Seeking a friend for the end of the world

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

Bad. So, bad. So, bad the world actually ending would be a blessing so I wouldn't have this film in my memory any more. tQ wisely abandoned me when I announced that this was the film for the evening.

I hoped this would be that showcase for Steve Carell's comedic talent. Not so much. His main emotion for the film was being glum. Keira Knightly was in the film and they decided it would be best if she looked as bad as possible with stringy clothes and weird hippy-esque clothes.

this is one of those movies where things that happen only happen in movies. They have the cleanest riot over. Carrell wakes up with a dog tied to his leg and keeps it for the rest of the film. Carrell and Knightly have been neighbors for years but don't recognize each other. It just went on and on. The world is ending yet the power plants are still working so there is still electricity. At one point they find an old kid's record player that plays regular lp's perfectly.

The worst one is that Knightly needs to get back to England to see her parents but all the planes are grounded because if they weren't this plot point wouldn't work. Naturally Carrell's estranged father, Martin Sheen is a pilot. Of course he is. Now, I'm thinking what kind of private jet does Sheen own that will allow him to fly to England. Not so much. Sheen flies a Cessna 152 which he keeps conveniently in the barn behind the house. If I remember correctly the range of that Cessna is about 200 miles, a bit short of the 3000 miles needed to fly from the east coast to England. another conundrum is that in most instances, no gas is available. Except for this plane which is full up and ready to fly.

The more I think about this film, the angrier I become.

[cranefly]

Yesterday I was doing a keyword search of IMDB for "end of the world." Yes, there's something like 150 matches, if I recall.
Then I was in the Mountain View Library looking through the foreign film stacks, and even a bit through the Hollywood crap stacks.
I kept finding some candidates. "Day of the Triffids." "On the Beach." "When Worlds Collide." But nothing I really wanted to watch again. The problem with most end of the world movies is they're grim and full of stereotypes. And, well-- Not very credible, both on the big scale and on the small scale (which Greg noted in this movie). Generally speaking, they're boring morality tales.

I was tempted by 2012, starring John Cusack, but saw enough negative comments to keep me from going into that world.

So I ended up getting three strange movies at the library. Two are purportedly based on or similar to Blood Simple, with some David Lynch thrown in. The other is a Chinese movie about a guy who marries a woman and only afterwards learns that she's a fierce dominating tiger (before checking out, I almost returned it to the stacks, but couldn't remember where I got it).

Back in my 20s I was working on an end-of-the-world story. You know, the last man on earth. The "event" happens just before the Olympics, so he goes to the Olympic grounds and competes by himself, with the goal of winning gold in every event. He's got the PA system rigged to play loud cheering at the push of a button, so he's really on a narcissistic trip. But in the triple jump he fouls three times and gets disqualified, and he goes into a rage. That's as far as I got with the tale. May it rest in peace....

[cranefly]

Just out of curiosity I entered a search on the Cessna 152's range.
The internet is amazing.

The Cessna 152's range depends on certain variables. A 152 with long range tanks could fly as far as 690 NM (1200 km or 800 miles), but to do that you'd have to climb to 10'000', reduce the power and fly for 8.7 hours, which is a very long time in a 152. The farther you want to fly on a given amount of fuel, the slower you'll have to fly. But since you pay for the plane by the hour, unless you're trying to cross the Atlantic, there's really no reason to do that. With more reasonable flying parameters, say 75 % power at 8000', you'll still be able to fly 540 NM (1000 km or 630 miles.

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I'm thinking it should have been a combo time travel/end-of-world movie. Then they could have hitched a ride with Lindbergh and made it a lot more credible.

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

I saw a Spanish "End of the world" flick called "Before the Fall". It was very Spanish. and kinda grim. I did like it, though.