake,' 'The Swarm,' 'Beyond the Poseidon Adventure,' 'A Night to Remember' or 'Towering Inferno' should enjoy this amusing look at Disaster Movies.
Disaster movies are one of life's guilty pleasures. You can turn off your mind, grab the bucket of popcorn and enjoy. OK, the special effects may be cheesy and the dialogue awful - not to mention the one-dimensional characters and the holes in the plot a mile wide - but it's a disaster movie, for Peter's sake, so enjoy!
Key and Rose take the reader through the world of disaster movies, beginning with flicks from the '30s. They divide the films into categories like "Sinking Ships," "Hot Molten Lava," "Those Darn Aliens," etc. and devote 2-5 pages on each film, giving potted plot summaries, highpoints/lowpoints and cracking wise. The book has a five-tier rating system, ranging from "Highly Recommended" to "So Bad it's Good" and also includes lists such as the greatest disaster movie stars, highest-grossing disaster films, disaster movie love themes and so on.
Frankly I enjoyed the book. It's funny, informative and dishes out some well-deserved criticisms about its subject.
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