The word around the campfire is that Lee Isaac Chung‘s Twisters (which I haven’t seen) is CG jizz whizz, and certainly isn’t as good as Jan De Bont Twister (’96).

All these years I’ve had moderately positive recollections of De Bont’s 28-year-old film but they’ve faded somewhat, so I re-watched it last night. Bing-bang, bop-bop-a-loo-bop….bonnng!!…I clapped, I laughed, I chuckled, I whoo-whoo’ed, I hoo-hahed…yes!

Twister is just a goofball popcorn thrill ride, sure, but it’s much, much better than I’d come to recall. Excellent cinematography (tracking shots!), clever-ass dialogue (Michael Crichton and Anne–Marie Martin wrote it), primitive but thrilling CGI, first-rate performances (HeLen Hunt, Bill Paxton, Jamie Gertz, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Cary Elwes), etc.

I’m sorry but on its own shameless, fuck-all terms Twister really works. Escapist movies were so much better in the ’90s than they are today. Watching it made me feel like a pig in shit. It made me go “maaaahhhh!”