The Fire Next Time

I didn't see the original airing of this mini series but watched later about 3 years ago on USA. Seemed prophetic then and even more so now with huge fires here in SouthWest and Katrina in NOLA. I live in Arizona so I can speak more to the drought of SW. I had a 275,000 acre fire come within about 6 miles of me. Just a few days ago we had 20 fires start up in one day. I live in N central AZ and we have had less than an inch of rain from Oct of 2005 to mid July, date of this comment. Yes we have weather cycles but there are too many bad cycles all at once all over, I am from Maine originally and winters up there since I was a kid, have generally gotten warmer and less snow. this mini series is eerily coming true. I enjoyed it, lots of food for thought,acting is not great but adequate and suffice to keep you hooked. I was probably kept on board too by references to Acadia and Evangeline as my ancestors were Acadian and story of Evangeline has been in my heart since my childhood. I say watch it for first time and if you have seen it before get a refresher.

When this was first televised as a two part mini-series I watched the first night and opted out for the 2nd. Now, after renting it from Portland's finest (and the country's finest, if truth be told) video store MOVIE MADNESS and watching the entire four hours I can safely say that buried inside the 240 minute mammoth of overcooked plotting and sweaty melodramatics is a fine 90 minute movie.

Craig T Nelson is a hell of a good actor and that's the trouble: he plays a completely unlikable character to irritatingly well effect. There is no one to root for: Nelson's character is a selfish pig from the get-go and he never gets much smarter or nicer. I realize that its not his fault--the script makes everyone a symbol and he has to stand for The Guilty Short-Sighted Consumer of All The World's Goodies....other actors are saddled with equally heavy burdens to carry.

Which leads me to another major drawback : the uneven tone of the script.We get semi-interesting first night scenes between the extremely underrated Charles Haid and Craig T. Nelson alongside some real second night howlers like the absurd scene with Lousie Fletcher-- who chirps to Bonnie Bedelia ( who I must say looks wonderful with her ample bosom on sweaty display) "In the morning you will be issued your regulation camouflage army fatigues; its our way of keeping our message of hope alive." I am not kidding, she actually says that--and she is supposed to be the representative of the Evil Pro-Earth whatever the hell you want to call them. Ludicrous. As is most of the rest of this thing. But there are some interesting notions. Not ALL worthless but you have to wade thru a lot of dumb stuff.

This movie about disasters is itself a disaster. Do not waste your time watching it. If you do, prepare to laugh out loud at some of the script and "special effects". My husband and I started watching it and have only continued to see if it could get any worse. I will say there is one highlight. When the lady sings the old Gospel song on the barge, it is worth hearing. There are some things in this movie that are very big brotherish as one person already wrote and that these "predictions" have happened was the scary part. As it concerns global warming? BAH! It's another fad, just as the global cooling predictions of the 60's. The big difference this time is that there are people like Al Gore who stand to make millions on this scam.

I can't say this more strongly, stay away from this movie, very far away!

It's September 2006, and I'm sitting here watching this film with chill bumps. The Santa Anas are blowing outside spreading the "Day Fire" which has been raging for nearly three weeks, just as the scene on the movie shows fires in the LA area that have gone on and on, burning more than 50,000 acres. Creeped out by the similarities, I continued to watch the film. As a hurricane is headed towards the bayou area where the core family lives, the townspeople are in a meeting to find out what the government is going to do to help them. "Why are you waiting 24 hours before this hits to do anything?" one lady shouts at the officials. Then scenes of people trying to evacuate at the last minute, and the tragedy that ensues, brings up memories of last year's Katrina disaster. I'm sure when this film came out, it was seen as cheesy apocalyptic sci-fi. But turn on the news, folks, and take another look. I think this film did an excellent job of saying "what if?"

This movie is a decent movie. It's message is a "save the earth" type of thing, and makes its point pretty well, I'd guess. Overall, I'd say the movie does not live up to what it could have been. I was an extra in this movie, and the things the directors described to those of us who were in it were just mindblowing. This film, as described to us by one of the directors, had the feel of something apocalyptic. Sort of like a "Road Warrior" type setting, but without the punk-haired bandits. Kind of a wasteland, bleak existance. But for some reason, that just didn't translate to the screen. I still feel it was a decent movie, though. Not great, but decent. But, I may have a biased opinion, seeing how we all heard a very vivid description of what it was going to be.

As I said, I was an extra in this movie. I was in the Morgan City, LA scenes. From what I remember, these scenes consisted of everything in part 1, up until they left after the storm. There were some things that were planned to be put in the movie that would have clarified alot of stuff, but for some unknown reason, they left them out. For example, the reason all the clothes were such drab colors was supposed to be something along the lines of chemicals being banned. Therefore, fabrics were no longer dyed the way we do it now. And there was something else I seem to remember about there no longer being soap, due to its manufacturing process causing some kind of pollution. Or something of that sort. There were a few little details that were left out, that in my opinion would have portrayed the world as an even harder place to live.

This movie was filmed in my area in more than just Morgan City, as the Filming Locations link has. It was also filmed in Berwick, LA and Stephensville, LA, as well as a scene shot offshore. I was in the scenes shot in Berwick, at the Civic Center. In the scene where Justin Whalin is watching TV in the shelter, he turns around in his chair and jumps up yelling "Paw!". I am seated on the floor directly in front of him when he does that. And he kicked me in the lower back on every take of that shot when he jumped out of the chair! LOL!

I have noticed this movie playing on the Action channel alot. If anyone is interested in seeing it, that would be a safe place to look.