Watching

Thoreau in the Towel

As the Mayan Calendar ticks towards an apocalyptic finale, some filmmakers use the moment as a rallying cry. Ze Frank and crew have a better plan: Point and laugh in the face of end-times.

Mayan apocalyptic events are scheduled for 2012, giving Democrats another four years on the carousel of fear, just as the hell-ride slowed.

Documentarians Joao Amorim and Daniel Pinchbeck don't think 2012 will be the end, preferring to tug at its symbolic potential, aligning their vision with a word that has had all life battered of it: Change. Their forthcoming documentary 2012: Time For Change uses the final days of the Mayan calendar as a rallying call; fauxpocalypse is suggested as a catalyst for a global consciousness shift, an opportunity for gurus and celebrities to tell us how stupid we've been:



The Mayan calendar runs out before days before Christmas 2012. Pro-tip: Forget the pre-apocalypse supper with the family. Thoreau in the towel and head to the French Southern and Antarctic Islands. These islands are about as far as you can get from Mexico--where the apocalypse will begin, we assume. Leave soon, and avoid years of talk about about global cultures, Gaia, and tipping points; it's the rhetoric that frightens me much more than snowman, zombie, or monkey apocalyptic scenarios. Book now!

I'm blindly optimistic that something will be done to deal with Climate Change. Ze Frank and crew discover that the apocalypse isn't so bad in the unaired pilot for their post-apocalypse show, The Remnants.



Rather than fight climate change apocalypse, I first pledge my money to help fund a full series of The Remnants. That's hope we can believe in--something worthy of being broadcast into space--the final testament to a planet's unstinting resolve to always see the funny side.
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TMN Editor Mike Deri Smith is no gourmet, he just has an abnormally large stomach. He lives in London. More by Mike Deri Smith

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