Round One of Summer Movies

“The Day After Tomorrow” – B
One of the best popcorn* movies I’ve seen in a long time. It’s always fun to see major American cities get pummeled by natural disasters, and it was especially nice that New York was spared with a snowstorm, while L.A. was disemboweled by tornadoes. The special effects were so realistic that I believed every second of the movie–except for when people talked. Then it completely fell apart.

“The Terminal” – B+
Having spent a few hellacious nights sleeping in the airport, this one hit close to home. In the movie, Tom Hanks is penniless and stranded, much like my day-and-a-half in the Bahamas airport at age 17, when I had to beg my fellow travelers for money to pay the mandatory $15 exit tax. On a more recent note: the movie’s sets seemed eerily familiar to Chicago’s O’Hare airport, where I was trapped overnight about a month ago, coming back from a conference in Kalamazoo, Michigan. For anyone who’s ever been excessively delayed, and tried sleeping on the industrial airport carpet, it’s not hard to identify with this story.

* Full disclosure: I actually ate Hawaiian Punch fruit chews, not popcorn.