Disaster Movies and Family Harmony

michael berube wrestles with "popular culture": invasion of the marriage disaster flicks: so janet and i saw war of the worlds last night, a movie we wanted to see precisely because it has no emotional content whatsoever. we were pleased, however, to find out that (and i think i’m paraphrasing a reviewer here, but i can’t remember which one) a brutal alien invasion will get tom cruise back in touch with his children (dakota fanning and justin chatwin). i suppose there’s more to say about the film, particularly about tim robbins’s bizarre appearance as himself in Mystic River (apparently he’s now ready to re-enact the child molestation in the basement bit, this time with himself as the molester). but what janet and i wanted to know, as we left the theate...