|
It’s a general rule of thumb, down in Hell, that given a choice between eternal flesh-peeling flames and repeated viewings of “The Postman”, souls will always choose the flames. But “Waterworld” holds a special place in the Kevin Costner oeuvre for being the first movie to really bring global warming to the attention of the general public. At the time (1995), of course, Mount Kilimanjaro still had white fluffy snow caps and all the world’s children weren’t doomed to a short and miserable life combing Earth’s corpse for the last scraps of food. No, life was good, so why not buy one of those new SUV’s and head for the beach?
So imagine my dismay when “Waterworld” comes out and alerts everyone to a little scheme I’d been working on since the Industrial Revolution! I’m thinking to myself, what happens if people pay attention to this movie? What if they write their governments, buy Hondas, decide to consume less?!
Hahahahahaha. Just kidding. I can see the future. I knew nobody would do anything. And frankly “Waterworld” makes global warming seem like such fun. I mean, once Paris is beachfront property, we’ll all get our own cool catamarans with whirly things on top, we’ll be able to buy sex with dirt, and if we’re really lucky we’ll grow gills. What’s not to love? Six months later, Jeanne Tripplehorn fans were taking cruises to Alaska just to melt icebergs with their hairdryers!
So flash forward 9 years to the release of “The Day After Tomorrow”. This is the kind of movie that sucks all the joy out of disaster -- I mean, what’s the fun of watching other people’s misery if you’re constantly badgered to empathize with them? Fortunately the wooden dialogue provided a little merriment for this horny heathen-eater, and their attempt to explain that global warming might actually lead to a new ice age successfully confused Joe Sixpack so much that I can look forward to another decade of complete bovine docility from the human race. And by that time, those eternal flesh-peeling flames may start looking pretty good to you topsiders.
Of, if not, there’s always “The Postman”.
|
