The Day Before the Day After Tomorrow

Jarkko and I got to see a sneak preview of The Day After Tomorrow last night courtesy of a green party candidate, Satu Hassi, who raffled the tickets off on her website. What made the event more interesting than the average movie was that she invited 2 professors to speak after the movie and answer questions from the audience. Someone, of course, asked the meteorologist how they can predict weather in 50 years when they get the daily forecast wrong so often. :) The movie gives you a lot to think about if you can see beyond the Hollywood effects and it was strangely comforting to have a couple of people who spend their lives studying this very subject discuss how realistic they think the story is. While they both seemed to think it wasn't a likely scenario, they didn't say it was impossible. Their models seem to indicate drought and famine in India along with dramatic warming and coastal flooding instead. Given the choice, perhaps being flash-frozen is a better way to go. Wouldn't it be fun to have the oil reserves depleted about the same time? I knew I was screwed years ago when I got that fortune cookie with a may you live in interesting times message.

I won't offer any spoilers, but there are a couple of intensely gratifying parts of the movie like the random storm in LA that takes out the entire city. There's apocalyptic goodness for the people of England, too. :) I was annoyed with the terribly predictable boy gets the girl, the dog survives and everyone has a happy ending features, but much of the movie does try to get your attention by taking a plausible, albeit very unlikely, scenario without overdoing it more than necessary. The idea that only folks south of the Mason-Dixon line in the US survive is also a bit too depressing to contemplate. Well, at least Florida was swallowed by the sea before the golf carts could escape. I think watching this movie helped me pinpoint why I have loved apocalyptic and dystopian movies and books for almost all of my life; adversity forces people to drop the bullshit and concentrate on one thing, survival. I'm still rooting for the planet, but there is the slightest sliver of hope that maybe humanity will smarten up sometime soon. I'm a dreamer, I know. It's a good movie that is best watched with a big box of popcorn and a beer or three afterwards. Prepare.