5.29.11
This is an Archival Site
There is now a new Rogovoy Report home
5.18.11
Weekend Preview May 19-24
Bob Dylan tributes, Deborah Voigt, Tom Paxton, Bill Kirchen, John Kirk and Trish Miller
5.18.11
Celebrating Bob Dylan's 70th Birthday in Style
Paying tribute to the greatest rock songwriter ever
5.17.11
FILM REVIEW: In a Better World and Of Gods and Men
Review by Seth Rogovoy
5.17.11
'LIKE' The Rogovoy Report on Facebook
Click 'LIKE' to Receive Facebook feeds from The Rogovoy Report
5.12.11
Deborah Voigt Headlines Mahaiwe Gala
Opera star to sing arias, show tunes on Saturday, May 21
5.15.11
Famed Spiritual Teacher to Speak on Nonviolence
Mother Maya in free talk at Sruti Yoga in Great Barrington, Mass., on Friday May 20 at 7pm
5.12.11
Special Effects Wizard to Be Honored by Film Festival
Doug Trumbull to be Feted by BIFF
5.11.11
Weekend Preview May 12-16
Cultural Highlights of the Berkshire Weekend
6.4.09
Talk about a small world
Elaine and I grew up together, but only just recently met....
5.8.11
Berkshire Living to Cease Publication
A Farewell from Publisher Michael Zivyak
5.8.11
twiGs Branches Out
Lenox boutique launches new e-tail site
5.8.11
[MUSIC REVIEW] Avalon Quartet in Close Encounters at Mahaiwe
Review by Seth Rogovoy
5.8.11
[MUSIC REVIEW] Avalon Quartet in Close Encounters at Mahaiwe
Review by Seth Rogovoy
5.7.11
[FILM REVIEW] Bill Cunningham New York
Review by Seth Rogovoy
5.7.11
[FILM REVIEW] Bill Cunningham New York
Review by Seth Rogovoy
|
[FILM REVIEW] An Inconvenient Truth
6.27.06
AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH
Directed by Davis Guggenheim
Starring Al Gore
Running at The Triplex in Great Barrington, Mass.
and at Images Cinema in Williamstown, Mass.
Review by Seth Rogovoy, Berkshire Living, critic-at-large
This movie should be required viewing by every American. As it turns out, many people all over the world have already been exposed to Al Gore's slide show warning about the travails of global warming. Now the show has come to a theater near you, and it's incumbent upon you to sit through the film (in the ironic comfort of a well air-conditioned movie theater) and then wake up the next day and turn up (or down) your thermostats as the case may be, forsake the short car ride for a walk, and do everything you can to save the planet for your children and grandchildren.
WHile this film doesn't set out to glorify Al Gore or to posit him as a presidential candidate, it sort of can't help doing both, because Gore is worthy of both. For an ultra-modern, net-savvy politician, Gore is also an incredible throwback to an earlier era, a philosopher-politician in the vein of the Founding Fathers -- a thinker, a believer, a writer, a preacher, a man who believes in government and politics as a calling, a belief we see was inculcated in him as a young man by his senator father, Albert Gore Sr.
In fact, over the course of the film, GOre comes to resemble an even earlier type -- that of a Biblical prophet, warning the people about impending doom lest they change their ways. He has amassed the facts at hand, and comes across as a terrific teacher of popular science. He's no blowhard -- he has a sense of humor, and is great with charts and powerpoints. You'd love him in Environmental Science 101, which is a definite aspect of the movie. But his message is so deep and powerful that it transcends science and government, and, without succumbing to too much new-age blathering, really borders on a spiritual challenge (he prefers to frame it as a moral challenge, sort of the secular version of the spiritual challenge).
Gore is obviously so brilliant, so passionate, so driven, that not only does the film convince you of the content of everything he's talking about, it also by implication convinces you of the content of his character.
The challenge now will be to see what he and the rest of us build on this -- it so obviously points to the necessity of Gore being restored to his rightful position of president of the United States. If not, a thousand years from now, the few humans remaining huddled in some cave somewhere will be studying this film the same way we study the books of Jeremiah and Isaiah, wondering where humanity went wrong, and why the people didn't listen to this man who so eloquently and passionately told us an inconvenient truth, warning us about impending apocalypse, his message all the while falling upon deaf ears.
--Seth Rogovoy, Berkshire Living, critic-at-large
Oh, and why isn't he our President!
6/28/2006
|
...sites that work