I survived this movie last week, viewed at about « its intended size in a tiny town far away from the destruction it wreaks on New York, whose major draw is, of course, as yet un-blown-up large, recognizable landmarks. Emmerich does leave the Statue of Liberty standing though, beacon of our evergreen relationship with France and our welcoming of immigrants from all nations. No, wait. Well, aren’t we all about blind optimism these days, unswerving belief in our ideals, however recklessly we endanger and, hell, violate them? Sure we are! Bring on the big freeze, baby! It’s just like bio-terrorism: with enough duct tape and plastic wrap, we can make it through anything!
But I digress. Back to destruction. I would venture, and let me know if I’m wrong here non-New Yorkers, that Emmerich may have relied too heavily on people’s knowledge of the city by centering it on the Public Library at Bryant Park. Also, what’s with the readily available books for burning? Did someone let Newt Gingrich out? It’s not that I object to burning books – which I mostly do but, come on, I’m not made of stone: Jake Gyllenhall is in danger! – but that anyone who’s been to the mother ship of the New York Public Library system knows that there aren’t actually any accessible books. I seriously doubt the encounter with Nietzsche’s work on an open shelf, although the to-hand tax code could be true. They have to line those rooms where you wait with something that won’t distract you from your purpose. Who hasn’t been led astray in a normal branch by “The Guide to Western African Traditional Earware” with all its naked women, while seeking out the more sober “Walden”?
As we exited, I said to my boyfriend, “What was the deal with the President hanging out on the phone? There’s no way they would let him be the last person evacuated. Who was he waiting for?” Rational Boyfriend replied, “That’s the thing you found implausible about the movie?” He has a point. Although, in my defense, years of rabid West Wing watching have taught me that the Secret Service are sexy and forceful when the President is in peril.
I’d like to also raise a question about tidal currents within the confines of Manhattan. It just seems really implausible to me that a huge Russian tanker would just drift straight up 5th Avenue. Particularly since 5th Avenue doesn’t start until halfway up Manhattan and there are some seriously large buildings between open sea and the library. I suppose it could have come in on a side street from the docks on the west side and made a sharp uptown left onto 5th, but that seems pretty unlikely. To ease to that convenient berth directly at the prime real estate intersection of 42nd St. would require a feat of navigation which I don’t think the inexplicably absent crew could pull off. Perhaps they died of aneurysms when contemplating the challenge. Perhaps there is some obscure ironic joke in there about Russia and mid-town traffic that I just missed. Maybe Emmerich hoped I would forgot about a punchline or plausibility in my excitement that there was available penicillin. Which I almost did, soft-hearted movie go-er that I am.
So enough arrogant detailing of my familiarity with the city, an unpleasant but apparently unavoidable byproduct of living there. Let me say that this movie is a four-years-of-frustration-surviving Democrat’s best-case scenario. How many liberals (read: environmentalists) have not dreamed that someday Dick Cheney would have to issue a worldwide mea culpa on the Weather Channel? (If you haven’t, it’s just because your imagination could not stretch that close to nirvana.) The vice president even looks like Cheney, is belligerent like Cheney and ignores advice like Cheney. (Emmerich’s President, on the other hand, listens to the climatologist, unlike Dubya whom one could well imagine already on his ranch in Texas and in no need of rescuing.) This was very satisfying. What was less satisfying was my mid-movie realization that the plot did not seem too far off my worst global warming fears. Rational Boyfriend’s comforting, “It’s just a movie!” to my distressed expression was surprisingly ineffective. I never realized that I do actually think that this is how it will go down. I am a radical environmental conspiracy theorist and I didn’t even know it. That’s like the deepest cover conspiracy there is.
Reading the New York Times Book Review the next morning, in which are reviewed four books on global warming, didn’t help. One of the books apparently suggests that recent sudden shifts in temperature could indicate an accelerated path to disastrous warming, although he sets the clock at 10 years rather than 10 minutes from when it all starts. There are also no mentions of instant freeze down drafts or Ian Holm’s fate. (The omission of insta-freeze does not adequately reassure me about that mastodon that apparently froze with food still in its mouth, like in an icy Pompeii. I think that one’s actually true and I remain concerned.) The whole thing is just downright frightening. Emmerich is no fool: he has enough science in there to keep you just beyond paranoid, with the “pshaw!” catching in your throat.
On political issues, my generalized “We’re ruining everything!” anxiety has been eased by Noam Chomsky, who, though always more critic than cheerleader, wisely notes that this is the best it’s ever been, despite everything that’s being done wrong. I try, when I think of it, to take the long view, the “everything balances out” perspective. I still don’t have the faintest idea how Republicans can think what they do with a straight face and a working mind, but I can buy it that we all even each other out somewhere close to the middle. But here, with environmental problems, there is a problem I’m not sure we can solve on our current path.
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