Tuesday, August 1

Inconvenient Truth / Electric Car

I finally got around to seeing a double feature*: Who Killed the Electric Car? (2006) and An Inconvenient Truth (2006). Both are playing at The Magnolia.

As far as conspiracy movies (!) go, I'd give them both a solid A, since both try hard to stick to the facts (unlike most anything by Michael Moore, who is comedic rather than dramatic).

I moved to Dallas in 1993, so I wasn't in California when the EV-1 hit the streets (they weren't available in Texas). One tidbit they dropped in the movie is that GM only leased these vehicles; none were sold. At the end of the lease, GM took them to crushing yard and simply destroyed them, rather than sell them (residual lease value) to willing buyers. You'd have to see it yourself, but I came away with the sneaky suspicion that GM made certain this vehicle failed, despite the spindoctoring on their website: ("Who Ignored the Facts About the Electric Car?").
Amusing: Mel Gibson is featured a few times, talking about his EV-1. Given his .. er .. problems in California last weekend, I'm wondering if version 2 of the movie will leave him on the cutting room floor.
As to An Inconvenient Truth -- basically a movie where Al Gore gives a presentation (from his PowerBook) about Global Warming -- I didn't see the same kind of naming names that Electric Car did so openly. There were some interesting audio flaws in the film, so you get the impression that some of the late editing was a bit sloppy. Yet, the message is clear. Basically: here are the facts about global warming .. they appear indisputable .. now, do something about it. Yes, the movie ends by pointing us to climatecrisis.net so I just did likewise.

Too bad these aren't in wide release, but I suspect there's political pressure on the mainstream theatres (MST?) not to show them. No surprise.
* okay, so it's not a "double feature" where you see two movies, back-to-back, for one price. I don't know any theatre which does that anymore

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