“It’s the end of the world!”

The other evening a classic Hitchcock movie was on, The Birds; terror perched upon every power line as millions of birds descended on the frightened townspeople of Bodega Bay. Remember the scene at the diner where the little man kept remarking, “It’s the end of the world!”, his mind having absorbed one too many drinks?


I watched another movie this past week, Knowing ; a page of seemingly random numbers which apparently listed every major catastrophe in the past 50 years sets up the movie’s theme. There’s a site which covers actors and movie scripts, enough to get an idea of any movie out there.


“In the fall of 1959, for a time capsule, students draw pictures of life as they imagine it will be in 50 years. Lucinda, an odd child who hears voices, swiftly writes a long string of numbers. In 2009, the capsule is opened; student Caleb Koestler gets Lucinda’s “drawing” and his father John, an astrophysicist and grieving widower, takes a look. He discovers dates of disasters over the past 50 years with the number who died. Three dates remain, all coming soon. He investigates, learns of Lucinda, and looks for her family. He fears for his son, who's started to hear voices and who is visited by a silent stranger who shows him a vision of fire and destruction.”


Nicolas Cage played the part of the astrophysicist and might want to find better scripts in the future; however, on a chilly Monday evening with limited entertainment options available, the New England Patriots beating the snot out of the New York Jets; the movie wasn’t that bad. If it were a better movie I wouldn’t want to spoil the ending; but in this case, “It’s the end of the world!”


Wouldn’t you know, this morning had a Sci-Tech piece on the Fox website, Immense Plasma Blast Erupts From Sun ; maybe they watched the movie and accidentally fell for the movie’s limp ending. They had a neat looking picture of Solar Prominence worth grabbing so now you can save a couple of bucks at the movie rental store, “It’s the end of the world!”