11th Hour

Recently saw this movie & it did get me thinking.

I can't say I think it's a great popcorn movie, it's rather dense contentwise, but it is thought provoking and at the end of it, I felt like I wanted to do something about the problem.

At the time, I found myself comparing it to The Day After Tomorrow, because while the Roland Emmerich potboiler has zero credibility, it is a good popcorn movie. I've probably watched it 20 times (if not more), because I think Dennis Quaid and Jake Gyllenhall are both really good in it, acting their hearts out over a script that is actually overly praised if you call it drivel. Also, the effects are wonderful, though they are used to fairly stoopid ends.

11th Hour has the exact opposite problem. It's a long 2 hours of talking heads, interspersed with stock footage of various environmental disasters (boy are there a lot of environmental horrors in this world right now). It's a very heady film, without a lot of emotional lift.

Of course, the best environmental film out there is The Al Gore Flick, which begs the question "Do we need another one of these, only half as good?" I think the answer is yes.

What I'd like to see is a good ecological thriller, one with three dimensional characters, emotional and intellectual logic, based on good science and worthy of a bucket of popcorn.

Dream on, right?