This morning I told a friend I often watch idiotic escapist movies. Those who make the better ones need to be creative wonders. A look behind the scenes at one of the more successful reveals that he needs also to be an idiot.
My local newspaper carries a wire service profile of the director of the upcoming $200-million special effects movie “2012.” This director, Roland Emmerich, from Germany, “has earned the unofficial title of ‘Master of Disaster’” for his prior hits, “Independence Day” (1996), “Godzilla” (1998), and “The Day After Tomorrow.” (2004) They were, indeed, fairly good idiotic escapist movies, to me.
His soon to be released topper will have “a collapse of the Earth’s crust, giant floods and hellish rains of fire (yet not enough to kill the main character, played by John Cusak).”
Wow! Can hardly wait. New York destroyed again. Been there, done that, you say.
Emmerich does more, but notice what he doesn’t do: "In fact, the man who rose to fame as a cinematic escapist is an activist in real life. In Germany, he’s a strong supporter of the environmentalist Green Party. He campaigns for gay rights, and he doesn’t hide his contempt for organized religion.” OK, he does fit in with Hollywood.
As the profile continues: “In 2012, the pope is buried under debris when St. Peter’s dome comes tumbling down, and peace-loving Tibetan monks are not spared by the great floods. No Islamic site is seen perishing, though. ‘We didn’t destroy Mecca because we didn’t want to have to deal with a fatwa,’ Emmerich says.” OK, he does fit in with the PCers who made the Ft. Hood massacre possible and the media community apologists for poor, misunderstood, stressed Hasan. Can’t wait for that Hollywood film version, huh? What courage it takes to trash Western civilization, and make the world safe for its destroyers!
Emmerich puts the idiot cherry on his half-baked cake of a mind with this one, why he “couldn’t make a patriotic feel-good movie like ‘Independence Day’ anymore: ‘These days I have a much more pessimistic outlook for our civilization, despite the good America can do for the world under Barack Obama.” OK, we’re waiting for his film about how Obama’s abandonment of oppressed peoples in Tibet, in Iran, in Honduras, in the growing list to include Afghanistan and maybe Iraq, will cheer shmuck Emmerich up. (Couldn’t resist the alliteration.)
BTW, I’d love to give you, dear reader, the url to see this profile in idiocy for yourself. But, due to the past triumphs of idiocy in media my local newspaper’s falling circulation cannot afford to pay extra anymore for the wire service reports in its dead-tree edition to also appear at its website, and the MCT wire service website – unlike AP's, even – doesn’t even steer the reader to a newspaper that does.
