I quite enjoyed this movie. Usually a end-of-the-world-movie involves lots of explosions but this movie took a whole different view on it.

The plot was genius: put a bunch of friends together, add a new person and make the world end. Taking place in a single house was a real nice idea, the mystery of not knowing what was going on outside really helped the plot.

The interactions the characters had in this film where funny, crazy and believable. Though its not a comedy where you are laughing all the time I found myself laughing more than in most big comedies.

Top notch acting really added to the experience. You normally don't expect such a cast in a low budget movie.

Taking a look to see if anything had been added to Netflix UK over the last few days,I discovered that a post-apocalypse Comedy with Julia Stiles was going to be taken off the site in a few days time.Being a fan of the post-apocalypse (and also having enjoyed seeing Stiles in some titles) I decided that it was the best time to visit the disaster zone.

The plot:

For their third date Tracy Scott decides to take her date Glenn Randolph to a couples brunch hosted by her sister Emma Mandrake.Shortly after everyone arrives for brunch,the TV,phone and internet start to shut down.Caught up blaming each other over who has not paid the bill,Emma and Pete Mandrake catch the other couples by surprise,by revealing that they are getting divorced.Reeling from the news,the group get a surprise visit from neighbour Hal Lousteau,who tells the couples that they must stay in the house,due to five,possibly nuclear, bombs having just gone off.

View on the film:

Spending the whole film in the house as the world ends,writer/co- star/director Todd Berger & cinematographer Nancy Schreiber give the movie a warm,free-flowing improvised atmosphere,as rough-edge whip- pans catch relationships in the house ending with the world.Although he does not step outside,Berger does very well at drawing a rough impression of the events taking place outside,,with the crackle of radio/phone calls and the odd front door visit hinting at the disaster unfolding just down the street.

Offering the perfect black Comedy backdrop with the apocalypse,the screenplay by Berger largely leaves comedic set-pieces for a dry,bitter wit being fed by the ripples of Emma and Peter's marriage problems. Casting everyone in the wacky shade,Berger gives each characters weird edges a delicious kooky warmth,which shines from Randolph being completely uncomfortable,to Hal's hilarious matter of fact warning. Joined by the off-beat delights from Kevin M. Brennan and Erinn Hayes,David Cross and Julia Stiles give great performances,thanks to Stiles giving Tracy a sharp shot of level- headed sass,whilst Cross raptures Glen with an unexpected dash of mad sincerity.

Final view on the film:

A movie that is far from disastrous.

It's a Disaster (2012)

You might not click with this movie right away, or at all, if you don't like the very ordinary style and very ordinary people this group of eight is meant to portray. I recognized too many of my friends, or friends of friends, in these clichéd types of people, and thought the acting and the situation very realistic.

Realistic within the bounds of a really funny somewhat absurdist comedy.

At first you have a gossipy parody of a weekend "couples brunch" where four couples converge, and have been regularly converging, to catch up and have fun. Except that secretly many of them really dread it, and there is some posing and whispering. As a viewer you enjoy the repartee, which is often pretty funny in a laugh out loud way, and you also try to figure out who is who, and whose is whose (the couples include at least one case of infidelity between them which complicates that part).

And I admit I might not have lasted an hour and half of this interplay, no matter how well performed. (To be emphasized, all eight are vivid and convincing in their own ways. It's the core of the movie that these are believable types.)

But you won't need patience once the huge (huge) twist comes along. It's a classic "ship of fools" scenario, and it's compressed into a very short space: a bunch of distinctive types of people find themselves trapped together in a crisis. That's just the interesting starting point, because it's how, exactly, those kind of people respond to crisis that makes it fascinating.

It works. We get to know the four or five most important people really quickly and when things shift and reactions mount--and the jokes keep flowing--you'll be right along for the ride. Some might call this a dark comedy since the backdrop becomes exceedingly dire, but the reality of that darkness is never salient. The humor, right to the very last three seconds, is cutting and bright.

Why, quite, this isn't a masterpiece is one of those amorphous mysteries of the movies. It lacks, I suppose, some sense of air, or of knowing-ness, or of a style that suffuses whether you quite realize it or not. Something about the very ordinariness of it all makes it wriggle in a sufficiency that keeps it from rising up, or getting really gritty. I don't think it's a flaw. It might even wear well over the years. But it makes some of the weaker characters and weaker lines glare just slightly.

See this? Yes! If you just hate the characters after ten minutes, you might give up. Even after the big twist about twenty minutes in the movie is very character driven. But if you sort of like their company and their humor, dive in and hang on. It's a hoot.