Environmental Disaster Movie Sparking Political Heat - NYT

LOS ANGELES, May 11 — "Any studio that makes a $125 million movie about global warming is courting controversy. But 20th Century Fox does not seem to have fully anticipated the political firestorm being whipped up by its film "The Day After Tomorrow."

Environmental advocates are using the film's release, scheduled for May 28, as an opening to slam the Bush administration, whose global warming policies they oppose. Industry groups in Washington are lobbying on Capitol Hill to make sure the film does not help passage of a bill limiting carbon-dioxide emissions, which many scientists say contribute to global warming. Meanwhile on Tuesday Fox sparred with celebrity advocates who complained that they had been disinvited to the movie's premiere, only to be reinvited later in the day.

EDIT

In a telephone news conference on Tuesday former Vice President Al Gore compared the exaggeration of the film's premise to the approach of the Bush administration to global warming. "There are two sets of fiction to deal with," Mr. Gore said. "One is the movie, the other is the Bush administration's presentation of global warming." He accused the White House of "trying to convince people there's no real problem, no degree of certainty from scientists about the issue." The news conference was organized by moveon.org, an Internet-based liberal advocacy group.

EDIT

Directed by Roland Emmerich, "The Day After Tomorrow" imagines a catastrophic climate change and the rapid arrival of a new ice age caused by global warming. Massive storms destroy Western Europe, Manhattan is covered in a sheet of ice, and tornadoes blast Los Angeles. The film's trailer shows Dennis Quaid, who plays a paleoclimatologist, warning the vice president — played by an actor who closely resembles Vice President Dick Cheney — that "if we don't act now, it will be too late."

EDIT

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/12/movies/12AFTE.html

I just read that article and came to post it so I will, dammit :0

"In a telephone news conference on Tuesday former Vice President Al Gore compared the exaggeration of the film's premise to the approach of the Bush administration to global warming. "There are two sets of fiction to deal with," Mr. Gore said. "One is the movie, the other is the Bush administration's presentation of global warming." He accused the White House of "trying to convince people there's no real problem, no degree of certainty from scientists about the issue."

I signed up to pass out flyers on opening day. You can too!

http://www.moveon.org/news/dayafter.html

Hail stones the size of tennis balls are knocking people out in Japan. Shortly afterwards it is snowing in India. But that is only the beginning. The fuel in the helicopters sent to rescue the royal family in Balmoral freezes in flight and within days all those living north of Washington have been abandoned by the US military as beyond help of evacuation. Meanwhile, those from the southern states plead for refugee status in Mexico as they flee to the border to escape the cold.

This is a Hollywood blockbuster, which in the tradition of the disaster movie plays ruthlessly on the irrational fears of the average American. It also has unexpectedly strong political content, and a scanty relationship with scientific fact.

But on Wednesday The Day After Tomorrow won praise from both the British research establishment and the environment movement.

The new film, which opens across Britain next week, bizarrely plunges the earth into a new ice age as a result of global warming. While concentrating on New York it incidentally freezes the royal family to death in their Scottish retreat.

http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=66233