The Day After-a movie review

 I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones* 

And I know not why I am blogging so much about nuclear war at the moment 🙂 promise, some other topic coming soon (pls let me know if you want to read something specific)! As mentioned, the film “The Day After” portrays a fictional nuclear war between both cold war super powers, the United States and the Sowjetunion. This exchange of nuclear warheads is the climax of a military escalation in East Germany. For the viewer this conflict only appears in radio and television broadcasts as the film takes place in Kansas. The plot evolves arround several citizens of Lawrence, Kansas, e.g. a farmer & his family, a doctor and a soldier. All those different stories create a before and after scenario with an everyday life at start, the nuclear strike in the middle and the devestating effects of the fallout in the second half. It’s very interesting to see how some people deny the possibility of a nuclear war, to other it just doesn’t seem realistic and again others prepare themselves by fleeing or preparing shelters.
As in “The War Game” the effects of a nuclear strike are graphically shown (blindness, radiation sickness, burns) and although only a movie might be disturbing to some. A warning to what an atomic bomb can cause nonetheless.
“The Day After” also portrays the near future in a post-atomic world; the struggle in hospitals to deal with the casualties, the hopeless task to recultivate fields & farms.

*This famous phrase up top is from Albert Einstein and has been quoted in the film “The Day After”.

Blackout-from power failure to civil unrest

I just saw the german tv show “Quarks & Co” (don’t laugh at the title 😉 ) which always is very informative. This time it delt with the german/european power grid and it’s challenges for the upcoming years. Very interesting was the part where they hypothetically showed the effects of a Germany wide blackout. Since it is in german I would like to translate the facts*.

It could be a normal day when all of a sudden everything turns silent; no phones ringing, no public announcements, no vacuum cleaner, no tvs etc…then from silent to dark. No traffic lights, no trains and no elevators. Dozens of people get injured in traffic accidents, thousands of people trapped in trains, subways and elevators.

The landline would fail immediately. Without electricity no computer or server is able to run, hence no email, no google, no twitter and no world wide web. The cell phones might continue to work for a few hours as the  radio towers have backup generators but soon they would be on overload. Shortly after a major blackout all communication would fail. No phone, no internet, no emergency calls.

All over Germany only 15(!) out of 14.000 gas stations have a backup generator so a power failure means no fuel immediatly. First trams & trains would stop and without fuel cars, buses and trucks. Our society would be immobilized within few days.

Due to lack of power cooling systems in supermarkets will shut down and deep frozen & fresh food will perish very soon. Some goods will be sold at discounted prizes and in general people will have the tendency to buy large amounts of supplies. This is a huge problem since cash registers and ATMs won’t work. The long queues and frustration will leed to an aggressive tension.

After 24h without electricity the functional capability of Germany’s health care system is considerably affected. Hospitals may be able to provide a certain amount of help due to their emergency generators, but  retirement homes and medical practices are forced to close or evacuate.  The blackout will also cause a shortage in pharmaceutical supplies such as medication, insulin, blood preservations etc.

No electricity also means no productivity. Assembly lines, machinery, whole factories…everything will be still. While this means immediate breakdown of our carefully scheduled just-in-time production it will also mean painful death to thousands of  farm animals. Thousands of dairy cows that can’t get milked, thousands of pigs & chickens that will suffocate or starve. Most animals wouldn’t survive a power failure of more than 48 hours.

Since water works and water treatment plants need electricity our water supply would dry up. Personal hygiene & preparation of food is only possible on a smaller scale. Soon hygienic state of things would become worse. Human waste removal and clean clothing are not warranted anymore. Some skyscrapers and appartment blocks need to be evacuated because of danger of epidemics, which results in a lack of emergency accomodations.

People would try to heat their appartments with camping stoves, cook a meal on them or use candles for light. This means a higher risk of  fires, which once out of control are almost impossible to extinguish. No water supply might mean to leave fires to themselves and to watch & burn.

While the situation in the cities escalates the clock is ticking for a way bigger catastrophe. Due to the blackout cooling & controlling systems of nuclear power plants and other industrial complexes would fail. Without permanent cooling reactors might overheat and eventually melt. Within a week a nuclear catastrophe is to be expected.

As a result of all above mentioned a civil unrest and chaos are imminent. In some places it might lead to more cooperation and helpfulness among people, but somewhere else people would get more ruthless and aggressive.
A major blackout would not only engulf Germany, it would also mean a threat to it’s society.

*Sorry I might have switched tense a lot 🙂 Not a native speaker.

Fallout-how to protect yourself against it

While researching on my post about “The War Game” I came across this wonderful piece of cold war history. It is an animated shortfilm about what Fallout is and how to protect yourself against it. While the information provided might actually be somewhat useful in case of a reactor accident (e.g. Fukushima), it is also fun to watch as the harms of nuclear fallout are smiled away by an animated person and the encouraging voice of a typical 50’s narrator (they don’t make these anymore do they?).

The War Game – this is nuclear war!

This coud be the way the last two minutes of peace in Britian would look!

Someone recently recommended I should checkout the BBC documentary “The War Game” and so I did last night. As we all know during the Cold War nuclear conflict was an imminent danger and so Peter Watkins decided to hypothetically nuke the british city of Rochester. The film was made as a fictional news report and shows a little of the preparation against a nuclear strike. More important it shows the effects of a nuclear strike to structures and people during and after it happend. Although everything is fictional “The War Game” is so well made I found it very interesting and also a little upsetting. Check it out on Google Video*

*no liability taken for the link and it’s content!

Project Zomboid-dying during the Zompocalypse

Now here is an awesome indie game I’d like to present today. I’ve come across Project Zomboid a few months now and been hooked up since. The idea behind this game is big and I think it’s (gifted) developers have achieved a lot. Basically, all you have to do is to survive the Zombie Apocalypse and I am afraid to tell you…eventually you will die 😦 sorry ’bout that! Question is, how long will you survive 🙂 and what tools, what skills and what tactics does it take to survive as long as possible.

The developers of Project Zomboid want to make the game as real as possible (of course without sacrifying detail over fun…no need to virtually go to the toilet), so your character has to sleep, drink & eat, is scared and feels pain, but he also is creative, reinforces doors & windows, builds molotov cocktails and uses homemade and found weapons. With a smart interface you can combine object and tools to build the stuff you need, take care of your wounds and dress the latest zompocalypse fashion 😉 the game principal is as easy as it is brilliant, all you have to do is survive (as long as possible).

Compared to the new fancy Dead Island  graphics PZ comes along with a rather simple appearance. You control your character from an isometric perspective in a pretty much oldschool world of pixels, but again: simple=brilliant. Project Zomboid is the perfect example for gameplay beats graphics. So support this bunch of zombie pixel pioneers and get their game while it is stil in development mode. They get the funds to take it a step further and you get it cheap plus free lifetime updates. If your not quite sure, get the free demo and see how long it takes you to die out there 🙂

And of course, here is a nice trailer to give you a quick insight 🙂

American Doomsday

Many people prepare themselves for a SHTF-event by stocking up on supplies, planning escape routes and building a bug out location, but what plans has the government for instance in the event of a terrorist attack on Washington D.C.. A very interesting documentary on National Geographic just shows you what the U.S.-government has in mind for such a doomsday event. It shows the history of the doomsday plans, how they are being adjusted to new threats and how they worked in real events e.g. 9/11. Great thing, you can watch it for free on National Geographic.

American Doomsday

The Colony – a simulated apocalypse

Wow, what a busy week. Finally I find some time to write & share about what I stumbled upon last week.

The Colony is a Discovery Channel reality tv show.  The scenario is a virus has whiped out most of Los Angeles’ population leaving 10 volunteers in a post-pandemic  industrial part of the city, close to the L.A. River. They reach an abandoned warehouse (full of useful stuff) where they have to survive for 10 weeks, providing for their own food, water, electricity, security and well-being. During those 10 weeks several events occur such as a marauder attack, trading nomads or help seeking wanderers. So far, so good.

A few aspects I found a little disturbing. It says the people chosen are a spectrum of society, but most of them are highly educated engineers or experienced handymen, a doctor and a nurse are there aswell. The ideas the group comes up with are great and very smart e.g. to sanitize water with ozon produced by a tesla coil or running a generator with a wood gasifier…..”WHAT THE…?” is probably your first thought here and I agree. As smart as the ideas are, as unrealistic are they in most survival situations. So sometimes it drifts off into a mythbuster sort of feel where they just have to build fancy stuff.

Also the attacks by hostile groups seem a little staged. The voice from the off says “The actors are instructed not to harm the survivors, but the survivors don’t know that”…I mean how can you forget your in an experiment when several camera crews are around you 24/7. On the other hand, who knows, people who are living for 10 weeks in these extreme conditions might find it hard to distinguish between a simulation and reality. In many situations the volunteers just lose it and freak out over little things cabin fever style and these seemed quite real.

So all in all, if you can see over the fact that it’s a commercial program which needs a little drama & action, The Colony is good fun to watch. I watched the 10 Episodes of the first season in one week and just ordered the second season. The third one is in the making.

Contagion – A highly contagious movie review

The movie Contagion rather deals with the events during an outbreak of a highly contagious virus than with the long term aftermath of it. Which doesn’t make it less thrilling. Actually, you could call it a medical thriller.

First it appears that Elisabeth Emhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow) has got a normal cold returning from a business trip from Hong Kong to Minneapolis. To no surprise her son soon shows the same symptoms as Beth. Two days after her arrival Beth’s condition has become worse and she collapses with severe seizures. Her husband Mitch (Matt Damon) takes her to the ER but it’s too late. Beth is the first victim on american soil…and not the last (the latest number mentioned in the film is 26 million deaths).

While Mitch’s perspective shows the situation of the people in the surburbs and streets, the perspective of Dr. Ellis Cheever (Lawrence Fishburne) from the CDC shows the hunt for the virus and a vaccine. The virus naturally doesn’t differentiate between people and so Cheever’s colleague Dr. Erin Mears (Kate Winslet) eventuelly gets infected.
There are some side plots e.g. about the blogger Alan Krumwiede (Jude Law) who pretends his own infection and miraculous cure by using a homeopathic drug to boost it’s sales numbers. I don’t want to go into detail there.

While I found the side plots sometimes a little too much, the main plot about the rapidly ravaging virus outbreak and how civilisation responds to it has been greatly done.

Checkout the Trailer, makes you want to go for more.

A quick review of 5 Survival Shows

Survival shows have become very popular in the past few years and although some are quite dramatized you can actually get some valuable information out of them.

Survivorman is one of my favourites because I regard it as a very authentic survival show. While other shows have a camera crew, Les Stroud puts himself into survival situations without one, all the filming is done by himself. The scenarios he tackles are very realistic such as a winter plane crash, a broken down motorcycle in the desert or a day hike gone wrong. He has to survive 7 days before being rescued. With each scenario he’s provided with little supplies you would find in this situation e.g. a motorcycle to salvage.  A must see survival show!

In The Bush with Malcom Douglas is definately one of my favourite and the first survival show I have been watching. Malcolm Douglas (R.I.P.) used to be an Aussie by heart and wildlife documentary film maker, producing films for over 30 years. In his show he didn’t only show Australia’s magnificent flora & fauna, but also would teach you a whole bunch of survival techniques e.g. how to gain water from plants in arid areas, free your bogged down car or prepare “bush tucker” (food) the aboriginal way. Sometimes he goes fishing a lot 🙂 but the information is very valuable and Malcolm Douglas is a must see!

Man VS Wild (Born Survivor in the UK) is definately not one of my favourites and many will say “Whaaaat, Bear Grylls’ awesome?”. Here’s why: Bear Grylls has a lot of knowledge about survival and probably is quite a tough guy being ex-SAS, but apparently rather sleeps in luxury hotels with Wi-Fi and Blueberry Pancakes for breakfast than in his makeshift accommodations (read the full story here). So while the tips and techniques can be adopted in real survival situations it’s lack of authenticity leaves a very bitter taste.

Dual Survival is about two survival experts Dave & Cody. They give a strange survival couple as Dave is the military-expert kinda guy and Cody the minimalist/primitive skills expert. This provides on one hand side two perspectives on one survival situation, on the other side their different opinions and their nagging about can be annoying sometimes. Still nice to watch.

Man Woman Wild is about a real couple in survival situations and I am not quite sure what to think of it. Myke Hawke is former Special Forces and a tough guy while his wife Ruth is a TV journalist and…well not as tough. I have only seen three episodes on Discovery Channel so far and actually enjoyed watching it. Having someone in a survival show who’s not used to eating worms or embryo birds brings a new touch, but sometimes is a bit too much female attitude (don’t get me wrong, women can be tougher than men).

If you have a show you can recommend or a different opinion just drop me a comment. There are more shows out there and I want to know about them and share that info 🙂

Carriers – a viral epidemic

Carrier, a person or organism infected with an infectious disease agent, but displaying no symptoms (Wikipedia)

Time to tackle the topic of a deadly virus today, at least one that doesn’t turn you into an undead flesh-craving zombie. The film Carriers follows four friends (two brothers and their girlfriends) on their journey through the desert to a potential safe place while the civilized world around them comes to an end. A mutated, highly contagious virus has killed vast parts of the population and those infected will die soon. To stay alive our four travellers have established rules and the most important one: The sick are dead! Those infected therefore will be left behind.

This harsh but vital rule naturally leads to conflict between the four survivors as they meet other people on their apocalyptic road trip. As I mentioned earlier, there are no zombies or other monsters in this movie :(… 😉 but what makes this movie so exciting is how that conflict, first subliminal, soon aparent, changes four average students and their behaviour. And knowing this, the term Carrier gets an ambiguous meaning. Apart from that the storyline is quite simple so I won’t go too much into detail.

Spoiler Altert: it is great to watch, but in my opinion even the trailer tells a little too much about the story.