Are We the Baddies? Ecological Catastrophe, Complicity and 2019 at the Movies
The Hottest August
“Are you worried about the future?” The question on everybody’s mind, posed repeatedly by Brett Story in The Hottest August, became a nagging chorus as she and her crew hopscotched New York to take the temperature of a city already experiencing the effects of climate change. (Shot in large part around neighborhoods hit by Hurricane Sandy, the documentary made its local premiere in June, just before the hottest month ever, full stop.) Day by day, interview by interview, Story found urban rituals and residents persisting uneasily—many of the people she met and interviewed seemed almost to gaze past her camera […]