Tybout: No business like snow business

Sometimes, people — especially Pitt students — need a little chaos in their… Sometimes, people — especially Pitt students — need a little chaos in their lives. Last week, the snow provided such a favor.

I, for one, can safely say that Snowpocalypse 2010 was the most enjoyable “disaster” of which I’ve been a victim in a long time — sled riding, waking up late and a general deterioration of routine made me wish society could slip into this sort of gentle anarchy more often.

But barring a third snowstorm anytime soon, I’ll have to live vicariously, as usual, through movies. Thankfully, Hollywood’s managed to craft enough snow-smothered doomsday scenarios to keep me satisfied until the summer squalls and tornadoes roll around. To fellow anarchists, I present, in no particular order, the best Snowpocalyptic movies I’ve seen.

1) “The Thing” (1982). John Carpenter’s horror fest made me afraid of a lot of things — dogs, scientists, people that are actually alien parasites — but it just wouldn’t be as creepy if it was set in Maryland, say, rather than the coldest place on Earth. From the desolate opening shots of Antarctica to the climactic blizzard that leaves the team stranded, the cold is the second villain — the alien’s accomplice in ensuring no one makes it out alive.

2) “Groundhog Day” (1993). Bill Murray plays a Pittsburgh weatherman who, by virtue of a snowstorm, gets stranded in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, and subsequently, a time loop — one that’s eerily similar to last week’s cycle of school cancellations. In this film, the cold is both an antagonist and Murray’s saving grace — if it wasn’t for that storm, he might never have changed his ways and hooked up with Andie MacDowell.

3) “The Day After Tomorrow” (2004). Okay, so maybe this isn’t a great movie, or even a good movie, but I’ve included it because it takes the notion of “cold as a villain” to new literal heights — at the end of the film (spoiler alert, I guess) the cold actually chases characters down a hallway. It’s a climax both ridiculous and compulsively entertaining, and, if nothing else, it certainly beats Mark Wahlberg running away from angry wind in “The Happening.”

4) “Star Wars: Episode V — The Empire Strikes Back” (1980). Skywalker and friends braved many hostile planets in their galaxy-spanning adventures, and my favorite was Hoth, the small, bleak ice world seemingly locked in a perpetual blizzard. And as if a face-off with an abominable snowman wasn’t thrilling enough, Lucas sets the planet’s frigid backdrop as the stage for the most epic battle of the series.

6) “The Edge” (1997). There are badass movies, and then there are movies that make badass movies seem like “The Notebook.” “The Edge” is of the latter variety. When a plane carrying Anthony Hopkins, Alec Baldwin and Harold Perrineau (Michael from “Lost”) crash-lands into the remote slopes of Alaska, the three men must fend for their lives as nature closes in. Winter weather, raging rapids and, most famously, a gigantic, super-intelligent grizzly bear make this film a frigid testosterone fest.

7) “Into the Wild” (2007). An all-time favorite of mine, Sean Penn’s true-life story of a boy who ventures into the Alaskan wilderness and dies, captures the north in its bipolar essence — both beautiful and terrible. Adventurers be warned.

8) “Fargo” (1996). While the Coen Brothers have had a long and illustrious career, “Fargo” — a tale of murder in the whitewashed northern Midwest — remains, to me, their most memorable for three reasons: the instantly likeable protagonist (Frances McDormand), the wood chipper scene (watch it), and the iconic setting. There’s something about barren landscapes that makes for wickedly good camera shots. A classic.