This Is the End

Jay Baruchel flies to LA to hang out with his old friend Seth Rogan. After an evening of weed, munchies and video games, Rogan drags Baruchel to a party at James Franco's house. Baruchel is reluctant to go because he is not into the LA scene and doesn't like Jonah Hill, who is at the party, as well. And so, apparently, is everybody else - Craig Robertson, Mindy Kaling, Rihanna, Christohper Mintz-Plasse, David Krumholtz, Michael Cera, Aziz Ansari and - unbeknownst to the host - Danny McBride.

Baruchel, upset with Rogan because he did not stay by his side at Franco's place, gets his friend to go to a nearby convenience store. While the two are in there, the apocalypse kicks off. They rush back to the party but nobody inside has noticed anything awkward happening at all. As they try to piece together what the two are on about, the earth shakes so fiercely that even the party guests notice this time. They storm outside and stare at the staring Hollywood hills when a sinkhole opens up in the front yard, swallowing most of the onlookers.

Baruchel, Rogen, Franco, Robinson, and Hill make it back to the relative safety of the house, where they board up, check up on the limited food and drink supply and spend an uneasy night. When they get up the next morning, Danny McBride, who has spent the night in the bathtub and has no idea what is happening, has used up most of the supplies making breakfast. So, things do not look rosy for our survivors.

As they cannot leave the house they pass the time doing drugs and making cheap sequels to their previous films. Then suddenly, Emma Watson breaks her way into the house. At first, everything is rosy until Watson goes to rest in Franco's room and they guys outside discuss the weirdness of the situation and making sure that they would not come across as 'rapey' with only one woman in the house. Watson only catches part of the conversation, mostly the word rape and gets out of Dodge, keeping everyone in check with an ax.

When water dwindles, they try to get more either from the basement or a neighbor's house, which requires them to leave the building in ones and twos. They start to get attacked by a demon, possibly the devil himself (you know, this being the apocalypse and all), who also has sex with Jonah Hill, who for the remainder of his life in the film is possessed.

What follows is deaths, mayhem, the expulsion of Danny McBride, ascensions to heaven,  and the Backstreet Boys.

6/10

28 Days Later...

A group of animal rights activists breaks into a lab to free chimpanzees, that are being used for testing. Although the cause is noble, the activists are about to unleash a epidemic on the population of Great Britain. A lab technician walks in on them and, realizing what they are about to do, warns them that the animals were infected with the dangerous and highly infectious 'Rage' virus. Ignoring this, they open one cage and the chimpanzee storms out and immediately attacks a woman, biting her neck. Within seconds, the infection sets in and the woman's eyes turn red with this it starts.

28 days after this, Jim awakes in a hospital, where he was in a coma after a head injury suffered in a car crash. The hospital is empty and - as Jim walks out, wearing scrubs - so apparently is the entire city of London. He stumbles around, calling out and really only starts to understand the gravity of the situation when he finds an old newspaper with unsettling headlines. Soon enough, he encounters the first group of infected, in a church. They run after him (them things are fast) and he is saved by two young people, Mark and Selena.

They group up and after visiting Jim's parent's house, where he finds his parents in bed, having committed suicide some time ago, they are again attacked by infected. Again, they get away but Mark was infected through an open wound. Selena beats his head in. Traveling on through the city, the two survivors see blinking Christmas lights in a high rise, where they go and meet Frank and his daughter Hannah. After spending a night in relative safety, Frank plays them a recording, informing the population of a safe haven up the country some way. The group decides to make a break for it.

When they come to the spot, the road block appears to be abandoned. Frank, in a rage, kicks against the wall of a lean to, that has a bloody body on top. A drop of blood falls right into his eye, infecting him (all this in a pretty shot from the blood drops point of view). While Frank turns, military shows up to shoot the hell out of him. Jim, Selena and Hannah are taken to a nearby, very posh house, which is the military base.

They believe themselves to finally have some sort of safety. However, they are the only ones there besides the small group of soldiers. Soon enough, it turns out that the leader, Major West, has sent out the communication picked up by Frank and had promised his men women - and now there were two. After an alteration, when some of the soldiers are about to attack Selena and Hannah, the one soldier that rushes to help the women and Jim are taken into custody and brought to the nearby woods by two soldiers. There, they are about to be shot, but Jim gets away. He hides in the bushes, noticing an airplane overhead.

While the women are very much in distress, Jim sets off an alarms by the road block, Major West sets out to take care of business himself, with the help of just one soldier. His comrade gets killed by Jim, who also cuts the car's wire, stranding the Major, who has to make his way back now on foot. Jim returns to the house, where he first frees one infected former soldier, that has been kept on a chain in the yard. After the infected makes it into the house, the virus takes his usual, speedy course, getting to all the soldiers (including the returning Major West) while Selena, Hannah and Jim make their escape.

Another 28 days later, the trio is settled in a house in a mountainous area. They have been working on stitching together bed linens and - in the last scene - spell out the word 'HELLO' to get the attention of the planes, passing over in regular intervals.

8/10

La jetée

In post-apocalyptic Paris, the survivors of WW III live underground. There, they experiment with time travel, hoping that in the past or future they find means to assist them in the bleak present they live in.

The scientists have a hard time finding suitable subjects to send through time. They find a prisoner, who seems perfect for the experiment, as he has what they consider an 'obsessive' memory. Most consistently he holds onto a moment from his childhood, in which he saw a woman on a peer and he has a vague memory of a man dying.

After several days of experimenting, the prisoner manages to move freely in the past, where he finds the woman from his memory again and establishes a relationship with her. Motivated by the successful travel to the past, the scientists send him to the future next. There he obtains a power unit, that he brings back with him and that enables the scientist in the present to re-generate their society.

As he is now redundant, the prisoner is to be executed. The people he met in the future offer to save him by bringing him forward to their time permanently. He instead asks to be sent back to the past he previously visited. There he finds the woman again in exactly the same context of his childhood memory. He realizes that he himself is the dying man he saw as a child, his executor was sent after him into the past.

Sounds familiar?

In 1995, Terry Gilliam retold the story in the brilliant Twelve Monkeys.

This, the original 1962 version, is brilliant in its own way. Made up almost entirely of still images (once the woman is seen blinking a few times) and told via voice-over (except for the whispered German of the scientists).

8/10

It's a Disaster

Every Sunday several couples meet for a brunch. This Sunday, however, is bound to get dramatic, because not only are the hosts about to reveal that they are getting a divorce but they also are about to share the end of the world.

There was a series of explosions of dirty bombs in town and people are urged to stay inside and board up windows and doors. Initially, they have no idea what is going on other than cable, phone reception and electricity are going out. Then the next door neighbor shows up in a protective suit and gas mask and updates them on the situation.

Before the end, however, the friends have to go over issues that have been happening within their circle in the past while trying to prepare themselves the best way they can for certain death.

The film ends with them sitting around the dinner table, each with a glass of poison in front of them and the agreement to down them all at the same time.

6/10

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World

Three weeks until asteroid 'Matilda' annihilates all life on earth. Two people meeting by chance try to help each other in tying up some loose ends.

Any charm this might have had gets sucked out by Keira Knightly.

Weirdly boring.

Nice music, though.

2/10