Twister

A ragtag group of pirates chase tornadoes

Last night was one of those unexpected movie nights. I was in the midst of reveling in College Football glory when my wife asked if I wanted to watch the sequel, Twisters. We didn’t see it in theaters and it’s available to buy. I agreed to watch it as long as I could revel for a couple hours more. She decided to put on the original and so my reveling was made even more thrilling by the 1996 classic. My old ass is ready for bed by 9:00 every night now so we didn’t get to the sequel that just added an “s”, but we’ll probably check it out tonight. What we did experience was an intense thrill ride and reminder of how much fun movies can be.

A Ragtag Group of Pirates

I love movies about a ragtag group of people whose lives are centered around one niche thing. Almost Famous is a masterpiece because the characters share this life centered on music. Rounders takes this ideas and gives us a movie about people devoting their energy to the world of underground poker. You can’t help but fall in love with this ragtag group of scientists that live for the thrill of studying weather and chasing tornadoes. Their calling is deeper than thrill seeking because their ultimate goal is to learn more about storms so they can save lives, but they really are a ragtag group of pirates on their journey. This idea is best displayed in the lunch scene at Aunt Meg’s house.

The looks on Alan Ruck’s and Sean Whalen’s faces say it all. The crave Aunt Meg’s lunch as much as they crave the chase. Phillip Seymour Hoffman, who deserves all the awards for his acting, is the wildest of the bunch. “Red meat. We crave sustenance” is a line I’m going to start using when I’m hungry. Most importantly, this ragtag group is a family.

Side note: I like to believe that Alan Ruck’s characters in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Twister are the same person. That moment in Bueller when he’s finally had enough and he crashes his dad’s car was the catalyst for his ascension to a storm chaser. From that scene in Bueller: “I am not going to sit on my ass as the events that affect me unfold to determine the course of my life. I'm going to take a stand. I'm going to defend it. Right or wrong, I'm going to defend it.” Those are the words of a man who chases tornadoes.

I guess we should actually watch the lunch scene now….

”In a severe lightning storm, you want to grab your ankles and stick your butt in the air.” - Ruck……Jami Gertz’s character is supposed to represent us, the viewers. The woman engaged to Bill Paxton is the outsider. Sure, her disdain for this experience is exaggerated a bit, but how many of us wouldn’t be stunned by words “He’s right. If you’re gonna get hit, it’s the safest orifice” and “Yeah, I’d like to get hit by lightning once. You know, see what’s like.” As great as these lines are, but Phillip Seymour Hoffman delivers the best quote of the scene: “You slaughter your own cows, Meg. Nice.” as he loads up Gertz’s plate with mashed potatoes. Gertz’s immersion into this world is taken further as she hears the story about how her fiancé earned the nickname, “The Extreme.”

Phillip Seymour Hoffman

Twister was either the first or second Phillip Seymour Hoffman movie that I’ve seen. It’s between this and Mission Impossible 3. This man was iconic in every role he took. Talk about a guy who cared about his craft, whether he’s hold a boom mic in Boogie Nights or leading a cult in The Master. The arts of film and acting are better because he had Phillip Seymour Hoffman on this planet.

The video I included is a supercut of his character’s scenes in Twister. From his explanation of “The Suck Zone” to his maniacal laughter to Gertz near-death-experience, Dusty Davis is The Insanity of storm chasing.

Cows

You can’t write about Twister and not write about the cow scene. It’s iconic, maybe the most famous scene of the movie!

An ex-husband, an ex-wife, and the ex-husband’s fiancé drive into the core of a tornado. Multiple twisters. are over a lake and water is everywhere. Fiancé, who is a therapist, gets a call from one of her patients….

Helen Hunt: “Cow!”

Jami Gertz: “I gotta go, Julia. We got cows.”

*Imagine calling your therapist and this is something she says…..HILARIOUS

Helen Hunt: “Another cow!”

Bill Baxton: “Actually, I believe that was the same one.”

Cows are the ultimate losers of the movie. From steak lunch to flying around in a tornado’s core, you can’t help but feel a little bad for the beef and dairy-producing mammal.

Falling Back in Love

Twister is also about a divorced couple falling back in love. You kind of feel bad for Jami Gertz as she realizes that it’s just not going to work out with Bill Paxton, but let’s be honest, she was never built for life with The Extreme. The career storm chasers, Paxton and Helen Hunt fall back in love while in the middle of the tornadic chaos. As Jewel sang: “You were meant for me, and I was meant for you….and tornadoes too.”

*Bill Paxton being the only man to be killed by a Terminator, a Xenomorph, and a Predator is some high-level hall of fame trifecta shit. A true cinematic achievement that we don’t praise enough.

Twister at Universal Studios

My family made a couple trips to Orlando when I was younger for Disney World and Universal Studios. This Twister experience at Universal Studios was always really cool to see. I figured I’d share it as a great memory from my childhood.

While watching Twister, my wife asked me if I would ever go storm chasing. True story, I saw Twister and Jaws for the first time when I was in my younger twenties. My bucket list items used to be storm chasing and going underwater in a shark cage. I would 100% still do the shark cage. I think that would be an amazing experience. After having my own run-in with an intense storm this past summer, I think I’m out on storm chasing. I would have to be with an expert who knows what they’re doing, kinda like skydiving tethered to a professional. Storm chasing by myself? Hell no.

A Spielbergian Film

I came away from Twister feeling like it’s a Spielbergian Film. This is a very high compliment for a movie. It just feels reminiscent of an old school adventure movie like Jaws and Jurassic Park. Just substitute the shark or dinosaurs for a tornado. This feeling makes sense after I did some research. Twister was written and produced by Michael Crichton, the same guy who wrote Jurassic Park. It is also produced by Kathleen Kennedy, who had a hand in so many of Steven Spielberg’s cinematic experiences. Twister was directed by Jon de Bont, who doesn’t have a ton of movies on his resume but he’s good at his craft. The film is a classic of its era and a fun thrill ride. I guess it’s time to see if Twisters can be worthy of its predecessor’s legacy.