Diani & Devine Meet the Apocalypse

Why is it, whenever hollywood envisions the apocalypse, it's always people walking around in the desert? As soon as civilization collapses, all Californians head for that long, lonely highway. It's always in Nevada or Arizona. That's where they decide they should be. I mean, what about the Pacific Northwest? Or Montana? Or Florida? Or Appalachia? Someplace with trees? And fish and game? And fresh water?

This movie is probably a good fit for the entertainment crowd, people who love stage shows, singing and dancing numbers, vaudeville, that sort of thing. But for the rest of us it's just an occasionally funny movie that's apparently meant to be an admission that California liberals are pretty weak, for the most part.

Five out of ten, it made me laugh quite a few times.

Cute, funny, currently relative. Smartly goofy, well-written and directed disaster film. If you need to laugh at the world right now (summer 2020), this is a good one to go with.

Really enjoyed this movie! Funny, well acted, lots of off the wall characters. And yes, the ending might be a little goofy, but all in all was a cool movie. Worth a watch!

I streamed Diani & Devine Meet the Apocalypse after enjoying Gabriel Diani and Etta Devine's first movie, the horror-comedy The Selling which I checked out from the local library. Diani & Devine Meet the Apocalypse delighted audiences at small indie movie festivals and it's easy to see why. It's one of those comical oddity gems, the type that you sometimes find distributed by Fox Searchlight pictures. Too bad this movie hasn't had the same kind of exposure. It begins by roasting the Hollywood star-making machine (maybe why it hasn't been distributed more widely) before it parodies those us-against-them apocalyptic survival flicks. It's all done with a clever script, fine acting and sharp editing. You'll want to watch it more than once to make sure you catch all the jokes.

Starting with a comedic performance piece, what follows is predictable series of unfortunate events back-dropped with lots of jabs against the brutal superficiality of Hollywood, the perils of survival scenarios ensemble coaster is one absurd raucous after another. A refreshingly different take on staying the course with light-hearted humor in the face of mortal dangers.