Article Contributed on: 12/5/2006 12:08:24 AM
My son and I usually have breakfast together like we did this morning. We read through the paper and discuss articles which have a direct impact on our household and community.
Thursday mornings have become the highlight of the week because we look through the print edition of YourHub to see if any of my pieces are published.
I'm proud to say my 12-year-old son is interested in current events even if "dear old dad" isn't featured.
After we read through my article on tree roots, we found an inset entitled "Reviewers wanted," soliciting the need for opinions on movies, books, food and so on. The kid told me I should write movie reviews because we watch an average of 3-5 movies per week.
The night before, I happened to view "An Inconvenient Truth." The movie hit me in the gut like an 18-pound sledgehammer.
I'm not afraid to tell you I have cried numerous times during movies. When you develop a love for certain characters, some emotions run amok, unchecked.
In the trilogy,
The Lord of the Rings, Gandalf falls to his seeming death at the hands of the dreaded Balrog, I cried like a baby.
During the runaway subway scene in
Spiderman 2, our superhero is stopped from falling to his death by the very people he saves, water works like you wouldn't believe.
When the last "good" episode of the
X-Files aired, I sat on my couch with a box full of tissues, watching with fervid anticipation as Mulder and Scully finally kissed. I sounded like the cowardly lion when Dorothy slapped him for picking on the tin man and scarecrow.
Al Gore has never been one of my favorite people. As a politician, he didn't produce the spark I needed to get up and get involved. To this day, I have little respect for his wife for forcing
her views on censorship in the music industry during the late 80's.
"An Inconvenient Truth" has pulled the bug out of my backside in regards to the Gore clan. I've also done some homework on Tipper and she's not half as bad as I'd once thought.
Big Al has crusaded against global warming for most of his career and puts a spotlight on our global climate with "An Inconvenient Truth."
He presents hard facts and a visually disturbing slide show in a movie that's easy to watch.
The parallels shown between global temperatures and CO2 levels on our planet is enough to make a plumber pull his pants up.
Gore shows us his willingness to probe deeply into environmental issues by providing layman term explanations for each of his facts.
I'm relatively new to the "green" scene but reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and recycling whenever possible is a conscious decision we all need to start making.
I don't care if you think global warming is a sham, common sense demands we become more responsible as a society.
Gore's stats on population growth are staggering and his firsthand insights are very powerful. I especially enjoyed his use of a quote by Upton Sinclair, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." American politics summed up in a nutshell if you ask me.
After viewing the movie twice, I had an epiphany:
We (the world) need to start tackling these issues together, which is very disturbing considering all the problems we have locally. If I can't drive down the street to McDonald's without getting flipped off, how are we going to collectively solve problems with ramifications that affect the population of the entire world.
I feel sorry for the future generations of this planet.
These are the kind of emotions this movie evoked. I did cry while viewing certain parts because the main character in this flick is my beloved earth. This isn't fiction we're talking about my friends.
You can earn all the money you want but it won't amount to a hill of beans if your grandchildren have to wear 2000 sun block to play outside.
Al has probably made the best movie I've seen in some time and I hope you go to your local video store tonight to check it out.
In contrast, I think the copy protection for this movie should have been omitted. If I were allowed to burn the movie, I'd send it to everyone I know.
Oh well, writing about it is the best I can do.
The official site for the movie is www.climatecrisis.net
Later,
Mike