Hollywood nails Bush
2004-05-28 07:59
Los Angeles - As if reality wasn't bad enough for US President George W Bush, Hollywood is heaping on the misery.
Mega-disaster movie The Day After Tomorrow hit US cinemas on Friday and was expected to focus the attention of millions of Americans on the poor environmental record of the Bush presidency - its rejection of the Kyoto agreement on global warming, the relaxation of anti-pollution laws, the attempt to drill for oil in the Alaskan tundra, to name a few examples.
Thus, with November's election looming, the White House could be forgiven for cursing Hollywood even more than right-wingers usually blast the "liberal media".
The Day After Tomorrow offers a highly fictionalised but terrifying account of a global disaster that might strike unless more is done to rein in global warming.
It will be followed even closer to the election by Fahrenheit 9/11, the controversial new documentary by Michael Moore, which recently won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
The film takes a highly critical view of Bush's handling of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the war in Iraq.
The Day After Tomorrow is an update to the cheesy disaster movies of the 1970s. In it, an instant ice age is caused when higher global temperatures melt the polar ice gaps, sending ice cold water into the oceans, raising sea levels and disrupting the Gulf Stream, which keeps the Northern Hemisphere habitable.
'Exaggerates reality'
Snow falls in New Delhi, hailstones the size of water melons batter Tokyo, mega-tornadoes devastate Los Angeles, and Manhattan is destroyed by a tidal wave before becoming frozen solid as a result of the big chill.
Along with spectacular special effects, there is also a human story. The stoic hero is played by Dennis Quaid, a climate expert whose dire warnings are ignored by a callous president - who looks disarmingly similar to current Vice President Dick Cheney.
Scientists agree that the movie exaggerates reality but add that over a longer period, global warming could cause a new ice age. Environmental groups like Greenpeace are using the movie to promote their cause.
But while it is assured that the $125m movie will do well at the box office, not everyone is persuaded it will have much of an impact at the polling booths.
"If the film is meant to prod anxieties about ecological catastrophe and to encourage political action in response, it seems unlikely to succeed, not because the events it depicts seem implausible, but because they seem like no big deal," wrote AO Scott in The New York Times.
Thus, even in the face of a global freeze, the script by Roland Emmerich, who also directed Independence Day, keeps the jokes flowing and makes sure the hero succeeds in saving his family and humanity adjusts to the new conditions.
The impact of Fahrenheit 9/11 might be more crucial. White House communications director Dan Bartlett called the movie "outrageously false", but that criticism has only encouraged the controversy that many in Hollywood said they believe will make the film the most successful documentary of all time and possibly the most influential. - Sapa-dpa
- SAPA