Tim Blair

No. That's why they have to appeal to scare tactics, their "facts" have been debunked (Starting with the "Skeptical Environmentalist"}

Media watchers unite! This movie will be the perfect lab specimen for observation of liberal media having-it-both-ways-ism. Anyone who attacks the premise will be wearily told that "it's just a movie, lighten up."

Meanwhile, viewers of network magazine shows, as well as network and local news shows, will be treated to in-depth examinations of the "science" behind the movie.

Mark my freakin' words.

Same rubbish in today's Irish Times from their environment correspondent. (The film critic was busy in Cannes praising Michael Moore.)

Same old same old no matter where you live.

The goofy thing about "The Day After" is that the original movie of that title (the nuclear holocaust under Regan, y'all might remember) used exactly the same approach. Well, no web sites way back then! But scare tactics and the double whammy attitude (as per Brian Jones) were the same. Some things never change.

The only real difference between the movies (besides nuking North America, I mean) is that the original did a decent job of portraying nuclear weapons effects, although they had to go easy on the gruesome details (being on TV and all). This latest version seems to take bad science and make it worse, from what I am reading.

Of course, Al Gore did endorse it. That alone condemns the movie to being a flop.

I think you're talking about "The Next Day," or maybe "The Day After" but your point is taken.

"The Day After Tomorrow" is also a cool (but stupid) novel about an international and all-powerful conspiracy based around - and I'm not making this up - preserving the frozen head of Adolf Hitler. I suspect that would have made a better movie.

come now, it's just a movie! why does this upset the poor little blogheads so?

Miranda seems to have given up on even trolling now.

Brian, thanks for the clarification, I get the The Day After mixed up with this newest stinker, they being so similar in concept (horrendus man made disaster, nasty presidents, human impact, violins, etc).

The storyline about putting Hiter's head on ice sounds fascinating! Stupid but cool (heh heh, pardon the icey pun, but since you missed it, I couldn't resist).

And I know who would best play the part of Hitler's head. Miranda Divide, resident blog parrot. As I said, stupid but cold........

No. There isn't any.

But they won't let that stop them.

Gore-y enviro hysteria...MoveOn.org using this "film" as a political platform... What's the deal with Murdoch being in league with the sky-is-falling Chicken Little Green types?

And, why is Putin suddenly embracing the Kyoto Accord to give it new life? Is it a geo-political move, and has he been promised by the EU that it won't be strictly enforced? Anybody know what's up?

(This disaster flick can't possibly do well without Helen Hunt running from something)

For what it's worth, the 'leaked Pentagon report' about rioting in the 7-11 slurpee queue as a result of global warming, gets yet another outing in an editorial in today's AGE. Free association by op-eds is one thing, but isn't there meant to be some sort of quality control on leader writers?

C wrote: "[w]hy is Putin suddenly embracing the Kyoto Accord to give it new life?... Anybody know what's up?"

From what I've read, the Kyoto baseline is 1990 (!!!), back when the USSR use to churn out loads of pollution from extremely primitive factories. Most are shuttered now and Russia would really have to ratchet up to match the poison they put into the air back then.

So who is Kyoto really intended to hurt? You guessed it.

On the subject of frozen Hitler body parts...From California's early '80's punk band "The Angry Samoans":

"They saved Hitler's c**k!,
They hid it under a rock,
I found it in my back yard,
Now it's starting to get hard!!!"

Oh, come now! The Kyoto Treaty has nothing to do with politics, it's about saving the Earth. Why, one would think that everyone hates America, and wants to drag it down any way possible!

[/sarcasm]

I'm starting to like the film already, and I haven't seen it. The reason? For years the media sources have been becoming more and more gullible when it comes to 'Global Warming' scenarios, making stupid statements like 'This increase in temperature in Australia... could be due to Global Warming.' Well, duh! Who would have thought that parts of the globe - um - warming - could be due to Global Warming? The reason behind these statements being, I suppose, the semi-mythical status that 'Global Warming' has already got.
Now The Day After Tomorrow has come, and the stations are swallowing its doom and gloom scenario with equal gullibility. Except now they're saying, 'What if Global Warming causes ... global cooling? Is a New Ice Age upon us? Arrrrgh, the horror!'
In other words, a silly little disaster flick is making them look like even bigger cretins than they were before.

They've already made the Frozen Hitler Head movie: it's called They Saved Hitler's Brain. I think I saw it once on Creature Feature (Saturday afternoon horror movie program that used to be shown on one of the local tv stations when I was a kid, back in pre-cable days when computers were made out of rocks and we banged stones on logs to call each other on the phone).

I saw the lead male talk about his movie on letterman last night. He himself said climate change has happened throughout history, the movie is supposed to feature another ice age, as has happened before.

Also, it's just a movie.

Which I believe I will see because that guy was funny.

Dammit, they burn books. Books I tells ya, when will it end.

And those timberwolves, kill the timberwolves now, before they escape.

And for heavens sake, haven't we been telling you righties for long enough now that those capitalists were just longing to make a shipping lane out of Fifth Avenue.

Ban Shrek 2 now!!! Quickly, before it leads to conservative electoral defeat.

Hmmmmm, SS, I think you need to wind that aluminum foil tighter on your head, and maybe cover your forehead more. That will give better protection from the Hubble Space Telescope, and make you feel better. Then perhaps you can calm down and possibly be coherent.

Nice right-knee-jerk, JeffS.

Maybe you should see the movie being discussed to beter understand the context.

Do you mean "The Day After Tomorrow", SS? It hasn't hit the theaters in my area yet. But y'know, I have some technical background, and I tend to ignore movies with bad science in them. The reviews I've read are telling enough. Besides, Al Gore endorsed it.

Of course, you could be referring to Shrek 2; I don't have any kids young enough to see it in the theater, so I'll wait for DVD.

Still, I'm game.

By burning books, are you referring to Fahrenheit 451, a bad movie but a good book? Or are the people in "The Day After Tomorrow" burning books to stay warm in the fantastically rapid new Ice Age? (Wow! What plot line!)

Of course, Fifth Avenue (New York) has been made a shipping lane before, so are you referring to Deep Impact? Or are you referring to where the tsnumai hits New York City in the latest movie?(hint, that's on the movie trailer, SS)

And since I haven't seen the movie, I'm guessing that the timber wolves come hunting humans (who are suddenly lower on the food chain). They probably enter the script when Dennis Quaid treks from Washington DC to New York to rescue his son. Perhaps the timber wolves help themselves to some members of the rescue party for lunch? (Ever hear of reviews, SS?)

Tell me, where do the timberwolves come from? The movie timeline has the ice age roaring over North America in less than a year; wolf recovery plans in the Northeast are still in infancy, and there aren't many in the region; using Yellowstone as a baseline, they have another 20 years or so to develop a viable population.

So do the few wolves in existance actually survive long enough to reach Our Hero On His Quest? Or does Hollywood play fast and footloose with the reproduction rates of wildlife? No, wait, they escape from the New York Zoo! What a brilliant plot!

OK, I give up -- I did understand the context of the movie from your rant. I was trying to understand your friggin' point, SS. If you had one, the signal was lost in the noise.

Silly Slips, you dipstick, where did anyone call for the movie to be banned?

I mean, apart from your own delusional mind?

Nowhere?

That's what I thought.

JeffS said it better than me.

*sob*

"The Day After Tomorrow" was, I believe, made by the director who previously brought us "Independence Day" and "Godzilla". Those films were also notable for their dubious scientific premise. "Independence Day" was completely wrong about the kind of propulsion system required to meet the energy needs of an invading interstellar armada of nasty bug-eyed aliens. "Godzilla" featured a king-size howler about the nesting habits of giant mutant amphibious lizard-type creatures. I don't recall anyone dumping on them for that reason. Of course, lots of people slammed them for being crappy movies, but that's a different story.

There is another consistent theme in all of these films - New York getting trashed. You have to think that the director had some kind of bad experience in NY - maybe his Wall St backers gave him some grief, or he got a series of caustic reviews from the New Yorker. Anyone besides me think that, given what the city has recently been through in real life, creating yet another fictional pulverization of the place is in somewhat dubious taste?

I think its just the orgasm some filmmakers get with destroying famous landmarks (ie White House, Statue of Liberty etc...)

What I liked about Godzilla, the American remake, was they kept losing this huge fricking monster in NYC. I mean, what the hell did Godzilla do between screen shots? Duck into the nearest tavern for a cold one and a game of pool?

I liked ID4. The plot was OK, the special effects great, but the acting made it real. There was a lot of bad science and technology in it (I spotted lots of errors even in the first sitting), but it was pushed as a wild yarn.

Godzilla was a goofy movie -- I saw it, and yawned. It had LOTS of bad science, and a mild Green view (remember, Godzilla was created by radiation from the French above ground nuclear tests in the South Pacific). But it was still a yarn.

The problem with "The Day After Tomorrow" is that it is being pushed as a political message. Not entertainment. "This is your future, people!" Hollywood once again steps into politics. Not that they can't do that, but I wished they had their science right. I suspect that all of this (political) hype is in place because the producer knows that it is a bad movie, and wants to pull in the left wingers with their BUSHITLER (TM) fixation, a la' Richard Clarke.

Quentin -- it's OK, man! I just got there before you did, that's all.

tim g:

Traditionally, Hollywood trashes and/or destroys either New York or Los Angeles in epic disaster films. I think it started with the original King Kong movie, with Kong batting bi-planes out of the sky from the top of the Empire State Building. I mean, could you imagine Godzilla scurrying around, oh, Topeka? Or Kong perched on the Space Needle in Seattle, swatting sightseers in ultralights? It boggles the mind.

And "The Day After Tomorrow" builds on that tradition. Both NYC and LA are decimated by natural disasters in the same film. Is this not original?

Hey, Quentin, you just leave those delusions of mine alone! (Though you did come off looking a bit of a dill suggesting I said anyone wanted the movie banned)

Lighten up and go watch the movie kids. I was only hinting the movie is a bit of fun.

There are numerous stupidities in it, as I hope there will be in Shrek 2!! .

Rampant timberwolves...I mean...it was as silly as it sounds. Now the situation in Haiti right now, that isn't stupid or silly.

My problem with ID4 and Stargate (after both of which I gave up on Emmerich) is the incoherence of his action sequences. You see an airship making a huge banking turn and you wait eagerly for the payoff - where's he going? what's he going to do when he comes out of that turn? what's at stake? - and it's just not there. It's just a million-dollar-per-minute representation of frantic handwaving where the director goes, "And then there's this like huge space battle!"

Sort of like an Al Gore speech, actually.

Hitler's Brain is fine but it takes a real hero to fight Hitler's Feet.

Oops, wrong link. Here ya go.

Sure love to read SS' posts. Nothing beats intellectual incoherence and condescension followed by a quick change of topic. Lefties are such a *fun* bunch.

Oh, you were hinting that the movie is fun, SS! So that's your point!

And you're probably right. I should lighten up. And I would, except that a lot of people are treating this movie way too seriously. Like, say, Algore.

Earth to SS: No one here is really taking the film seriously.

We were trashing those who [i]were[/i] taking it seriously.

Like Al Gore.

Nice change of topic though.

Hey! Sincerity Slips is very concerned about the Situation™ in Haiti. Recognize. The man cares. And you heartlessly mock him! Well, so do I, because he's a git. But a git who cares. That's got to be worth something. Right?

Right?

crickets chirping...

Naaaah. He's just a git. Next!