Badmovies.org Forum

While I was surprised by the budget spent on the early car-and-cable-car chase scene, I was really disappointed in "Epicenter" last week on UPN. Ignoring the sliced-and-diced script and the way the movie makes up for the money spent on the chase scene by recycling sets and stock footage for the rest of the picture, what cheesed me off is, it starts off in San Francisco. Now, I live in SF. I wanna see it go down--hard. The Tri-Star "Godzilla" was originally planned to be set in SF but of course changed locale; the disaster movie "Tsunami" was supposed to wipe out SF but never made it to production; and now, JUST when I'm about to have an orgasm at the thought of the Transamerica building toppling, the heroine (Traci Lords) hops on a jet to...LA. Rumble rumble.

Los Angeles--wiped out in "Earthquake," "The Great Los Angeles Earthquake," "Escape From LA," "Superman," "Volcano," and so many other movies. Dammit! It's HAD its shot in the spotlight, okay? Even New York and Tokyo have a couple of modern earthquake movies--each. San Francisco? The old B&W "San Francisco," "The Towering Inferno," "The Rock," I suppose, and "It Came From Beneath The Sea." C'mon! Nuke Frisco! Flush it away!

They could always do the ultimate earthquake movie; the entire West Coast falls off. A "Submersion of Japan" for California. (There was even a crappy little novel, "Slide," that was written and optioned for production years ago, on the subject. Unfortunately, the book turned into "The Poseidon Adventure" in a buried supermarket, and the film was never made. Blagh.) Slap on a bad-ass title (my choices: "Magnitude Ten," "Earthshatterer") and good tag line ("The coast...dies...screaming") and fifty minutes of uninterrupted FX and you have good crap. And I could use a good crap.

Yo Squish, I live in the Bay Area to (you are my doppelganger) and have wondered why Frisco (I called it by the name it loathes, yes ber-hah-ah) has never been thrashed.  Godzilla in SF.  Gimme, gimme.

Basically I would love to see a movie about that lava shelf in Hawaii collapsing and a mega-tsuinami just flushing the coast completely.  That and a hurricane caused by global warming or something.  Something that turns SF and the rest of the Bay Area into a parking plot.  Please Hollywood have Godzilla stomp Willie Brown and Tom Ammianno flatter than pancakes!

Hey you guys, I live just north of SF myself.  I would love to see the city go down and take the aforementioned politicians with it.  Of course, Willie would be hamming it up all the way to his end.

I think the problem is that Frisco has survived the big nasty and has a reputation for recovering (1906, 1989).  Bring on the Big Lizard and let's see some devastation.

BTW, don't forget "It Came From Beneath the Sea".  It didn't really trash the city, but it was set in SF.  It did play with the bridge after all.

Recently I saw a short subject on It Came from Beneath the Sea on one of the Sinbad discs (Eye of the Tiger).  Harryhausen, in recounting the big finale of the film and the thrashing of the Golden Gate by the sectapus, told how city officials did not want the bridge to be destroyed in the movie (being afraid that it would make viewers fearful that it was not a sound structure - God, politicos were just as stupid then as now).  Determined to have the footage, the crew snuck in and shot the Golden Gate while hiding in a truck!  Way to go Ray!

Oh my. You don't like Tom-Tom Or Wee Willie Winky? For shame. Hatemonger! Hatemonger! Racist! Homophobe! Next thing, you'll say "Hug-A-Thug" isn't an effective DA. :D

From "The Simpsons"; Fidel Castro prepares to finally surrender to the US:

Aide: "But Sir! They tried to kill you!"
Castro: "Eh, they are not so bad. They even named a street after me in San Francisco!"
(Another aide whispers into Castro's ear.)
Castro: "It's full of WHAT?!?"

You continue to scare me, Chadzilla. We both obsess about "The Swarm," live in the same vicinity, have the same tastes in B-movies (with few exceptions). We've probably sat next to each other at a "Spike & Mike Sick & Twisted" at least once. Please don't kill me and assume my identity! Oh, wait, that'd probably be a step down for you...

http://www.sfweekly.com/comics/puni/.  If you've ever been to SF, no explanation is necessary.

ANYWAY, I found some outdated tidbits on the unfilmed "Tsunami" from "Hollywood Stock Exchange" (HSX); the plot was very similar to what Chadzilla described, resulting in a race-against-time to stop the impending wave from striking SF, and--of course--the renegade buff young tsunami-expert butts heads with the IMP (Incompetent Military Personnel, TM) the whole way. (This is a VERY BAD PLOT. Not only is it older than dirt, the hero has to fail--miserably--for the FX payoff to occur. If it does NOT occur, the movie fails--even more miserably than it otherwise would, and it would fail, because the plot is...older than dirt, for starters. This little vicious cycle is probably why it was never made.) More from HSX, mid-1999:

"Following the recent trend of disaster movies of meteors and volcanoes threatening Earth, "Tsumani" tells the story of a life-threatening tidal wave. Gregg Martin is attached as a screenwriter with Jerry Bruckheimer as producer. "Tsunami" director Greg Aronowitz is best known for his creative abilities in special effects, costume design, and model making.  He makes his directorial debut with "Tsunami," which was written by screenwriter and entrepreneur Max Keiser, whose earlier story "The Davenport Brothers" was purchased by Miramax."

Oh boy, another FX-artist behind the camera. No offense, but they fall right behind MTV video-directors in filling up the Worst New Director lists every year. Either way, warning sirens should've gone off in your brain the second you saw the words "Jerry" and "Bruckheimer" in close proximity.

...still, it would've been nice to see SF get its streets cleaned, just once. (sigh) But every project in Hollywood gets made eventually. "Tsunami" might sit on a shelf for another ten years, but it will be made, someday, even if only as a cheap-ass UPN TV-movie guest-starring Gilbert Gottfried.

Understanding that this is pathetic obsession speaking and not mere shameless promotion, I just wanted to point out that Girdler would have destroyed San Francisco if he'd had the budget. He tried in his own way in Manitou, but his limitations forced him to shoot on a Hollywood soundstage (his only "Hollywood" movie).

So even though he merely set loose an Indian midget in San Fran, at least you know he left his heart in the right town.

Earthshatterer...the Coast...dies...screaming. I like it! but, up the Fx to atleast 60 min. Thats what we come to these things for! Come on, make with the Tremblors-fu!. True, the real thing is no picknick...Man, Seattle is Luckey!! Sheesh! But, the movies...well,okey.