What would you do if the end of the world was scheduled for tomorrow at 11.30 a.m? Apocalyptic visions have always fascinated mankind, never before has a date in history been so significant to so many cultures and religions. Now the common fear is fuelled by “2012”, the blockbuster by German director Roland Emmerich which was launched in November last year. Having risen to fame with “Independence Day” and “Godzilla”, the “master of disaster” has now completed his magnum opus with visual effects to shake your senses: blow-ups and bloodbaths, earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis, even whole continents falling apart. A breathless John Cusack finds himself in a sick world in which only those who pay can escape. The end leaves everyone who claimed to have “been there” or “done that” devastated.
However, all those stars, has-beens and would-bes attending the premiere night recovered all too quickly from the shock, and the question of all questions no longer concerned the end of mankind, but another deeply human fear which is “Is my hair okay?” What a relief that comedian Oliver Kalkofe, renowned for his hilarious parodies of the vanity fair that is German television, was there to comment on the last day of his existence: “Contrary to most other people who spend their lives fearing the future, I would certainly not panic,” says Kalkofe. “I’d be spending a Sunday watching all this crap on commercial television. And then I’d say to myself: Okay, it’s the end of the world. And we deserve it.”
Sabine from Germany