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	<title>Screen Machine &#187; Have a nice apocalypse.</title>
	<link>http://www.screenmachine.tv</link>
	<description>Film criticism and cultural commentary based out of Melbourne, Australia.</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Tue, 25 Oct 2011 04:17:26 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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		<title>Have a nice apocalypse.</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
With the release of Roland Emmerich&#8217;s 2012 this month, the film industry&#8217;s (and society&#8217;s) fascination with destruction becomes ever more pertinent. Not to mention depressing. Margaret Pomeranz was on to something when she criticized 2012 for glorifying the end of the world, and for making it seem less-bad that thousands of people were dying as long as the hero survives. Guy Debord labelled the modern world a &#8217;showbiz society&#8217;, and this is expressed without a doubt in Emmerich&#8217;s film. Everything becomes more appealing with an element of showbiz, of cinematic and celebrity glamour; the destruction of the world, too, becomes more exciting if we get to see John Cusack still alive at the end of it. And in Deep Impact (Mimi Leder, 1998), although the entire world will be destroyed by an oversized tidal wave, we feel personal sympathy only for the death of Téa Leoni and her father. These microcosmic scenarios do make a spectacle of disaster, in our showbiz society, because what we are trained to see is the personal story and social impact of each film, with each &#8216;disaster&#8217; as setting only, as a launchpad for personal becomings and realizations.

Now, there is of course a difference, semantic at the least, between the simple disaster movie and the apocalypse film. But these days any disaster that occurs is portrayed as so horrible, with such a strong element of we-are-never-going-to-survive-this, that I am happy to equate the two, for the time being. The requisite &#8216;crazy genius&#8217;, Charlie Frost (Woody&#8230;]]></description>
		<link>http://www.screenmachine.tv/2009/11/27/have-a-nice-apocalypse/</link>
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