April 28, 2006
A CHEERY MESSAGE OF HOPE FROM AL
A terrifying, Gore-splattered frightfest! (Chris Knight, National Post, April 28th, 2006)
With the Hot Docs film festival starting its 10-day run in Toronto today, the Trailer Tracker turns its gaze to another new documentary that looks at the hot topic of global warming."It will shake you to your core," it begins, spelling out the words in a font that must be Helvetica Ominous. "If you love your planet ... If you love your children ... You have to see this film."
And then comes the voice. Not the deep trailer voice, but the slightly more nasal and southern-sounding voice of Al Gore, the also-ran (and also-won) of the 2000 presidential election. His latest stump speech is not to get elected, but to save the planet: "If you look at the 10 hottest years ever measured," he says, "they all occurred in the last 14 years, and the hottest of all was 2005."
An Inconvenient Truth is director Davis Guggenheim's documentary about Gore's pro-Earth, anti-warming message of hope and, some say, more than a little fear. The trailer flashes through quick images of floods, fires, melting ice, hurricane-force winds and general catastrophe to the sound of beating kettle drums, while Gore intones: "This is really not a political issue so much as a moral issue."
The printed message picks up again by asking, "Last August ... Did the planet betray us ... Or did we betray the planet?" The shots of smoke rising from New Orleans seem like an echo of the smoking towers of New York on 9/11, a point Gore drives home by asking, "Is it possible we should prepare against other threats besides terrorists?"
Finally, as the scary music swells, we see the effects of rising ocean levels on Florida, Shanghai, Calcutta and lower Manhattan, which would become lower-than-sea-level Manhattan. "Think of the impact of a couple of hundred thousand refugees," Gore says, "and then imagine 100 million."
The trailer can be seen at (here). The film opens on June 2. It should be a hot ticket.
Surely this one will knock Reefer Madness off the cult circuit.
When Al Gore talks about 'other threats besides terrorists', is he talking about himself?
I so hope he runs in 2008. He and Kerry and Edwards can beat each other bloody while they try to out-do the others in trashing Hillary Clinton.
Perhaps Al will even accuse the Clintons of ruining the Democratic party.
Posted by: jim hamlen at April 28, 2006 10:14 AMWhat gets me about this is that they're now saying, "It's happening faster than even we, in our wisdom, could have ever predicted!" Check out that Time magazine cover story with the polar bear a couple of weeks ago. Well, if it's happening so fast, then what was the point of Kyoto again? Remember that we wouldn't have seen any effect from the Kyoto Protocols for fifty years, at least. So, if it's happening as fast as "they" say it is, then it doesn't matter one way or the other whether Bush signs it or not. It reminds me of that dopey movie "The Day After Tomorrow." All through that movie they excoriate their ersatz Dick Cheney for not signing the Kyoto Protocols, but then massive climate change happens in about twelve hours, so Kyoto wouldn't have done any good anyway. You can support gun control all you like, but you're not going to stop bullets once they've been fired.
Posted by: Bryan at April 28, 2006 10:51 AMIs this the one where he reveals the secret location of ManBearPig ?
Sorry, Al, but 2005 was the 2nd hottest year on record. 1998 still has it beat. Just another addition to the long list of "Really stupid things Al has said on TV."
Posted by: BrianOfAtlanta at April 28, 2006 11:36 AMThey still can't tell the difference between a movie and reality, can they?
Posted by: fred at April 28, 2006 1:26 PMThe conservative blogosphere & talk radio should organize heckling of the trailers and the movies, complete with fake "bu-----t!" and "Blo---b" sneezes and bad Gore Immitations.
Posted by: Bruno at April 28, 2006 1:41 PM