Movie Time

No, not the Da Vinci Code (which Rotten Tomatoes rates as only 18% - ouch!). I went to see Thank You for Smoking over the weekend – the wonderful satire about lobbyists for the “merchants of death” industries, like Big Tobacco. Before the film, the audience was treated (although I admit that in the context of the subject matter, “treated” is an odd word to use) to the trailer for the upcoming film, An Inconvenient Truth (which opens in Toronto on June 2):

Humanity is sitting on a ticking time bomb. If the vast majority of the world's scientists are right, we have just ten years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet into a tail-spin of epic destruction involving extreme weather, floods, droughts, epidemics and killer heat waves beyond anything we have ever experienced.

So what’s the connection with the lobbyist satire? Well, just as the smoking lobby satire had its fictional Academy for Tobacco Studies, the Oil Industry lobbyists have their Competitive Enterprise Institute. And the CEI, which is apparently funded by Big Oil, has launched its own (inadvertently funny) television commercials to attack the message of An Inconvenient Truth. Their claim? “CO₂ – they call it pollution, we call it life.”

Put this one on the top of your “must see this summer” list. In fact, why not support the message by going to see it on opening weekend? It’s going to be a long hot summer… and potentially fall and winter, too.

Update (24 May 2006): Here's the LA Times on the politics of the film:

In "An Inconvenient Truth," Gore seems to have miraculously shed his political skin — he exudes passion and inspiration. For many viewers, the contrast is inescapable. If voters had seen this gospel fervor in 2000, Gore might be president today rather than the guy from Texas who's been rolling back environmental regulations left and right.

[Technorati tags: thank you for smoking | an inconvenient truth | big tobacco | big oil | competitive enterprise institute | cei | global warming]