kpduty

The Day After Tomorrow was the spoonful of sprinkles on top of an evening that left me wishing it was the day after tomorrow. This has nothing to do with the movie, but I must share that The Husband and I went on another of our trademarked Dollar Movie and Taco Bell dates, and not only did the movie suck ass but the guy working the pick-up window at The Border tried to pick-up me. While my husband was sitting next to me in the car. He fondled my hand as he gave me my change. And then he was so preoccupied with Rico Suaving me that he forgot to give us some of our food, necessitating a trip inside. AND I was very sick to my stomach after eating the food, but that may have been the Grinders from earlier in the day but I'm not willing to believe that because Grinders is awesome.

In other words, WHAT A NIGHT.

The Day After Tomorrow is one of the worst movies ever made. I feel I can say that unequivocally. In fact, I could not watch it without giggling and thinking of motifs to lift to improve my own Flush Point. Because they are the same movie. But with hail instead of toilets. The Day After Tomorrow is also exactly like Godzilla without Godzilla and Matthew Broderick and Independence Day without Will Smith's pecs. Because seriously, Dennis Quaid is the new Bill Pullman.

The Day After Tomorrow is all about a catastrophic climate change that results in destruction not anywhere near as cool as the White House getting torched by space aliens. Instead it snows. A lot. And gets really cold really quick. Which for a person like me--who right now in the midst of mid-80s temperatures is wearing a t-shirt and black fleece pullover--is true horror. But stuff happens to people we should give a shit about but don't, and Dick Cheney is an ass even as a fictional character, and hey, isn't the president that guy that ran a detective agency off of a boat and homoerotically palled around with another guy and a geek who's best friend was a robot?

Dennis Quaid knows something bad is going down, but no one will listen to him because for some reason everyone but Bilbo Baggins hates him. It's probably because he has a job that takes him away from home for months at a time but he has the smug audacity to own house plants AND come home acting all pissed because they're dead. He's divorced/separated from a doctor who cares more about her patients than herself, which should be an endearing quality but instead made me wish all the more for her Tragic Onscreen Death. They have a son who's WICKED SMART and has A CHIP ON HIS SHOULDER, so he's totally going to redeem himself by knowing what the hell's going on and building out of a tub of recycling and a roll of scotch tape the spaceship that will take everyone to another habitable planet. Not really but almost. So then it snows some more, and people burn stuff to stay warm, and then it snows, and then everyone goes to Mexico and lives happily ever after, YAY AMERICA!!!

Just to warn everyone ahead of time, THIS MOVIE IS FICTION. Although it is based on the non-ficiton work of two crazy people, "The Coming Global Superstorm" by Art Bell and Whitley Strieber (SIDE NOTE: I have all of Whitley Strieber's books and I used to listen to Art Bell's radio show, until he left the air after the Government threatened him and his family with death for SPEAKING THE TRUTH), you recognize it as fiction when at the end of the movie the Dick Cheney character APOLOGIZES FOR BEING WRONG. This would never happen in real life, and totally breaks the fourth wall and ruined all illusions I had about the movie.

Although I do not have any trouble believing what I've now decided is the GRAND PLAN OF THE BUSH ADMINSTRATION. See, they are intentionally screwing with the climate in order to bring about a global environmental catastrophe in order to bring about radical positive changes in family values. Because in this film it is once again proven that there is nothing better at bringing about the reconciliation of a failed marriage like catastrophic global catastrophe. Because everyone lives happily ever after, even if they are in refugee tent camps in Mexico.

And everyone does live, because apparently no one dies during such catastrophic events unless they are smary or misguided, and even then it happens off screen so we don't care. Seriously, like, these people thought snow was the worst thing they had to contend with, when days before they were swimming in CHEST-HIGH NEW YORK SEWER WATER? I must have missed the memo sent out congratulating humanity on totally wiping out cholera.

I do have to admit I felt some affinity with those heartbroken at having to burn books to stay alive, although if I were them I totally would have been like, "Anne Rice books first!!!" That would have kicked ass.

All, though, is not lost. There is a moral to this story: Nature proves that God loves Monty Python as much as we do, as a tanker floats through downtown Manhattan, just like at the beginning of The Meaning of Life.

Unfortunately for us, The Day After Tomorrow lacks a plot, plausable acting, realistic dialogue, and a machine that goes "ping."