I watched "Day after tomorrow" on DVD. It's a story about the onset of a new ice age triggered by global warming and was made in 2004. It was a jaw-dropping experience for me because I didn't have the faintest idea that CG has advanced that much. It struck me as something different altogether from movies as we knew them in the last century. Having said that I wasn't as impressed by its digital wizardry as I was by its plot. At first I found it kind of boring. It got interesting midway. I got the impression that it was written by multiple writers. Maybe that's the way every film is written these days. The part about Gutenberg's bible seemed to leave a long-lasting impression, and I thought it could have been a much better flick had they taken more time and brains to come up with just a little bit better scenario. As overwhelming as the CG scenes are, they at times get almost as lame as those you'll find on films created at the time when CG technology was still in its infancy. I wouldn't say it was as tacky as those you'll find in movies like "Godzilla," though. There's a world of difference. CG wolves or dogs were awesome. The scene in Tokyo was awful. Not only far from the reality, it seemed too stereotyped. However advanced some of the images are, there would be no point in all this if they keep offering stereotyped images.

Last month I watched "Duel" once again on TV, probably for the tenth time or even more. That's because they rerun it over and over here in Japan. It seems like it has gained some popularity here over the years and probably its ratings have been fairly good. Sure enough, it seems like one of the masterpieces made just before CG and all that stuff came along. Everything in it looked like real things. The sunset in the last scene was the real one, the protagonist's car about to smash against an oncoming train was real. In retrospect all this was something of a feat. With all the latest filming techniques available, no one in their right mind would do the same thing today. I think CG films sure are great. But at the same time I sometimes find myself more comfortable with those pre-CG films.