"Twisters" (PG-13) At the Cinemark Grade: B+ I learned to respect a tornado sky while Sue and I lived in Columbia, Missouri, during the late '60s. I remember Sue and I riding a motorcycle to our apartment a few miles outside of town when the dark clouds rolled in and the wild winds started picking up. We got home wet, but safe.
Then the train sounds roared and the winds hit. We sat in our bathroom, the only room with no windows – and waited out the storm. Then, suddenly, the noise lifted and the quiet returned.
Mama Nature was just teasing ...
this time. I’m here to testify that tornadoes are scary. They are also amazingly fickle, leveling homes, while leaving the other side of streets alone.
Montana’s comparable disaster may be forest fires – another act of nature that can leave us feeling helpless. Having a fire tower as a city landmark does not comfort me – nor do our “tourist” stories about the Mann Gulch tragedy in Gates of the Mountain in 1949. Universal Studios is cheerfully marketing fear with “Twisters.
” We roller coaster enthusiasts cued up, and threw our hands in the air, leading to an $80 million opening weekend. If Mother Nature ain’t happy, nobody’s happy. Except Universal.
This sequel to the 1996 original, “Twister,” follows the formula: Let’s be idiots and run into the tornado, instead of looking for cover. The goal of the game: “Tame the tornado.” Tyler is a former rodeo star who wears a cowboy belt buckle and talks like a country boy.
“You don’t face your fears; you ride ’em,” he says to his team of tornado wranglers. Tyler’s slogan, shouted when a funnel appears: “If you feel it, chase it!” And chase they do, driving those heavy-duty pickup trucks straight down tornado alley in Oklahoma. Also in hot pursuit of the twisters is Kate, a brilliant academic who gave up chasing tornadoes after a tragedy years ago.
Kate accepts an offer to test her research one more time: she plans to blow up barrels of a magic elixir into the vortex in hopes of taming the storm and saving lives. Sure, why not. Kate and Tyler’s hearts are twisting, too, of course.
An earth-shaking controversy has erupted because “Twisters” ends without a final kiss. I didn’t notice. “Twisters” gets its power from Daisy Edgar-Jones, the STEM girl who outsmarts both Mother Nature and the handsome cowboy.
It’s reassuring to see a lady in the lead role in a blue-collar disaster movie – and to see her portrayed as an academic relying on research to save the planet. Glen Powell plays a caring bull rider, who lets Daisy take the lead around the barrels. “Twisters” is harmless summer fun.
We ride a tornado without getting our clothes wet. "Touch" (R) At the Myrna Loy Grade: A (leaves Thursday) I long ago entered my Shakespearean fall, that time when yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang upon those boughs which shake against the cold – although I have more hair than my dad did at my age. “Touch” is that rare film that explores the season of forgetting with depth, and delicacy.
If you don’t cry, you are a bot. Set in Iceland and London, “Touch” follows Kristofer, a widower, as he retraces his early life as a student in London. Kristofer senses his memories may be fading.
So, as the pandemic shuts down Europe, he sets out on a sentimental journey. Through flashbacks we relive Kristofer’s student years. He was a bright, disciplined student, who became disenchanted with graduate work.
He walks away from the London School of Economics and takes a job washing dishes in a Japanese restaurant. There he meets lovely Miko, daughter of the owner. Their flame burns brightly, if briefly.
A short sunset is no less beautiful. Now, 50 years later, he longs to mend his heart. A tale of a widower longing to bring back the hours of splendor in the grass and glory in the flower, hits very close to my heart, of course.
I was reminded of Ingmar Bergman’s “Wild Strawberries,” a parallel tale of a 78-year-old widower reliving his life during a journey to receive an award. Both these tales explore the years of the philosophic mind with tenderness and honesty..
