Pretty Good Gore...

I saw that you asked for comments on the Gore movie; I saw it last night.

It's like Stop Making Sense or Swimming to Cambodia, except it's Al Gore giving a lecture on global warming.

I liked it, but it needs a bit of work. Say what you want about Michael Moore, but he is the master of the entertaining documentary. And because the movie touches on Gore's career and 2000 defeat, you can't help but think of Fahrenheit 911. Obviously Gore had more reasons not to use Moore than to use him, but if he could have snuck in some anonymous help, it would have helped.

Gore makes his primary case, that global warming is occurring and that the only people who deny it are corporate interests, very well. He does a lot of it in his now familiar "I'm funnier than you think I am" dry tone, which works well because it's a refreshing change from -- I'm a liberal, so I can say this -- screaming environmentalists.

Interrupting the lecture are bits about his life, several of them sad. His father grew tobacco and he loved working in the fields, but his father stopped when his sister died of lung cancer. And stories about his career inevitably end with the 2000 election results, and we all know the story, but there was Gore himself talking about it, and it was fascinating.

On the downside -- it lagged about 75% in, but then picked up. The low point is probably an animated sequence that looks like it was made by the Simpsons production team, and it's probably a great surprise when he shows it to a live audience, but in the movie, it looked stupid.

Finally, it helps if you're interested in Gore, as I am. He seems to actively struggle to be a regular guy, which is literally impossible for a former vice president, but I give him credit for the effort. And he seems very sincere about the message. Along the same lines, you could argue that he should have kept his personal political life out of the movie, but that would have reduced interest in the movie, so why separate the message from the messenger?

I think you should see it. It's eventually going to be overshadowed by the presidential campaign, but the message is important.

~Jim Corrigan