Kablooey: A Quick Review of Day After Tomorrow

Kablooey: A Quick Review of Day After Tomorrow

I liked Day After Tomorrow. Good effects. Lots of stuff getting destroyed. And the in between human-relations stuff was cornball, but not as bad as I'd been expecting.

Let me say this. If I'm going to see Day After Tomorrow, I'm not going for the human story. I'm going to see shit get knocked down by the weather. All that human stuff? If it's good, it's gravy. If not, I'll just scrape it off, ignore it and eat the rest of my sugary treat.

As it was, the Dennis Quaid/Jake Gyllenhall/Emmy Rossum effort toward human interest in the face of climactic dishevelment? It worked for me.

Do I want more from a movie in other terms than Kablooey? Sometimes. Most of the time. I appreciate a well put together story more than the average bear, too. I like witty dialog. I like tight, convincing performances from my actors. And while Day After Tomorrow won't rank high in any of these things, it's not near the bottom of the list, either.

And as much as I like those things, sometimes, as it's been said before, you just need some Kablooey!

And Day After Tomorrow? It's all about the Kablooey! If you don't want to see the Kablooey, then leave Day After Tomorrow alone. If you're going to watch the people, I suggest going to Coffee and Cigarettes. I'll be there to see that one, too.

I think a lot of film snobs and wannabe film snobs lash at that there's too much Kablooey in today's Hollywood, and as such, anything that looks Kablooey is bad.

I saw a couple of advance reviews hyperbolizing that this was the worst dreck to come out of Hollywood in a long time. There was a real bandwagon effect here, and a lot of people were saying negative things--a couple without even having seen the movie. Schadenfreude's an ugly thing sometimes.

Kablooey's fine. Anything's fine, in moderation, including Kablooey.

Popcorn's fine. So long as it's not all you eat.

And as destruction-based Kablooey flicks go, I enjoyed Day After Tomorrow.

Especially the part where giant hail starts falling on Tokyo. That part was my favorite.

And also Emmy Rossum. She's pretty.

Thumbs Up

Trailers

Just a quick note in the same post about trailers.

I wasn't looking forward to the Ben Stiller/Vince Vaughn Dodgeball movie. Mostly because I'm worn out on Ben Stiller. He's in everything nowadays. I was looking at the security monitor at the bank the other day, and damned if Ben Stiller wasn't starring in that, too.

But Ben's playing a goofy Zoolander type character instead of the downtrodden/lash out character he's prone to playing lately. Plus, Stephen Root and Rip Torn seems goofy enough that I might have to go watch Dodgeball.

Also, the trailer to Open Water made it look really tight. Two people floating on the ocean? In a storm? Fighting Jellyfish? I don't do it justice. It looks fun, and a bit scary. At least the trailer didn't ruin 2/3 of the movie.

The Stepford Wives trailer does exactly that. I don't know if it's because it's a remake, and they assume that people know the twist, or if the concept is considered too high concept for a lot of people. I think whomever cut that trailer, which basically reveals the WHOLE PLOT TWIST OF THE MOVIE, needs a tattoo on their forehead that reads "I'm the biggest idiot ever."

No trailer before this movie for M. Night Shyamalan's new one, the Village. That's how ya gotta promote it. Just cut the promos yourself.