Opened: 12/14/1979

Don't mistake this movie for the stormy special-effects blockbuster of the same name; the two films are light years apart. Based on Mary Robison's novel Oh!, this Twister was the quirky first feature from screenwriter/director Michael Almereyda (Nadja, The Eternal) about an eccentric soda-pop tycoon and his dysfunctional family. Suzy Amis plays Maureen Cleveland, a single mother who lives with her precocious daughter Violet (Lindsay Christman) and her very strange brother Howdy (Crispin Glover) in the family mansion, tended by the young live-in housekeeper Lola (Charlaine Woodward). Maureen's ex-boyfriend Chris (Violet's father) comes back to town with the intention of rescuing Maureen and Violet from Kansas so they can start a family of their own. This turns out to be more difficult than he expected. Maureen is still angry about their break-up and seems unresponsive to his earnest and somewhat clumsy displays of affection. Howdy is too busy writing nonsensical songs and hanging out with his new girlfriend St

Bill Paxton, Helen Hunt and Carey Elwes may be billed as the stars of Twister, but the film's real attractions are the cyclones themselves. Best experienced in a theater, the nail-biting, blow-the-audience-out-of-their-seats computer generated graphics, cutting edge sound and other special effects are designed to take viewers straight into the roaring funnel of a gigantic tornado. In order to focus on special effects and action, the story is simple and the characters are drawn in broad strokes with little depth. Jo Harding (Hunt) became a storm chaser (a meteorologist who photographs and scientifically studies tornadoes in the field) after a large twister sucked her hapless daddy into oblivion when she was a girl. Bill (Paxton) was a storm chaser too, but left to become a successful weatherman. His change of profession ruined his marriage to Jo. Before separating, the Hardings invented DOROTHY, a gizmo designed to release thousands of tiny sensors when a tornado passes over it. The Hardings hope the informati