Tazzywazzy's Tuesday (Part 3) - Moore Should have voted Gore! (An Inconvenient Truth (DVD))

Member Name: tazzywazzy

Product:	An Inconvenient Truth (DVD)
Date:	31/10/06 (131 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Gore is actualy really likeable for a yanky politician

Disadvantages: We are all doomed, Doomed, DOOMED I tell you!

Here it comes people, the third and final instalment of my Tuesday night (which was actually ages ago now, dooyoo took so long adding this category, I think it was all just for the suspense value!!!)....I bet none of you can wait!

As you all know (because you were paying attention) we went to the Electric Cinema on Portobello Road, for those of you who read my last review, you will know that the Electric Cinema is a tiny cinema with only one screen, so you have to see what they are playing, the Tuesday that we went, they just happened to be playing An Inconvenient Truth.

I knew absolutely nothing about the film we were going to see, let alone the name of the film we were going to see until we arrived at the cinema.

~The Plot~

*WARNING: if you don't want to know that the world is coming to an end, or if you don't want to know that your children and your children's children will be doomed then don't read this, or this sentence - doh!!!*

Well, there isn't much of a plot to this film, it is one of those Docufilms (is that a word or another Tazism?), that you could pigeon hole with Bowling for Colombine, except that this time it isn't Michael Moore, but Al Gore!!!

Al Gore is travelling across America with a fancy pants presentation board, a fancy pants cherry picker type lift so he can point at stuff and a fancy pants power point presentation, lecturing on how we are destroying our planet, and that ultimately we are doomed and so are our children for 1 whole hour and 35 whole mins of my life - uplifting hey?

In summary I can say that Mr Moore would have been impressed with Mr Gore's efforts - they should become bosom buddies and make a film together!!! (sorry I'm feeling a bit sarcy today!)

~Told you there wasn't much of a plot didn't I? So what did I make of it?~

Well I was actually pleasantly surprised at how well Gore actually held my attention and how passionately he argued his point. Gore uses a lot of visual aids to get his point over, such as images of how places of extreme natural beauty looked back in the 70's and those same places look today, moving graphs, illustrating CO2 omissions etc and a couple of cartoons thrown in for humour.

If Gore had been this passionate, back in 2000, we may have been calling him President Gore, and to be honest, I am a little disappointed that he did not make it as President, he comes across as a really good guy. For those of you that might be worried that this is a devious publicity stunt for Gore to re-run for President, don't worry, we are not funding his next election campaign, the guy genuinely is concerned about our environment and the way that it is going.

The film also follows part of Gore's childhood and where he has come from which was quite interesting, but not really of much relevance, except I guess to have a small political dig to say that "smoking is bad" because someone in his close family (I think it was his sister) gets lung cancer from smoking tobacco, as his family used to own a tobacco plantation - hmmm....very interesting.

~Would I recommend it?~

Yes I would recommend this film, it is an extremely important piece of cinematography for our generation, it is like fictitious films that are important because they grab the sentiments of the nation at the time of release, such as "The Full Monty" or "Train Spotting", but on a more serious level.

Although I feel that these lectures are specifically aimed at the American market, to guilt & shame them into becoming more environmentally friendly, as there are a couple of graphs comparing things like pollution or CO2 emissions by country, one in particular, shows that China actually make more environmentally friendly cars than the US and that in fact the US is one of the worst Countries for polluting the environment. I think the message is still very clear to other audiences, such as us Brits and Europeans. As you probably well know, with maths you can make anything happen!

I would highly recommend this film to anyone, although probably not to see it in the cinema, this is the sort of thing that I would happily stay in to watch or record if they were showing it on the TV. I hope that schools will be showing this film to children as young as 11, as it is hard hitting, but the graphs are idiot proof and the simplicity of the graphs make them easy for anyone to understand, and a lot of the information in this film is a good grounding for GCSE geography (climate change etc).

*Attention Tazzy fact coming up*

Children will also be particularly gripped by a couple of cartoon scenes that appear, these appear often enough to hold their attention throughout the film - there is one in particular that is taken from an episode of Futurama called "Crimes of the Hot" where in the future the planet is suffering from Global Warming so they just keep dumping huge ice cubes into the ocean! Al Gore actually plays himself in this episode that his daughter wrote!

There is a smattering of slightly political themes within this presentation, but I do feel most are relevant and interesting, and Gore is not pro government in anyway shape or form, he actually highlights certain memos to shame the government, such as a department that was created to make us all think that global warming was a load of tinkywinky - which I must say I enjoyed greatly!

Although this has a U rating, I don't think that you could hope that a child under 11 would be sufficiently interested in the film, although there are lots of humorous cartoon clips and colourful graphs, there are too many facts and figures that I think would just go over their head and result in them concentration.

~Wrapping it up (in 100% recycled and recyclable paper)~

Go and see this film, you will warm to Gore more than you could ever imagine warming to a politician, you will learn the truth behind all those slogans and things that are always being branded around, you will finish watching this film and actually find yourself quite entertained or maybe I should say enlightened, oh and you'll feel good because you watched something educational!

~One Tiny Gripe~

Gore bangs on about the environment, but what about all the emissions from those planes & cars he is taking?! Now if he cycled across America then I would be well impressed!

*ARGGHHHH I requested this in the VHS category as I saw this at the cinema, that was on the 21st of September(!) so have re-requested again...sorry, just gotta get this posted will try and get it moved if the product ever gets onto the site!

Thanks for reading guys (first published on ciao) x

Summary: .....if it is ever on TV and you have a spare hour or two....