Movie News & Gossip

"It's a Disaster - the Movie, That Is"

"2012"
John Cusack, Amanda Peet, Danny Glover
Directed by Roland Emmerich

LOS ANGELES - It's the end of the world as we know it, and Hollywood feels fine.

Global warming, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, continuing terrorist threats and the economic meltdown have people in a gloomy, even end-of-days frame of mind. Filmmakers are tapping into worries about humanity's future with apocalyptic sagas such as "2012," "The Road" and "The Book of Eli," along with documentaries about environmental or economic doom.

- Capsule reviews of films opening this week:

"Fantastic Mr. Fox" — With George Clooney, Meryl Streep and Bill Murray leading the top-notch voice cast, director Wes Anderson has found an ideal story and medium — stop-motion animation — to bring his cockeyed vision to the cartoon world. In the hands of "Rushmore" director Anderson, Roald Dahl's children's book about a poultry-thieving fox gets loving treatment and a distinct handcrafted style that sets it apart from the sleek computer-generated imagery dominating animation today. Clooney provides the voice of a fox whose capers against three evil farmers bring the mechanized wrath of the human world down on him, his family and a menagerie of neighbors. It's lightweight fun, yet the film succeeds on all levels, presenting cute and clever varmints to charm children while offering adults merry screwball humor that slyly stretches the film's family-friendly rating. PG for action, smoking and slang humor. Running time: 88 minutes. Three stars out of four.

- Cataclysmic disaster and apocalyptic doom, as foretold by Hollywood, have a way of bringing together broken families, revealing the unseen heroism of deadbeat dads and neatly disposing of their rivals.

This, too, is the micro-level drama of "2012," the latest nihilistic disaster flick to revel in the destruction of the planet. John Cusack plays the castoff father (Jackson Curtis), a failed novelist getting by as a limo driver. We greet him as he rolls out of bed, spilling his copy of "Moby Dick" as he rushes out the door, disheveled and late for a camping trip with his kids.