Roland Emmerich's latest disaster jamboree, "2012," may be the first movie to have been inspired, at least indirectly, by the teachings of Mother Angelica. Before the release of Martin Scorsese's "The Last Temptation of Christ," Mother A., the carved-apple-face puppet of the far Catholic right's EWTN (Eternal World Television Network), warned what would happen if that movie found its way into theaters: "Caleefornia's gonna break off and fall into the ocean!"
And by golly, it may have taken a few years, but in Emmerich's vision, she was right. "2012," which takes place in the very year designated by the Mayans and a bunch of other ancient folk as the one in which the world will end, is a virtual field day of destruction: The streets of Los Angeles buckle into shardlike ribbons before falling off the face of the earth altogether, carrying all those godless dealmakers and cellphone-talkers with it. St. Peter's Basilica cracks and shatters like a Wal-Mart Christmas bauble hit with a hammer. Brazil's Christ the Redeemer statue unceremoniously breaks into chunks and falls to the ground -- not even Jesus himself is any match for the massive shifting of the earth's crust that has occurred because the sun suddenly just got too goddamn hot.
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