AL'S SLIDESHOW AND THE REST OF IT

The family went to see An Inconvenient Truth at the Cedar Lee last night. It turns out this is really three films intertwined. There is, of course, the "filmed live" version of Al Gore's Global Warming Slideshow. Then there's the Slide Show Backstage -- interludes of Gore travelling to presentations, pecking at his laptop on planes, walking through airports, even occasionally talking to sources. Finally there's a healthy dose of Al Gore Campaign Infomercial.

Four things I'd like to say about An Inconvenient Truth:

1) The actual Slideshow, which is around two-thirds of the film, is absolutely terrific. Riveting. Not to be missed. Whoever said to Gore, "You know, Al, you should make a movie of this" was freaking brilliant. For this part alone, go see this movie.

2) The Campaign Infomercial stuff -- including most of Gore's wanderings around his Tennessee homestead, reflections on his boyhood, shots of the 2000 campaign, and most of the footage about his sister and his son -- detracts from the film's strength and raises obvious questions about its intentions. It just shouldn't be there.

3) The Slide Show Backstage parts have way too much of Gore pondering soulfully, striding alone through airports and playing Lone Laptop Ranger on planes. If director Davis Guggenheim cut this stuff back, there'd be room to include some other voices from among the many people we see, or hear about, but never meet. Like: Gore interviewing a few of the scientists we see him visiting. Gore talking with people who helped organize his big audiences in China and elsewhere. Gore introducing a mayor or two from cities that have adopted carbon reduction programs.

(A lesson Gore should have learned from the 2000 campaign: Don't try to tell the press that you played a crucial role in developing the Internet -- introduce them to Vint Cerf, and let him tell them. There's an element of "Al Gore discovered global warming" in this film. Like the Internet thing, there's some truth to it, but it would sound better coming from other people's mouths.)

4) Virtually all of the film's "What is to be done?" content is relegated to some text interspersed with the closing credits. There's a strange moment in the Slideshow when Gore graphs out the CO2 reductions that various strategies could achieve, but gives no explanation of what they involve, apparently assuming that we all know. (Quick, what's "carbon sequestration"?) You leave the theater horrified and motivated but with few new clues about Gore wants you to do. Even the movie's website URL, where we're apparently supposed to seek the answers, shows up only in the closing credits sequence.

Bottom line: As an Al Gore Global Warming Slide Show concert film, An Inconvenient Truth could hardly be better. The peripherals are a lot weaker, but so what? Two thumbs way up.