You have to hand it to disaster maestro Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, Godzilla): he and his team create absolutely stunning visual effects. In fact, I would hazard a guess that if New York City were besieged by tsunamis and a dramatic rise in sea level followed closely by an instant freeze, and 
if the aerial motion picture cameras were standing by to capture these events, the result would be disappointing dull compared to the hyper-realistic spectacle in The Day After Tomorrow (2004). (One exception: the storm projection computer model looks like a cross between Van Gogh and Play-Doh.)
Thanks to Sky movies and a lazy Easter Sunday evening in Ireland with Maggie’s family, I was spared having to actually rent this one, which had been on my list purely for the Emmerich eye candy. I was not disappointed. However, I thought a veteran like Dennis Quaid would give a passable performance. Some of the dialogue (the “You must believe me, Mr. President!” stuff) had to be a bit painful to deliver. The rest comes down to poor direction. There is a scene that ends when Quaid gets in an elevator, and when the door closes, I was thinking, “Okay, let’s try that one again.” Emmerich must have been asleep at the monitor. Why bother with extra takes, I suppose, if they might eat into the lion’s share of the $125 million budget spent on effects.
Here are this morning’s Oscar-nominated films, alphabetically. The nominees for foreign language film and documentary feature are compiled at the end of the list. (Short format nominees are listed in a 
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