| |
Click Poster to Purchase
 |  | Get Showtimes... |
Review #146 of 365
Film: An Inconvenient Truth [PG] 95 minutes
WIP™ Scale: $14.00
Where Viewed: AMC Pacific Place 11, Seattle, WA
When 1st Seen: 7 June 2006
Time: 9:06 p.m.
Review Dedicated to: David "smoothy" S. and David "chernobyl" C. both of Chicago, IL
 |  |
DVD | soundtrack |
Click for 'Review Lite' [a 150-word review of this film]
Note: This review will not be of the conventional form. The film in question is an unconventional documentary, and the issues addressed are of such importance, I feel the need to take some time to really encourage all people everywhere to see this film.
One thing that Al Gore is not afraid of is controversy, and the new documentary film, An Inconvenient Truth, Directed by Davis Guggenheim now in limited, moving to wide, release which weaves his life story together with his life-long pursuit of understanding of global warming is certain to get its share of scrutiny. First and foremost, critics will most likely try to latch on to two things: (a) the obvious anti-Bush tenor of the film, and (b) the fact that segments focusing on Gore's personal life (such as the near death experience of his young son after a car accident which he suggests induced a radical transformation in his way of thinking about the value of life each day) were added to the film though sometimes these segments seem to have little to do with the film's main message. I, unfortunately, would also wish that they had not been included in the film for I would have preferred there be nothing to distract the viewer from the salient scientific message that the former vice-president attempts to deliver in a succinct, clear, graphically compelling, statistically undeniable, pictorially relevant Keynote® (Apple Computer Inc.'s multi-media presentation software) presentation. I honestly believe, all movie criticism aside, this is one of the most important issues facing our planet today. Whether you want to believe it or not, as Mr. Gore points out in the film, the scientists do not disagree that we are experiencing global warming, that we are causing global warming, and that if we don't do something about it, we will change Kevin Costner's film Waterworld from a futuristic, sci-fi film into the latest disaster documentary. And DO NOT LET THE MEDIA PERSUADE YOU OTHERWISE—the media may feel that this is part of some cyclical phenomenon because they are paid billions of dollars in advertising money by oil, gas, and the automobile industry, but the scientists who have been measuring carbon dioxide concentrations in core samples of ice laid down over the course of the last 650,000 years can assure you, there is nothing cyclical about what is happening now. This is real, and it is scary. Scary because of the storms these changes will cause, scary because of the displaced people it will create, scary because of the global problems it will cause for the children of the next generation. And scary because if USAers continue to ignore the evidence and continue to allow elected officials to do the same, and the USA continues to contribute over 65% of the problem carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, we will have no one to blame but ourselves.
One thing that Al Gore is not afraid of is controversy, and the new documentary film, An Inconvenient Truth, Directed by Davis Guggenheim now in limited, moving to wide, release which weaves his life story together with his life-long pursuit of understanding of global warming is certain to get its share of scrutiny. First and foremost, critics will most likely try to latch on to two things: (a) the obvious anti-Bush tenor of the film, and (b) the fact that segments focusing on Gore's personal life (such as the near death experience of his young son after a car accident which he suggests induced a radical transformation in his way of thinking about the value of life each day) were added to the film though sometimes these segments seem to have little to do with the film's main message. I, unfortunately, would also wish that they had not been included in the film for I would have preferred there be nothing to distract the viewer from the salient scientific message that the former vice-president attempts to deliver in a succinct, clear, graphically compelling, statistically undeniable, pictorially relevant Keynote® (Apple Computer Inc.'s multi-media presentation software) presentation. I honestly believe, all movie criticism aside, this is one of the most important issues facing our planet today. Whether you want to believe it or not, as Mr. Gore points out in the film, the scientists do not disagree that we are experiencing global warming, that we are causing global warming, and that if we don't do something about it, we will change Kevin Costner's film Waterworld from a futuristic, sci-fi film into the latest disaster documentary. And DO NOT LET THE MEDIA PERSUADE YOU OTHERWISE—the media may feel that this is part of some cyclical phenomenon because they are paid billions of dollars in advertising money by oil, gas, and the automobile industry, but the scientists who have been measuring carbon dioxide concentrations in core samples of ice laid down over the course of the last 650,000 years can assure you, there is nothing cyclical about what is happening now. This is real, and it is scary. Scary because of the storms these changes will cause, scary because of the displaced people it will create, scary because of the global problems it will cause for the children of the next generation. And scary because if USAers continue to ignore the evidence and continue to allow elected officials to do the same, and the USA continues to contribute over 65% of the problem carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, we will have no one to blame but ourselves.
" Whether you want to believe it or not…the scientists do not disagree that we are experiencing global warming, that we are causing global warming, and that if we don't do something about it, we will change Kevin Costner's film Waterworld from a futuristic, sci-fi film into the latest disaster documentary."
As the 'star' of the documentary, Al Gore does a phenomenal job as the young enough but not too young statesmen watchdog for the environment. I know that the former Vice-President has endured many jabs on Jay Leno and among coffee-clutch circles for the misunderstanding of his comment about his inventing the 'information superhighway', and this has caused numerous people to doubt his word when he says he has had a life-long commitment to the environment and the issue of global warming. They say, "Yeah, right, he's been fighting global warming since before anyone knew what it meant." Their assumption is based on the concept that they feel he's only been really on this topic since he became vice-president. When, in actuality, it was this issue of global warming that drew him into public service in the first place and gave him the impetus to run for Congress because he wanted there to be someone in public office raising the issue which he first learned about in college. That's right, a public official who actually learned something in college—I know it's rare and hard to believe. Honestly, though, this is all semi-irrelevant, because it really shouldn't matter whom the spokesperson for the issue is. The important thing is that people need to start listening to the message. Director Davis Guggenheim has made it pretty easy to follow the data trail and used the technology brilliantly on film. I found myself feeling like I was at one of Mr. Gore's town hall-style meetings on global warming, laughing along with his jokes, and getting more and more worried that too few are doing too little too late to get much of a difference on these issues. The thing that should scare us all the most, though is that whether you believe any of this or not, whether you believe it but feel it's a problem for others, or you believe it but you don't think it will happen any time soon, you should understand one very important thing and that is that nobody really knows. People can say that it will take 50-100 years for anything bad to really happen, and it just as easily could be 10 years, scientists have no idea. They are guessing based on models that involve millions of variables in a mathematical soup of equations. This is complicated science. Think about it, experienced and scientifically-trained experts are completely unable to predict the course of hurricanes, the appearance of tornadoes, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, etc. So, yes, we are living on a recently quite stable planet, but it wasn’t always so. We know that the Rocky Mountain are made from land of two continental plates that smashed into each other or shoved into each other over a long period of time. Well, if your city had been built on that land? Anyway, the point is that we just don't know. So, the more well-educated we become, and the more we do about what we do know, the better off we are all likely to be. The most important thing that citizens of the USA can do is write your congress people (go to www.congress.org) and let your elected officials know (for free) that global warming needs to become a top priority for the Congress and that they need to exude all forms of pressure on the President to get the USA to sign the Kyoto Treaty (only the USA and Australia have failed to sign the treaty) which basically says to the rest of the world, "We are the worst polluting nation on earth, but we don't care." Second, I would urge everyone to visit www.climatecrisis.net which is the web site for this film. It has loads and loads of ideas of what you can do in your own small way that when combined with the efforts of tens of thousands of people starts to add up in a very big way to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. How come we don’t hear about the ozone hole anymore? Because our efforts to lead the world in the elimination of the release of CFCs that were destroying the ozone layer actually worked. We can stop global warming too, but only if our government and our citizens act immediately.
An Inconvenient Truth [DVD](2006)
| The Book | VHS | DVD |
| Related Book | Related Book | Related Book |
| Related Book | Related DVD | Related DVD |
An Inconvenient Truth (2006) Review-lite [150-word cap]
One thing former vice-president Al Gore is not afraid of is controversy, and the new documentary film, An Inconvenient Truth, Directed by Davis Guggenheim, which weaves his life story together with his life-long pursuit of understanding of global warming is certain to get some scrutiny. In it, he delivers the salient scientific message in a succinct, graphically compelling, statistically undeniable, pictorially relevant presentation. Mr. Gore points out that scientists do not disagree that we are experiencing global warming, that we are causing global warming, and that if we don't do something about it, we will change Kevin Costner's film Waterworld from a futuristic, sci-fi film into the latest disaster documentary. Why don’t we hear about the ozone hole anymore? Because global efforts to eliminate CFC-release, which was destroying the ozone layer, actually worked. We can stop global warming too, but only if our government and citizens act immediately.
No comments:
Post a Comment