This film is not directed by Roland Emmerich

I still have a vivid memory from my senior year of college, of this one time I was confronted with the prospect of starting over an important paper from the very beginning. I guess the memory is not vivid enough for me to remember what the paper was about, but I do remember that about halfway through the writing -- and it was a long one -- I confronted the reality that it was not going as I had hoped. I could forge on with my current wrong trajectory, which is probably what I would have done nine times out of ten. Doing anything else was just too awful. Or, I could opt for that tenth time and bravely start over, to see if I could get it right the second time. I'm proud to say that I did start over and that I got an A on the paper. The other paper would most certainly not have been an A.

The reason I'm reminded of this was because of a similar, though far lower stakes episode last night. I had to start over my review of Geostorm because it was based on the false assumption that the movie was directed by Roland Emmerich. In fact, it was directed by Emmerich's old partner, Dean Devlin.

I discovered this at about 12:50 a.m., when I was giving the piece a last polish before submitting it, so my editor could run it first thing Friday morning.

So much for that.

It's too bad because I really liked my opening two paragraphs:


Few directors strive to rise above their directorial typecasting more poignantly than Roland Emmerich. When fellow schlockmeister Michael Bay tries to do that, it’s always a thinly veiled version of his usual bombast. But Emmerich really takes it in another direction. These efforts have been either reasonably well received (the Shakespeare unmasking movie Anonymous) or not reasonably well received (the gay rights history Stonewall), but they always result in the studio coming back to Emmerich and saying “Nope. Now go direct Geostorm.”

And direct Geostorm Emmerich has. Unfortunately, it also seems to be a thumb in the eye of those studios. It may be crediting Emmerich with too much control over the finer qualities of his schlock, but this seems just about the most by-the- numbers possible version of his brand of global apocalypse film, of which he has made about seven.


The blatant falsehood that opens the second paragraph is a humorous reminder of how wrong my assumptions were. I tried to get smart by writing the opening paragraph of my review before I'd even seen the movie, something I rarely do, but something that is possible if you plan to start only with overview and state nothing of substance in your opening words. The value of which can certainly be debated. I did it this time because I knew I was going to get home late and wanted to get a head start on the writing. In fact, I brought my computer with me and wrote most of the review on the tram ride home.

I might have been able to re-jigger those opening two paragraphs even at just before 1 a.m. last night if I hadn't also continued to make references to the man who did not direct Geostorm throughout the rest of the review. It was one reference too many. So I tabled the corrections for my morning break today.

And as it happened, my editor posted the thing so quickly that it was up on the site by my lunchtime anyway.

The same courage to start over was not required as it was in college, but it made me think of that story, and then I told you that story, and we are all better people for it.

And if you want to see what I thought of Geostorm, here is that post that is now up on the web for your perusal.

In short: I wish Roland Emmerich had directed it.