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SEXIER THAN PARIS HILTON
Good article in The Guardian about Al Gore’s trip to Sundance with the documentary An Inconvenient Truth.
From the piece:
“What can a film that has helped make Al Gore sexier than Paris Hilton possibly be about? A partial list of its contents would include the greenhouse gas effect, the proliferation of carbon dioxide, the convection energy of hurricanes, the paradoxical flood-drought syndrome, melting methane in Siberia, the history of the Ice Age and the physics of solar ray absorption. It becomes no clearer why this film is having such an impact when you learn that it largely takes the form of a souped-up Powerpoint presentation.
But it’s riveting largely because of the conviction and energy with which Gore delivers the presentation that is its backbone. Since his defeat by some hanging chads and the US Supreme Court in 2000, Gore has been touring the country and the world, giving a passionate, expertly documented multimedia presentation on global warming, in halls and on campuses, mainly to invited audiences. This campaign is personal and impassioned. He has given the presentation, by his own admission, more than 1,000 times.
Will Dana, editor of Rolling Stone, recalls seeing it in New York last year. ‘He was on fire. There was real moral and emotional engagement.’ Gore’s knowledge is comprehensive: he has been interested in the science of global warming for more than 30 years, since he took a course at Harvard with the first scientist to measure carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, Professor Roger Revelle. His conclusions are profoundly alarming. ‘But he also stresses that doing something about this doesn’t mean we’ll all be living in tents,’ Dana says. ‘He sees it as an opportunity for American ingenuity and engineering, and because he’s so positive he’s filling a very important role right now.'”
The film was executive produced by Laurie David — Larry David’s wife — and produced by Lawrence Bender. Jeff Skoll’s Participant Productions provided the financing, and it was directed by Davis Guggenheim. I haven’t been obsessively tracking the Sundance deals, but if this hasn’t been picked up yet, it soon will be, I’m sure.
