It is now the time of the year when we should all be gathering around the fireplace, because very soon, that will be our only source of warmth — seeing as how the world as we know it will come to a crashing halt once the ball drops. The End is near. So what better to do than to fire up that generator in the fallout shelter and bunker down to watch some great (and not-so-great) disaster and doomsday films! Cheers and Happy New Year!

To address our fears on whether or not we will lose electric power, you should watch the mildly entertaining Trigger Effect. Kyle MacLachlan, Elisabeth Shue, and Dermot Mulroney are three people whose lives become forever changed when the lights go down in the city. When a massive power outage hits, people are left to their own devices, often with nefarious and costly results. The film, written and directed by David Koepp (the well done Stir of Echoes and writer of, among other scripts, Mission Impossible, Jurassic Park, and Men In Black) cops out here limiting his focus on what could have been something much more engaging. Yes, we know we rely on electricity way too much. Thanks for the news.

Who can forget the One-Two punch of Volcano and Dante’s Peak? If you are lucky, you did forget them. But sometimes there is something to be said for pure drivel that is put up there on the screen (at disgusting budgets) purely to entertain the populist side in all of us. As for which one is better, Volcano or Dante’s Peak, please don’t draw me into that debate. Volcano, in case you have the two masterpieces confused, is the one with Tommy Lee Jones and Anne Heche single handedly trying to contain a massive volcano and lava flow in downtown Los Angeles. (With all the troubles L.A. has, I’m surprised anyone noticed there was something out of the ordinary happening!) The crisis brings Tommy and Anne closer to their inner-selves, each other and the lava. Dante’s Peak is the story of James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) and Sarah, the Terminator’s target, (Linda Hamilton) who come together to battle a mean volcano that becomes shaken, not stirred, when it reawakens. These two intrepid souls (he’s a vulcanologist, she a mayor) brave burning embers and bad lines driving a sport utility vehicle that drives through molten lava to try to save the day. Absolute hokum played to the nth degree, but kinda, sorta, guilty fun. (Don’t tell anyone I said that though. I have a reputation to uphold here.)

Perhaps we should go back a little. Back to a time when big hammy disaster movies were all the rage. The 1970s. While the ’70s were a great period for American cinema (think Scorcese and Coppola just to name two forces), it was also a time for big budget overblown disaster puffs like The Poseidon Adventure, The Towering Inferno, and Earthquake. Poseidon is worth the viewing just to see actors like Gene Hackman, Shelley Winters, Ernest Borgnine, Stella Stevens, Red Buttons, Leslie Nielsen, and Roddy McDowall try to act well while floating in water and spouting lines like, "I’m going next. So if ole’ fat ass gets stuck, I won’t get stuck behind her!" You tell ’em! In Earthquake, Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner, and George Kennedy stand on shaky ground as they try to stay alive during an … earthquake. Another one of Irwin Allen’s star-studded (O.J. Simpson, Steve McQueen, Dabney Coleman, William Holden, Fred Astaire, Richard Chamberlain, and many, many, many more), disaster films, Inferno keeps its cast crackling and sizzling up in this hot hit.

Just take some of these movies home this week and enjoy the mayhem, destruction, confusion, panic, suffering, calamity and oh-the-humanity, so that if something happens for real, it might not seem so bad compared to these scenarios.

If you are still looking for more titles to complement the end of the world, try:

The Rapture: Michael Tolkin’s unnerving portrait of a naughty woman (Mimi Rogers) who has gone born-again just in time for the rapture to hit. Worth watching, especially to see Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) in one of his early roles. (This was the first pairing of these two actors, later together on the "X-Files.") It is a gutsy film that doesn’t shy away from being religiously controversial.

Mad Max: Everyone’s favorite post-apocalyptic action here, Mel Gibson rides around in those funky cars kicking the collective asses of those mean jerks who want to control everything. Shame on them.

Twister: It blows. (But good effects!)

Strange Days: Kathryn Bigelow’s opus about the end of the millennium society and their use of virtual reality drugs that can kill. Interesting film, a step away from the normal.

War Games: The post-Hal granddaddy of recent computer-glitch techno-thrillers about a boy (Matthew Broderick) who on his day off, practically starts global thermonuclear warfare with the help of Ally Sheedy. (She got detention for that, hence The Breakfast Club. One big circle of life.)

Postman/Waterworld: Kevin Costner’s vanity pieces about him and how he saves humanity. Subtle, real subtle.

Other Recent & Noteworthy Video Releases:

Dick: Much funnier than you would think. Wrongly marketed towards young teen girls, this film is for all of us who remember or at least know something about what happened with Watergate and Nixon. It’s Romy and Michelle go to the White House. Clever and funny.

Mickey Blue Eyes: Hugh Grant and James Caan star in this humorous take on the fish out of water (a Brit in a mob family) story. Some good laughs throughout.

American Pie: One of this years best films! If you are 18.

Pimps Up Ho’s Down: Actually, I didn’t see this documentary about pimps and their Ho’s, but the title alone gets my vote.