Roland Emmerich

Roland Emmerich was promoting his 1994 hit science-fiction movie "Stargate" when a reporter posed a question: Did he believe in space aliens? When the easygoing German director answered that he did not, the reporter became indignant. "How can you make a movie like 'Stargate' and not believe in aliens?" he asked. "I believe in fantasy," Emmerich replied. "I believe in the great 'What if?' What if aliens showed up?

A statue of William Shakespeare in the playwright's hometown of Stratford-Upon-Avon was covered by a sheet Tuesday in protest; a debate enlivened a New York cultural festival; American university campuses have played host to surprisingly prickly encounters between professors and filmmakers. "One professor in Berkeley called us 'characters,'" said Roland Emmerich, the movie director at the center of the controversy. Emmerich's film, "Anonymous," depicts Shakespeare, played by Rafe Spall, as a barely literate actor providing a front for a brilliant nobleman, Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford (Rhys Ifans)

"Welcome to the People's Republic of China," declares an officer of the People's Liberation Army as he crisply salutes an American novelist (played by John Cusack) who has just fled the United States, which -- like much of the world -- has been destroyed by an environmental catastrophe. It is a line that has thrilled thousands of Chinese filmgoers who have made writer-director Roland Emmerich's "2012" among the most popular Hollywood films of all time on the Chinese mainland. The plot has helped: In Emmerich's ("Independence Day," "The Day After Tomorrow")

"Welcome to the People's Republic of China," declares an officer of the People's Liberation Army as he crisply salutes an American novelist (played by John Cusack) who has just fled the United States, which -- like much of the world -- has been destroyed by an environmental catastrophe. It is a line that has thrilled thousands of Chinese filmgoers who have made writer-director Roland Emmerich's "2012" among the most popular Hollywood films of all time on the Chinese mainland. The plot has helped: In Emmerich's ("Independence Day," "The Day After Tomorrow")

Roland Emmerich has destroyed Los Angeles twice before -- twisters razed the city in "The Day After Tomorrow" and aliens did the honors in "Independence Day" -- but those mondo-destructo efforts pale in comparison to the way Emmerich bids goodbye to Hollywood in his latest apocalyptic nightmare, "2012." Taken from an extremely pessimistic reading of the Mayan calendar, "2012" is a Noah's Ark story that sees the end of the world as we know it, including a 10.9 earthquake that sends Southern California sliding into the sea. There is one shard of hope, though: Apparently, it is possible, if you drive fast enough, to make it from Brentwood to the Santa Monica Airport during the Big One and leave on a jet plane before being swallowed into the earth.

There's spirited debate about whether the ancient Maya calendar really predicts much of anything, particularly the world's end in three years. But there's little argument in Hollywood about the accuracy of an even more significant doomsday forecast: "2012" is going to be a blockbuster. Ever since director Roland Emmerich's apocalyptic thriller landed on pre-release audience surveys last Thursday, "2012" and its positive prospects have become a hot topic among movie marketing executives.

Film festival: Roland Emmerich, the director of "Independence Day" and "The Day After Tomorrow," will head the jury at the Berlin Film Festival in February.

Have we lost our appetite for cinematic destruction -- for watching our world shatter into smithereens? I ask because in two of his previous films, "Independence Day" and "Godzilla," Roland Emmerich laid waste to the world -- leveling its great cities and zapping the White House -- with the unbounded glee of a rampaging puppy.

Louis C.K . : Ask almost any comic who's the best stand-up working today and this balding redhead with no internal filter will most likely top their list. A longtime collaborator with Chris Rock, C.K. earned an Emmy for last year's concert "Chewed Up," a dark and vulgar journey through marriage and family life that's as uncomfortably honest as it is hysterical. If you liked Carlin and Pryor, you'll love Louis C.K. 'Friday Night Lights' : At the request of several friends we finally tried the first season of this NBC series, and now we're so hooked we have to somehow absorb two more seasons before the show returns Oct. 28. Seriously, you don't have to be a fan of football or small-town Texas to get into this show; all you need to enjoy is terrific acting, writing and cinematography to team with one of the best shows on TV. Small-plate dining : One of the side effects of our recession has been a resurgence in sampler-sized dining options for lower prices than ordinarily found on a white tablecloth.

As the monster besieges New York City in "Godzilla," a television anchor gives a play-by-play of the destruction. He reports that looters have created bedlam on "pricey Fifth Avenue," pillaging the Disney and Warner Bros. stores. It's one of the more subtle inside jokes of this outsized movie, if one knows that "Godzilla's" studio, Sony, failed at the studio store game (it shuttered its Sony retail store in New York a couple of years ago).

Roland Emmerich has destroyed Los Angeles twice before -- twisters razed the city in "The Day After Tomorrow" and aliens did the honors in "Independence Day" -- but those mondo-destructo efforts pale in comparison to the way Emmerich bids goodbye to Hollywood in his latest apocalyptic nightmare, "2012." Taken from an extremely pessimistic reading of the Mayan calendar, "2012" is a Noah's Ark story that sees the end of the world as we know it, including a 10.9 earthquake that sends Southern California sliding into the sea. There is one shard of hope, though: Apparently, it is possible, if you drive fast enough, to make it from Brentwood to the Santa Monica Airport during the Big One and leave on a jet plane before being swallowed into the earth.

There's spirited debate about whether the ancient Maya calendar really predicts much of anything, particularly the world's end in three years. But there's little argument in Hollywood about the accuracy of an even more significant doomsday forecast: "2012" is going to be a blockbuster. Ever since director Roland Emmerich's apocalyptic thriller landed on pre-release audience surveys last Thursday, "2012" and its positive prospects have become a hot topic among movie marketing executives.

Louis C.K . : Ask almost any comic who's the best stand-up working today and this balding redhead with no internal filter will most likely top their list. A longtime collaborator with Chris Rock, C.K. earned an Emmy for last year's concert "Chewed Up," a dark and vulgar journey through marriage and family life that's as uncomfortably honest as it is hysterical. If you liked Carlin and Pryor, you'll love Louis C.K. 'Friday Night Lights' : At the request of several friends we finally tried the first season of this NBC series, and now we're so hooked we have to somehow absorb two more seasons before the show returns Oct. 28. Seriously, you don't have to be a fan of football or small-town Texas to get into this show; all you need to enjoy is terrific acting, writing and cinematography to team with one of the best shows on TV. Small-plate dining : One of the side effects of our recession has been a resurgence in sampler-sized dining options for lower prices than ordinarily found on a white tablecloth.

As far as writer-director Roland Emmerich is concerned, the Ice Age is a state of mind. Refusing to be tied down by either sense or sensibility, his "10,000 BC" is as crazy as it wants to be, plundering the past and other movies with that peculiar Hollywood combination of the earnest and the preposterous that can result in the guiltiest of guilty pleasures. Outrageous and outlandish, Emmerich's "10,000 BC" is easy to mock, but it is so cheerfully shameless and terminally silly -- who knew that woolly mammoths were used to build the pyramids?

HE'S hardly as well known as Steven Spielberg and doesn't command nearly the respect of John Lasseter. But when it comes to cranking out consistent $100-million hits, few directors can match the track record of Roland Emmerich. Over the last 12 years, the German filmmaker has made four big-budget movies, and on average they have grossed $185 million. Emmerich's biggest hit, 1996's "Independence Day," grossed $50.2 million in its first U.S. weekend, eventually taking in more than $300 million.

When producers Roland Emmerich and Rosilyn Heller set out to make the film "Trade," a harrowing account of an international sex-trafficking ring, they knew there would be obstacles to overcome. First, questions were raised about the source material for the movie: a 2004 New York Times Magazine exposé on sex trafficking whose author, Peter Landesman, found himself defending his five-month investigation from critics in the blogosphere.

Godzilla, that gigantic mutant amphibian reptile, is back, bigger and much better than ever, cutting a swath of destruction from Polynesia through Panama and on to Manhattan, where he threatens to trample the entire island with his 140-foot strides. The Brooklyn Bridge crumbles as if it were a toy and Manhattan landmarks get rearranged and lopped off in an effort to contain the monster, whose size defies comprehension.

As far as writer-director Roland Emmerich is concerned, the Ice Age is a state of mind. Refusing to be tied down by either sense or sensibility, his "10,000 BC" is as crazy as it wants to be, plundering the past and other movies with that peculiar Hollywood combination of the earnest and the preposterous that can result in the guiltiest of guilty pleasures. Outrageous and outlandish, Emmerich's "10,000 BC" is easy to mock, but it is so cheerfully shameless and terminally silly -- who knew that woolly mammoths were used to build the pyramids?

Film festival: Roland Emmerich, the director of "Independence Day" and "The Day After Tomorrow," will head the jury at the Berlin Film Festival in February.

Have we lost our appetite for cinematic destruction -- for watching our world shatter into smithereens? I ask because in two of his previous films, "Independence Day" and "Godzilla," Roland Emmerich laid waste to the world -- leveling its great cities and zapping the White House -- with the unbounded glee of a rampaging puppy.