yesterday and the day before that

yesterday i watched the day after, the 1983 television movie about a nuclear exchange with the soviet union and its aftermath. it is showing its age, and its a little amazing to think how plausible that scenario seemed in the early 1980s. there was one little throwaway comment that seemed particularly funny given subsequent events — the conflict between the soviet union and the united states is triggered when west germany is cut off (again), and as a group of students are gathered around a radio listening to updates about what is happening, one of the students says they aren’t worried about the conflict escalating because it is just germany — but she’d be worried if it were in the middle east.

i think the thing that is most amazing to me about the film is that just barely twenty years later, i’m working side-by-side (virtually) with a number of amazing developers in and from the former soviet union.

the day before yesterday, i watched the day after tomorrow. there was a lot of hand-wringing about the politics of the movie when it came out, but at its core it is just an old-fashioned disaster flick. it’s not a terrible film, but it certainly doesn’t rise very far from its genre. and it’s hard to take bubble boy in an even slightly serious role.