Why does dialogue in disaster movies have to be soooooo bad? I saw "The Day After Tomorrow" yesterday (writing that just gave me a headache).

Anyway, it was pretty bad. Some cool special effects and all, but that's it. When the characters (I hesitate to use that term) speak, the film (I hesitate to use that term) would come to an embarrassingly screeching halt. There's a lot of talk about weather and global warming (we are beat over the head by how dangerous it is). There is one scene where Dennis Quaid is explaining his theory of what is going on, and another character says something like, "Well, that would explain all the bad weather." Oh, is that what he was talking about?

Then there is another scene where a bunch of people are in the NY Public Library and there is snow about five stories high. Most of the people see this as an opportunity to get out and walk on the snow to get as far away from New York as they can. Jake Gyllenhal, who is Dennis Quaid's son and tries to stop everyone from leaving, says, "This storm is about to get bad. Really, really bad."

A tidal wave has already hit New York, causing a monstrous flood, then it snowed for a few days straight, so the snow is incredibly high. Um, Jake? The storm is already pretty fucking bad.

I've never been faced with an end of the world scenario, but I'd like to think I'd say something more interesting than, "This storm is about to get bad."

I don't even want to talk about the wolves that escaped from the Central Park Zoo, then played a major part in the movie on the abandoned ship that floated all the way up Fifth Avenue to 40th street without hitting a building, but was stopped by a bus beneath the water that it ran over, so then when the characters in the library needed medicine for someone who was sick, they went on the ship and found the First Aid room, but the wolves got on the ship soon after they did. Seriously, I don't want to talk about it.

The plot (of course I am hesitating to use that term) was sorely lacking. The most interesting part about the movie were these three punks in the back of the theater who didn't stop talking. Normally, I'd kill them, but because it was the kind of movie that it was, I really didn't care. But they were getting lots of looks. People turning around, but not really saying anything. Just stares. See, no one wanted to say anything because these were three young black kids and most everyone else was white. And white people are scared of black people, remember? So finally, another black guy in the theater yells out, "Shut the fuck up!!! I'm trying to watch the fucking movie!" I was happy with that. But then he went too far. "You're not in your fucking living rooms."

I think they might have remained a little quieter if he just left it alone. One of them shot back, "I paid my ten dollars." He said back, "Yeah, so did I, now shut the fuck up." I wanted to yell out, "Hey, I paid $10.25! Did you guys get a discount or something? I know it's only a quarter, but still." They went back and forth a few more times, many more "fucks", and through all of this, the argument remained much more interesting than "The Day After Tomorrow."

These kids were still loud and talking throughout the rest of the movie. No one else dared say anything, because if a black guy couldn't get them to shut the fuck up, what chance did we white folk have?