(You can click the pic, here, or here for better written blurbs on the film. =)
I pushed the movie in an earlier blog . Please have a look at it if you haven't already. In that post I also pointed to some ads that aired as part of a pro-CO2(!?) campaign put together by the ummm... interestingly named... Competitive Enterprise Institute.
Did anyone actually catch one of these re-educational minutes on the telly? I am so frickin annoyed with the spin these "competitive enterprisers" (aka ExxonMobil and friends) are attempting to put on melting glaciers and increasing CO2 levels, citing very particular scientific research in an attempt to discount the observed changes in weather and climate caused by global warming.
On the other hand, it IS kind of backhandedly heartening that they feel they need to embark on this "CO2! U! S! A!" program.
After seeing the movie, I took another look at those CEI propaganda droppings, did a bit of googling, and learned that one of the cited researchers objects to the use and implication of his study as proof against climate change.
Please go see AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH. If you're looking for someone to go see it with, well, check in with me and I'll definitely try and work it in again. =)
I was hoping for some more ((science + nature) x economics) in the documentary, but I think now that by going light on that, the movie keeps the education on the phenomenon in focus, and very approachable and accessible. Pay attention and you'll learn some pretty remarkable things...
Do you know that we've actually succeeded in slowing down the rate of ozone depletion and shrinking the Antarctic ozone hole? This thru international cooperation and regulation of the creation and use of products that release CFCs into the atmosphere.
This success was news to me. WTF? Why was that? Good news doesn't make the news, does it?
It once was true that we, humanity -the ants that scurry across the hide of this massive elephant of a planet Earth- couldn't do a thing to be noticed by or disturb the life of our home. We simply didn't have the power to affect the course of nature and the behavior of the world's climate. However, with the technologies at our fingertips today, in use every day by the largest and most rapidly increasing human population ever, that is no longer the case. We can impact the planet, and its most vulnerable and sensitive component, the atmosphere, in ways that were never before possible.
The scientific community acknowledges that science, data, and research all support this. However, an ad/disinformation campaign as sinister and calculated as that employed by the tobacco industry has the general public doubting. It's the skeptics' goal to get the public to attach the word "theory" to the words "global warming," even though the phenomenon is real, manifest now, and can be measured against data observed over millenia.
How is it that we are so easily manipulated?
You'll recognize how that question pertains to many different sectors of life and knowledge and belief in today's world, eh?
*sigh*
I'm rambling.
Grab some friends and GO SEE THE MOVIE!
Keep on keepin on~
June 14. Check out some observations on polar bears demonstrating a "brutal downside of global warming." I'm still waiting for a festive upside that doesn't resemble Lex Luthor's play for new beachfront property in the first SUPERMAN movie. Random synapse trigger - I seem to recall someone -maybe Kevin Smith?- talking about a SUPERMAN script bouncing around Hollywood for years, and some producer's input being to have Supes go up against killer polar bears... Wack.
7 comments:
Thanks for your help describing this movie. I want to see it now more than ever. The "Lost" thing your wrote was great. I just thought that the writers were stunned that it lasted more than one season and were just making up stuff as they went along and got stoned while they were writing it.
All in all all your posts were pretty interesting.
I actually did know about the positive ozone hole news, perhaps because I keep Space.com as my homepage when I open up my web-browsers...
I'll keep my eyes open for the Gore fest up here. I did go see X3 today, very disappointing, and I wasn't a huge fan of the first two films either...
randomly came across your blog..mm, i wanted to see it. but it was only playing in my area (toronto) on june 2nd and i missed it...soooooo i suppose i'll have to wait for another means
you didn't leave the theatre scared and paranoid? you mentioned a positive note somewhere in your entry..i forget, how the ozone depletion, etcetera was slowed down?..that's...good...
Jenn - LOST - I caught one a couple of bogus Hansocorp ads during the show in the finale and the episode before it. Annoyed to find that one of them linked to a Sprite promotional site, bleah. But the Hansocorp business site looks pretty sneaky-interesting... I haven't spent a lot of time there, but some of the background about the execs hints at things. In general, I try to avoid extracurricular bits of shows or movies I watch (good comic books are an exception to this rule =), but, given that it's LOST, and there's still a whole LOST-less summer ahead, I can easily see myself breaking down in a month or so and clicking every pixel of the site looking for easter eggs and whatnot.
But they can't put anything VITAL in this material, right? I mean, what about those three fans of the show who don't have internet access? How are they gonna survive?
I'm gonna hafta sit down soon some late late night and put together a crazy-talk post about the finale.
Zorknapp - Ozone - I was really surprised at that bit of info. Was there a party or anything? It's a reflection of human nature, no doubt, as well, as I want to believe, urgency and import, but when the hole was discovered, the bad news was headline news.
Does good news really have to be no news in the mainstream? Is EVERYTHING about fear?
(Well, good news not involving sports or cute kids or animal rescue...?)
(Y'know, I didn't want them be, but reading them again, I'm pretty sure those are rhetorical questions *sigh*)
Zorknapp - X3 - Disappointing. I'm with you. The plot was so flat, without the depth and controversy and consequences explored in the first two Xs (which I like, but don't love). And so so thin on character (couldn't you give Peter/Colossus just a LITTLE personality?). There were some small bits of fun, but mostly in the mutant melee. Probably the same stuff you'd get out of SKY HIGH (which I haven't seen... umm... yet. =)
Some very thoughtless moves and unrealized potentials in the movie...
...WTF up with the daylight leading into the finale?
...The movie worked at including more than few X-fan geek treats. The effort behind those throwaway X-flings could've been put into some character and plot development, y'know?
...Just how little did Scott mean to Jean? That was just dumb and sad. But, in the context of THIS movie, par for the course.
What is it w the third film weakness that lets them be okay with just writing off what was built before? I mean - HALLOWEEN, ALIEN, FAST AND THE FURIOUS, ROBOCOP, BATMAN...
Well, okay, ROBOCOP didn't have that far to fall after the second one. Heh.
...Some more hints as to any struggle within Jean, please. And why she couldn't just obliterate Logan - his powers are biological, not, like, nanotech or matter or energy based, bleah.
...I understand the retro-explanation of Jean's split psyche, as a movie-digestable reason for her chaotic side, but comic book boy me found it pretty unsatisfying. If only the franchise could've planned ahead for that just a little I'd have been a lot happier.
Like, in X2, have a whining cat or mockingbird disturb Jean's beauty sleep one night, and in the morning, hey, whaddyaknow? Rogue finds dead cat in the garden. Maybe she touches it and gets a hint that it was Phoenix...?
Or, less crazily, in either earlier X, just have a Xavier "Jean therapy" *groan* session interrupted by this or that news...
...This won't mean anything to non-X-readers, and it's part of the throwaway pandering, but... WTF w the feckin Sentinels tease in the Danger Room! WTF? And having Trask on the cabinet or whatever in the same story?
...I went in w some hopes, sucker that I am. Yeah, he directed the RUSH HOUR flicks, so, a couple of minuses... But, he's been involved w PRISON BREAK, which, granted, ain't no VERONICA MARS or LOST, but has built some decent characters and a puzzle game of a plot, and, yes, I've enjoyed watching, so, some offsetting pluses...
In the end, I gave him too much credit. It's not bad for some porno formula (where the plot, thin as it is, is an excuse for getting to the action - y'know, *doorbell ring* "Mattress delivery!") displays of mutant powers, senseless special effects, and X-cameos, but I would've been happier if this had been a 2-part MUTANT X.
In the end, I'd like to think that there's some localized conservation of movie goodness/crap at work, cuz then I'll be able to chalk this up as a sacrifice made in order to ensure SUPES RETURNS is an even bigger and better experience.
p.s. Oh yeah. That's right. I didn't go back to remark on FAST AND THE FURIOUS. Ayep. Deal with it.
p.p.s. I actually enjoyed the first one, but I'm not sure how much of it was firsthand and genuine, and how much was appreciation of its being exactly POINT BREAK, but with racing. Pretty amazing, that.
Didn't see the second FnF. At least, I don't remember seeing it.
=)
I rented "Inconvenient Truth" this weekend (recommended by 15-year-old daughter), and was once again blown away by how smart, reasonable and compelling Al Gore is, and how stupid this country's citizens must be for not electing him with a landslide vote count. . . . by the end of the movie, I was just mad and sad that we got stuck with an idiot instead of a brilliant, sensitive and competent leader.
Someday I will buy a hybrid. Today I will use those good light bulbs. We can do this!
Love your comments on An Inconvenient Truth -- I saw it a couple months ago and it freaked me out!! What's even scarier is that it really appears that the kind of international cooperation that's needed to reverse this isn't going to happen as long as Bush is in office. So...let's do what Fareed Zakaria, a columnist for Newsweek, recommended, and that is PREPARE TO ADAPT! Our adaptiveness is what's kept us still on this earth while others are gone, a little preparation can go a long way.
Check out the column at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17080934/site/newsweek/
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