This past weekend I watched two films, Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth (2006) and Aaron Eckert's Thank You for Smoking (2006). I didn't intend to watch these movies back to back, but they ended up being perfect bookends to each other thematically.
Al Gore's documentary An Inconvenient Truth basically states that Global Warming is not a theory, it's real and causing an increasing threat to mankind. Gore makes a strong case, pointing to an increase in natural disasters and dramatic charts that all show an increase in temperature over a span of time. Intercut are bits about what motivates Al to change the world-it all makes for a great election promo except...he's not running for anything.
One of the things Truth unitentionally underscores is the loss of power to uncharismatic politicians. If a candidate is dull and has no personal story to tell, the largely indifferent voting base will not root for that person. That's not to say I'm necessarily an Al Gore fan, but Truth does show an intelligent and motivated politician in the best light possible. But, even when he's talking about the end of the world with fancy computer graphics-he's still boring! As accomplished as Gore is, the one thing we've learned from the last two presidents is that we like guys who party hard. Gore's wife spent the 80's trying to end popular music, so there goes that.
But what was I originally talking about? Oh yeah, the end of all life on Earth. The end of Truth tries to motivate the viewer to make changes instead of disparing but let's face it-if this stuff is true then we're screwed. This doesn't mean the film wasn't inspiring, my wife and I both made some changes to try to conserve a little more energy and the environment. And then we found out you have to pay twice as much money to buy an energy efficient light bulb that can't fit in your lamp and still leaves you in a dark haze once it's plugged in. I know Al said Inconvenient but...dang!
Thank You for Smoking (2006) is a sharp satire about a fictional PR guy for the tobacco industry. Played with savvy by Aaron Eckert, Smoking shows a world where the antiquated vices of American life (smoking, drinking and guns) hire PR firms to spin all information to their side while they callously calculate their daily death tolls. Smoking does take their story a little too far that it loses some plausibility, but overall the movie is an entertaining joy ride of dark humor.
The two movies dovetail (love that word) to show the choice we are given in terms of what's good for ourselves. The real truth is that energy conservation, alternative forms of energy and other green things won't really take off until they are as cheap and effective as energy wasting materials. Or the planet falls apart. Whichever comes first. In the mean time, I'll play a modest part in change but have no intention of giving up the comforts of modern living.
Like the movie says, these are Inconvenient Truths. Well, I'm an American and I don't do Inconvenient. And when the icecaps melt and I have to take a submarine to get to work because my city is underwater, that'll be inconvenient too. I think I better brush up on my swimming!
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