The Day After...and now.

[trof]

I saw "The Day After" again yesterday afternoon.
It was shot in 1983, when we were still in the midst of the cold war and daily lived with the risk of nuclear annihilation.

From wikipedia:
"The chronology of the political events leading up to the war are shown entirely through a series of television and radio broadcasts. The Soviet Union has commenced a military buildup in East Germany, with the goal of intimidating the United States into abandoning its support of a free West Berlin. The U.S. does not back down, and the Soviets then blockade West Berlin. This action is interpreted as an act of war by the former.

As tensions mount, the United States orders the Soviets to stand down from the blockade of Berlin, which the Soviets in turn also refuse. NATO forces based in West Germany then invade East Germany to free Berlin.

The Soviet Union counters by launching a major attack into West Germany through the Fulda Gap. NATO counterattacks and comes to the assistance of West Germany. There follow unconfirmed reports that the Soviets have destroyed the city of Wiesbaden with a nuclear bomb. The Soviet Army eventually reaches the Rhine, at which time the United States halts the assault by detonating several low-yield nuclear bombs over advancing Soviet troops. Soviet forces counter by launching a nuclear attack on NATO's Regional European headquarters."

At the time, it was a very frightening film. And today, it still is.
I feel like we've come full circle from my "duck and cover" school days.
Like Yogi said "It's deja vu, all over again".

Oh there was a short period when the Soviet Union imploded that I thought (foolishly, it seems) "Well, at least THAT'S over. Now I can just confine my worries and concerns to the 'normal', everyday stuff like earning a living, getting my cholesterol down, and maybe saving the planet from pollution and warming."

So here I am, in the winter of my life, once again wondering if this new nuclear threat could escalate to something really godawful.

Especially now, when a megalomaniac "leader of the free world" and his band of neo-con, chickenhawk, uber-hawks have their collective fingers on OUR button. And, given the colossal blunders of this administration, they might not even push it "on purpose".

At least in past administrations, Dem and Repub, there were some "cooler heads" around to prevail.
Not this time.

Kim Jong Il doesn't scare me nearly as much as George W. Bush.

[htuttle]

1. "Do the North Koreans Love Their Children Too?"

Just thinking about another memory I have from that time...

BTW, anyone else remember little Samantha Smith? We could probably use another one right about now...

[hsher]

5. Yeah, I remember Samantha

Sweet kid. I don't know if the times we're in would allow anything that innocent to even be possible though anymore. Imagine the fucking secretaries, security watchdogs and gatekeepers she'd have to get through nowadays. Not to mention the RW Hate Machine tarring her and her entire family as "Communist sympathizer moonbats" -- just for working for peace. Remember what they did to Cindy Sheehan? That was a masterwork of black PR. For saggy-assed fat keyboard jockeys who never saw combat and didn't have kids in uniform to actually get away with tarring an outraged mother whose son DIED in combat... I'm still burned up about it... grr...

Brief conspiracy thought: I wonder if the rethugs had anything to do with that poor child's plane going down? We all know how they love to tinker with planes...

[driver8]

2. I agree. The dictator I am worried about is Lord Pissy Pants.

"Hey, someone wanna toss me that there nucular football?"

Lord help us.

[Olney Blue]

3. Powerful movie. It had a big effect on me.

[trof]

4. Riveting.

I'm hoping I never live to find out, but it seemed to be absolutley realistic about how life would be for the survivors.

[focusfan]

28. A footnote at the end of the movie

says things most likely would be a lot worse

[Mabus]

9. Tell me about it

I live where it was shot. Every day for over a month I walked by one of the sets on my way to school. It was the set along the river. One day I noticed some tents down by the water next to the bridge that connects downtown Lawrence to North Lawrence and I thought it was the current day version of a Hoover town. I really thought it was an indication that the economy was biting the big one under Reagan. When I got to campus a couple of friends of mine told me there was a movie being shot here in Lawrence. By the end of the shooting I knew a number of the extras, especially in the hospital scene.

I have to admit, when I saw it on television it was a stunner. Seeing my city in the aftermath of a bomb was really really weird. It was even stranger to see my friends on stretchers in the hospital or rushing around trying to help people. It really hit home then. During one of the commercial breaks I remember going outside and the streets were very quiet. As the move progressed I noticed more of my neighbors taking their commerical breaks on their porches. We didn't talk a lot but the first question was always "Are you watching the movie, too?" I guess we all needed the reassurance that it was just a movie, that our town was okay. My gosh, I'm tearing up right now, remembering how that movie affected me at the time.

[Olney Blue]

10. That's an incredible story. Thanks.

I found this interesting review of the film.

http://www.amazon.com/Day-After-Nicholas-Meyer/dp/B0001WTVUW

[Mabus]

11. Maybe there weren't commericals

but I remember going outside and seeing neighbors. There was something in that movie that continually drove us outside that evening to stand on our porches and reassure each other. It was surreal.

reread it. there were no commericals after the explosion. It was just weird that night. I lived in North Lawrence during the filming and I was living on Kentucky Street, near campus, when the movie was shown. Usually Tennessee and Kentucky are pretty busy streets. They're both one way streets and help funnel traffic around the main campus and downtown. My boyfriend at the time was visiting his parents in south central Kansas and I was at home alone watching the movie. Being alone like that was pretty spooky.

[CabalPowered]

6. I watched it yesterday as well.

Odd timing as a few hours later the NK test was announced.

[HeeBGBz]

29. I watched it yesterday too

One of the most depressing movies ever made.

[hsher]

7. The Day After was scary, but if you want to see TERRIFYING...

See the BBC's "Threads", at the "Michael???" scene. That movie had me sleepless for years afterward. I still have nightmares about it. No lie.

When a film will actually *go* *there* and show a blinded cat writhing on its side on the pavement immediately following the blast, and a blinded driver plowing through a brick wall as it goes off, you know you just got *taken* somewhere. Check Threads out... if you dare.

Scariest.Apocalypse.Film.Ever.

[hsher]

8. And bottles melting... and no happy ending

Oh yeah, and it depicts glass bottles melting as the blast hits... and there was definitely not a happy ending. I guess the British are more pragmatic than we. I won't reveal a spoiler, but the ending in my opinion is one of the top ten most effective cinematic final scenes of all time. The pacing of Acts 1 and 2 will seem a little slow to American audiences, but if you're a news junkie and foreign news-o-phile, you'll enjoy the excruciatingly realistic international set-up that brings the war into being. It's so credible you'll watch Israel with apprehension for the next decade. It's just so freaking *plausible*, the story they present as starting the whole thing!

I just realized, two very frightening films both share a terrifying scene that involves a woman calling out to someone named "Michael". 1) Threads, 2) The Blair Witch Project.

Hm.

[Pab Sungenis]

12. Of course, since America can't be bothered with real issues

MGM might as well just drop "Midnight Cowboy: the Musical" and take this one to Broadway instead.

[Olney Blue]

22. Underwritten by Halliburton- your no-bid nuclear holocaust support team.

[A wise Man]

13. I'm old enough to remember

in the 50's we were commanded to duck and cover. Today if our troops invade Korea or Iran or any other country without the explicit right of this and all other Nations, our troops ,our children our nation will be the real toast of the world "LITERALLY". What Bush and his party has done is to open the box of "PANDORA". What would you have done if Russia had invaded the USA and called us the "Axis of Evil" after you have invaded a soverign country?

[BluePatriot]

14. That was on the tube recently so I recorded it to watch.

...not so sure I am in the mood, now.

[kitkat65]

15. Did you see Testament with Jane Alexander

Same premise as the Day after but Alexander is amazing.

[BeHereNow]

18. That movie still haunts me.

And I agree, Alexander was stunning in that film.
I cried my eyes out during the scene where she was burying her daughter...
BHN

[Olney Blue]

19. That scene where she wrapped her dead child in a sheet... OMG.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

16. Ah, The Day After.

aka Pollyanna meets World War III.

[trof]

20. Pollyana? I missed the uplifting smiley part.

One of the most depressing movies I've ever seen.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

21. Yup.

And it was an optimistic portrayal of what WWIII would have been like.

[Rowdyboy]

17. I had never seen it from start to finish until yesterday...I knew it would

be powerful, but I was still impressed. I've read every piece of "apocalyptic" fiction available starting with "Alas Babylon" in the late 1960's and my fascination remains just as strong today. The pictures of a society falling apart is terrifying, yet intensely interesting. I've also been watching the new series "Jericho" which is off to a decent start.

[HeeBGBz]

30. New show "Heroes" has an impending nuclear attack

In New York. Do we have a theme for the masses?

[BobMorr]

23. Original Showing

Went to look for the original recording and found it. Watching it now. How times have changed. First commercial before it starts is for the Commodore 64 computor. Remember them? I had one back then and actually ran a bbs. That was way before the internet. Ted Koeppel on afterwards with Viewpoints. That should be interesting. Kissinger and George Shultz on the panel.

[focusfan]

25. we watched it too

and we were hoping that maybe if people watch it they will
realize thats what Bush is wanting a Nuclear War.

[Sabriel]

24. What was that other one, shot in documentary style?

It was a news team covering a terrorist take-over in a harbor (?), and at one point they detonated the bomb.

I remember there were disclaimers throughout it so people wouldn't freak out at the reality of it, ala War of the Worlds.

Anyone remember the name?

[BobMorr]

26. Special Report

I think it was called Special Report. It started with a breakin from normal television as if it was live. I have a copy of that one to somewhere.

[Strelnikov_]

27. "Countdown To Looking Glass"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countdown_to_Looking_Glass