Show Notes

[Editor’s note: This podcast episode was recorded over the summer, before the recent hurricanes impacting areas in the southern U.S. The Archdiocese of Detroit offers its prayers for all those impacted and invites the faithful to visit catholiccharitiesusa.org to learn about ways to help.]

On this episode of Cinema Verbi, Fr. Brian and Fr. Matt talk about Twisters, a standalone sequel to the 1996 summer blockbuster, Twister. The duo discusses the film’s parallels to the Book of Job and the importance of looking for God in the “storms” of life and facing challenges with faith, humility, and charity. They close the episode with a game of Tempest of the Two Testaments, testing Fr. Matt’s knowledge of biblical plagues, earthquakes, and whirlwinds. Editor’s note: The conversation includes major spoilers from throughout the film.

(0:26) Fr. Matt and Fr. Brian greet each other and share the most recent movie they’ve seen. Both movies are sequels: Inside Out 2 (Fr. Matt) and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Fr. Brian). They note the prevalence today of remakes and sequels, with fewer original stories being told. They segue into introducing the film for this episode: Twisters, fittingly a standalone sequel to the 1996 summer blockbuster, Twister. 

(8:39) Fr. Brian recalls seeing the original Twister at a drive-in theater and being terrified by the scene in which a drive-in theater is destroyed by a tornado. They lay out the plot of the film, which follows a woman named Kate Cooper who is grieving the loss of her friends in a previous storm. Our hosts pause to discuss previous movies that have featured the stars of Twisters, including Clue, Home Alone 2, Titanic, and Top Gun: Maverick. 

(16:31) Fr. Brian points out some thematic parallels between Twisters and the Old Testament’s Book of Job, with both stories raising the question of evil–or why bad things happen to good people. Fr. Brian also sees in Twisters a glimpse of the scriptural lesson to look for God even in the storms of life, learning from those experiences to help others.

(21:32) Our hosts talk about how the characters in the film try to tame the tornadoes and save lives–although some have additional motivations driving their research. Fr. Brian and Fr. Matt look at the “man vs. nature” theme of the film, in which the characters learn as much as they can about the tornadoes in order to harness and control their destructive power. Finally, Fr. Brian and Fr. Matt see in Kate’s reluctance to go home to Oklahoma a reflection of the theological idea of exitus et reditus, in which everything comes from God (exitus), turns away from God, and ultimately returns to God in some way (reditus).

(33:03) Fr. Brian challenges Fr. Matt to a game of Tempest of the Two Testaments, quizzing him on the biblical plagues, the story of Elijah, earthquakes in the Gospel of St. Matthew, Jesus calming the storm at sea, and the storm that shipwrecked St. Paul. They then close the episode by each giving the film a “seeds of the word” rating, based on how clearly they saw goodness, truth, and beauty reflected in the story.