the night after the day after tomorrow
Well, it was pretty much what I expected. The Day After Tomorrow was your basic disaster flick, à la Armageddon, Deep Impact, The Core, and Independence Day. Per usual, science is set aside to make way for suspensful plots and in-your-face special effects. In TDAT, though, the "science" is pretty well stretched to the limit. But the director, Roland Emmerich, admits that he just took the basic idea of global warming and ran with it to make a point. The point -- which is clearly stated by the Dick-Cheney-look-alike vice president at the end of the movie, delivering a message on television so that the end effect is him preaching directly to the audience -- sadly, will probably work on the typical movie-goer, who will walk away thinking the next ice age really could come in three days.
Then again, perhaps I underestimate the movie-going public and they'll realize that it's typical Hollywood disaster-flick sensationalized fiction, and just a vehicle for some cool special effects. I don't deny that global warming may be a serious threat (it's so hard to tell, when you have so much bias on all sides of the debate and so-called "data" spewing from every political and scientific organization on the planet), but this movie makes a mockery of the real issues behind it. The vice president is extrapolated to a ridiculous extent, even so much as to refuse to evacuate what's left of the United States population to the southern hemisphere when it's the only option left because it would cost too much money. Yeah, ok, we got the point, you don't like the Bush administration, they're all bumbling idiots; could we move on to the next city destruction, please? <popcorn>
However, from reading reviews and summaries on the web, I pretty much knew all that going in. I was willing to forgive any sensationalized science or hyperbolized politics and just sit back in the fourth row and enjoy some good ol' natural disasters. I thought The Core was one of the better ones, as the director made a point of developing likeable characters, although he did delve into the nerd stereotype of the skinny awkward genius hacker who can magically fix (or break) anything electronic. Deep Impact was cool too, as the plot was at least somewhat believeable, and I just loved that shot of the face of the Statue of Liberty crashing down on the street underwater (when seen on a big screen from the second row of the theater)
But in TDAT, the disaster sequences weren't really anything that special. We've seen the destruction of New York City many times before, although this did include Los Angeles for a change. Those can all be seen, by the way, in the two trailers available on the official TDAT web site. Once you've seen those, you've pretty much seen the extent of the best parts of the movie as far as visual effects go. I know large, populated cities make for better destruction (heck, that's part of the fun of playing SimCity 2000: destroying a well-built city), but it still would've been interesting to see what was happening in less-populated areas as well -- small Midwestern towns? The Sahara? The Rocky Mountains?
*However*, I still think it was worth the $6.00 (hurrah for matinee prices). On a huge screen, and up close as I was, it's still fun to watch, as with any disaster movie. It comes with its share of disaster flick suspense as well, and so long as you leave your sense of reality and politics at the door, you'll have a good time.
Oh, and I should mention, I noticed a continuity goof for the first time. I even submitted it to IMDB since it wasn't yet listed on their goofs page for TDAT. Another one I noticed was already listed: "In the aerial view of the tidal wave flooding New York, we can actually see the cars being swept away in the bottom right of the screen even before the wave hit them." This could possibly be reasoned away by saying that the wave was moving so quickly, it was pushing so much air ahead that the cars flipped over before the wave hit. However, my guess is that was not the intention, and it was in fact a mistake. But the one I submitted was this: "When Jack draws a red line on a map of the United States, the line later changes. The first time, it crosses part of southern Ohio, but in the next shot, it clearly does not go through in Ohio; in a third shot, the line looks different yet again, and still does not go through Ohio." It should be on IMDB's page in 7-10 days once they verify it. I usually don't notice continuity goofs, but this one I noticed simply because I was looking at my home state on the map.
Edited to add: For some reason, it really bugged me how much exposed skin there was. I don't remember exactly what New York City's temperature was supposed to be, but I remember -150° F being mentioned at some point. And there was plenty of wind. So then people just remove their scarves to say something to someone, or lose a glove here and there... um, shouldn't your fingers be turning red and purple and green and falling off right about now? Cripes. Also, the scene where the eye of the storm plunges NYC into glacial temperatures was downright comical -- the image of frost and ice following the kids through the hallways of the library and *gasp!* they make it back to the room with the fireplace just in the nick of time! Mwahahaha, the ice has COME ALIVE!!!!!1 Oh please.
Next comes the PowerMac 8500 that served as my mom's computer until I bought the PowerBook and bequeathed her the iMac. Even at a mere 180 MHz, it works remarkably well for e-mail, web surfing, and word processing (Epson's printer drivers tax it a bit, but that's to be expected from Epson). I even installed a USB 1.1 card in a PCI slot so she could use one of those keychain drives. Right now, the 8500 and its monitor are just taking up space in my room, and I have no use for either of them, so I'd gladly give them away if someone would take them. Otherwise, it'll just be given to the county on the next computer recycling day.
Then there's the Mac Classic II. It really can't serve any useful purpose -- other than to be gutted and turned into a 
