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I saw this film yesterday. I recommend everyone to see it, not because it is a great work of art, but because it is a passionate plea on a subject of great importance by someone who cares a lot about it. This film suggests that in a mere 50 years the effect of environmental changes will be catastrophic unless we change how we live our lives now. I believe people who disagree with its premise should do so only after they have seen it.

It is the most "uncommercial" film I have ever seen in a regular theater. The entire film is a lecture by a single individual on one subject. It is like being in a 90-minute class. But I found it spellbinding. If its premise proves true, all other subjects facing mankind will appear trivial by comparison.

Given its questionable commercial appeal, your favorite theater may not show it. Please find the one that does. It is worth the trouble.

The correct title is "An Inconvenient Truth".

Thank you, numediaman2, for correcting the title.

Here is a link to Roger Ebert review.

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbc ... 17002/1023

I just received "Why We Fight" from Netflix. I think the times we live in are so divisive, so polarizing, that we have, by accident, created the environment necessary for the rebirth of the documentary.

Only when things turn the bleakest do the documentarists seem to come to the forefront. The last time this happened was in the early '70's.

Here is a short list of films that have made it onto my shelf in the last few years (no endorsement of quality implied):

Control Room
Etre et avoir
The Fog of War
No Direction Home
Super Size Me
Unconstitutional
Bowling for Columbine
F911
The Weather Underground
Unforgivable Blackness
Winged Migration
A Certain Kind of Death

as well as An Inconvenient Truth (which is not on my shelf, of course) and Why We Fight (which is).

That's quite a list. isn't it? In addition, thanks to the DVD companies, Harlan County, Hearts & Minds, and Winter Soldier have joined them.

I guess George Bush should get some of the credit. Why don't we give him an Academy Award and tell him to go home and put it on his mantle and leave the rest of us alone? (The downside would be a decrease in the number of new important documentaries, but I can live with that.)

Al Gore will appear for a post-screening discussion at MoMA on Sunday, October 24. Film starts at 4 p.m.