Disaster Porn

This is genre populated by poorly written, poorly edited, and usually poorly acted made for television movies depicting massive natural disasters. It is highly addictive and usually must be kept secret from friends and family. I, sadly, must confess my love for the Disaster Porn genre.

Who doesn't love such offerings as "10.5"? Come one, Kim Delany as a misunderstood intellectual earthquake expert? Who couldn't love that? "Category 7" anyone? Want to watch Gina Gershon head up FEMA and battle massive tornadoes? She does so, but only with the help of weather experts Shannen Doherty, Tom Skerrit, and Randy Quaid. Or "Atomic Twister," which is one of my all time favorites. Sharon Lawrence plays the head of a nuclear reactor that is besieged by a series of deadly tornados. Olympian Carl Lewis has a cameo as a security guard at the facility who meets, quite possibly, the most improbable end of any disaster movie character. You see, Carl Lewis is sitting in his guard shack chatting with his wife over what to have for dinner. He sets out of the shack and continues on with his mundane conversation. His wife mentions something about a tornado sighting, and we see one and only one piece of paper go flying by. Carl turns and surprise, the tornado is right there behind him and he gets sucked up. Um ... aren't tornados really really noisy and aren't thousands of pounds of debris kicking around in there? Apparently in Tennessee, the tornados are super stealthy, like ninjas. Or Lucy Lawless as a USDA insect expert battling with bioengineered locusts in the eponymously named "Locusts."

The Weather Channel is airing a series called "It Could Happen Tomorrow" and it examines all of these disaster scenarios. It's a little too real for my tastes but excellent nonetheless. A great resource for disaster movies is Disaster Online.

Come on, you know you watched Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America ...