In  our final part  of WAMG’s look at 2012, we’ll  show you  the music video from  Roland Emmerich’s latest  film as well as more memorable ones from other related movies. Somewhere along the line it became the norm to have a song tagged onto the end credits of a film, noticeably the disaster ones, where you come out of the theater, ahem, emotionally drained. You go home, only to see on your TV or computer  that the filmmakers/studios thought an accompanying music video was needed as well. Columbia Pictures has got the jump on that idea for 2012 by pre-releasing Adam Lambert’s “Time For Miracles,” full of what we’ve come to expect from our “based on the film”  music videos…complete with scenes of explosions and mayhem from the movie.

Time For Miracles

Adam Lambert | MySpace Video

The rash of all these music videos seem to stem from the disaster blockbuster, TITANIC. In 1998, MTV and VH1  had Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” on a 24/7 loop. Originally meant to be an instrumental piece from composer James Horner,  he, lyricist Will Jennings, along with Dion, convinced director James Cameron that the song would be perfect for the film’s end credits, and the rest is history. As we all know, the song went on to win the Oscar for Best Original Song. The music video you see here was directed by music video and film director  Bille Woodruff.

My personal favorite is Aerosmith’s song from ARMAGEDDON. There’s no denying  ”I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing”  was the biggest hit of 1998… God knows we heard it endlessly on the radio. The song went on to receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song. It’s not enough to have Steven Tyler and Aerosmith performing on  a faux-set from the movie in the video, but  when the curtains, with the shuttle logos of The Freedom and The Independence, drop to the floor revealing  rows of playing violins, I freakin lose it everytime.  Even though  the ending  with the shot of Liv Tyler’s hand pressed to the video screen of her father  is hokey and sentimental,  somehow, it just works.

So on the eve of the opening of 2012,  it may be the end of the world, as we know it… and you know what? I feel fine…

2012, starring John Cusack, Amanda Peet, Thandie Newton, with Danny Glover, and Woody Harrelson,  opens tomorrow, November 13th.

Day  2 of WAMG’s  series  on 2012 will take a look at some of the clips from the film as well as a few other disaster films. The money shots like the one up above are what gets our butts into the seats. It really is a guilty pleasure… disaster pornography, if you will. We return time and time again for the thrill of the ride  to see how the filmmaker will kill off the species, whether it be through invading aliens, massive tidal waves, shattering earthquakes or engulfing tornadoes, and Emmerich has become  ”King-of-All-He-Surveys” over it.

He loves taking out our national landmarks too. I think its become a summer thing with him. Only with 2012, every country’s landmarks are up for grabs. He decimates Rio de Janeiro, Rome, and Tibet. I will say this for Emmerich, he sure knows how to blow stuff up, with the main characters always running or flying away in the nick of time.

Before Emmerich, Irwin Allen, “The Master of Disaster,” had the corner on the  disaster film  genre. He had a flare for larger than life wipe outs of cities, through his great use of fires and miniatures….

…and every part of the world was fair game as far as Allen was concerned. It may look pretty inferior now, but back then audiences loved every minute of it.

No question about it, the penultimate Irwin Allen  disaster movie has to be  1974′s THE TOWERING INFERNO. Just ask my sister. It was nominated for 8 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and won 3 Oscars for Cinematography, Editing, and Original Song. Along with a heart-racing score from John Williams, it has one of the most exciting and  imaginative conclusions in film history. Its a stroke of genius by  Allen. A  remake,  filled with the big stars of today, would be hard-core epic.

Have a look at this  5 minute preview of 2012.  I guarantee it’s what will  get you back on that rollercoaster and  into the theater.

Come back tomorrow for Day 3  and a look at the movie poster for 2012 as well as other  ones from the genre.  2012, starring John Cusack, Amanda Peet, Thandie Newton, with Danny Glover, and Woody Harrelson,  opens Friday, November 13th.

Beginning today, WAMG brings you  a four-part series on Columbia Pictures upcoming film 2012.  Day 1 takes a look at the trailer from the film as well as other trailers from the genre. I must start off by  saying  I love “time for the bad news”  disaster films. Small scale…global scale, complete with the thinly veiled attempt at character development and not much of a script. Pretty much a big ball of cheese with no crackers. Schlock disaster films are the best. There… I said it.

When I worked in TV News, for me it was always about the visuals. What the viewer would see, not so much the news story. Believe me I had a lot of fun trying to overshadow the producer’s show with flying cg graphics and animations. The real explosions and fires came from our photographers. So it should come as no surprise that I have an affinity for visually blinding disaster movies. Studios have been trying to scare movie going audiences  of impending doom, as was evident in  the 1950′s,  with this Sci-Fi gem, WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE. This trailer is a beaut.

Growing up in the 1970’s, I loved Irwin Allen’s star-studded, grand spectacles like, THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE, EARTHQUAKE, and THE TOWERING INFERNO. Some of the characters survived, some… not so lucky.

The 80’s marked the eve of catastrophic threats to Earth with the likes of WHEN TIME RAN OUT and METEOR. In the post-Bond Connery flick, it  looks like the end of Terra Firma, until the scientists save the day with the use of nuclear rockets sent to destroy  the mammoth meteor  coming our way. The special effects are top notch!

The 1990’s gave us worldwide calamities with the likes of Mimi Leder’s DEEP IMPACT, Michael Bay’s ARMAGEDDON, and Roland Emmerich’s INDEPENDENCE DAY. The  constant, recurring theme in all these films…no character was ever safe. Any big time actor/actress could be picked off at a heartbeat, either by sacrificing themselves  or with the whim of the screenwriter’s keyboard.

With the turn of the century, the studios apparently thought 21st century audiences were clamoring for more and gave us Jon Amiel’s THE CORE. The 2003 Sci-Fi disaster film has terranauts traveling to the center of the Earth to restart the core that  was snuffed out by a government experiment that went awry. In the meantime, the planet begins to erupt by destroying the Coliseum in Rome and melting  San Francisco’s Golden Gate Gridge.  The funniest tagline, “Earth Has A Deadline,” to be sure.

Along with  the new millennium, came myths and prophecies about dates and  numerology  and were  prime for  apocalyptic films like Alex Proyas’ KNOWING and Columbia Pictures’ upcoming  2012. In these films, there is total destruction of the Earth. No one or thing to save the day. It’s “over and out” time.

So I wondered what the creators of 1995’s INDEPENDENCE DAY and THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW had in store for us with 2012. Could they pull off another booming, explosive, special effects laden disaster film, complete with absurd plots & without much thought to character. From this trailer, it seems they’ve exceeded my expectations once again and I can’t wait.

On a related note, last week director Roland Emmerich exclusively told Entertainment Weekly that there are early plans  for a tv version sequel to his film.

“The plan is that it is 2013 and it’s about what happens after the disaster. It is about the resettling of Earth. I think it will focus on a group of people who survived but not on the boats … maybe they were on a piece of land that was spared or one that became an island in the process of the crust moving….The movie talks about the varied reactions people have in the face of disaster and who should survive and how we carry on and what parts of our culture do we save. The TV show could carry on all that.”

The article also goes on to say that 2012 executive producer Mark Gordon, an exec. producer on  ABC’s GREY’S ANATOMY and PRIVATE PRACTICE, would be on board and is in talks with the network for the series. Makes sense seeing ABC will have a vacancy in the weekly disaster slot  once LOST ends, but we’ll first have to see how the movie does at the box office. As the article stated, an ABC spokesperson had no comment.

Come back tomorrow for  Day 2 and  a five minute extended  clip of the film.  2012, starring John Cusack, Amanda Peet, Thandie Newton, with Danny Glover, and Woody Harrelson,  opens Friday, November 13th.