Portland Disaster Movie Month: Twister @ Tin Shed | September 7
September 7, 2009 — PDXPIPELINEPosted by Jeff Guay
Helen Hunt vs The Tornado
There are a few commonly held, although egregiously false, notions regarding the chasing of twisters that this 
film can straighten out for us. One must first understand that tornadoes, while powerful enough to suck cows, tractors, Ford F-250s or Helen Hunt's dad into their deadly vortices, are not capable of lifting Helen Hunt off the ground, as long as she is holding onto something really, really tightly. Another important clarification made by this film is that Bill Paxton and Bill Pullman are not the same person. The latter Bill P, while having the prudence and strength of character to defend the country against aliens or champion other space-related adventures, doesn't have the Texas-grit and intuition characteristic of Paxton, the man who, in Twister, "knows what storms are thinking."
It's easy to appreciate this 90's disaster classic (co-written by Michael Crichton) for it's surface plot — a revenge epic in which Helen Hunt seeks to destroy the tornado that killed her father, provided with endless one-liners by Philip Seymour Hoffman ("fashionably late again, Jonas, fashionably late again") — but the subtext and, dare I say depth, lies in an unlikely romance between Hunt, Paxton, and weather patterns.
"You can't predict it," Paxton roars, remarking about both his unfettered love for Hunt and, I guess, the tornado that just took out a two-story barn. Other things that are not predictable but equally profound in this film: the resonance of Hoffman's depiction of a gen-x hipster-dufus who's really into classic rock, and the epic guitar solo that runs through the closing credits.
Twister (1996)
@ The Tin Shed
Monday, September 7th 8PM
Full Movie List here: Tin Shed to host "Disaster Movie Mondays
