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Home Front: Culture Wars
Gore Wins Oscar
2007-02-26
Putting him right up there with Mikey Moore.
LOS ANGELES - "An Inconvenient Truth," the documentary that turned former vice president Al Gore's power-point presentation on global warming into an engaging and entertaining film, won the Oscar Sunday night.

The best-documentary win was a triumph for Gore, who has kept a sense of humor about his loss in the 2000 election that was decided in George W. Bush's favor by a U.S. Supreme Court decision. "I am Al Gore. I used to be the next president of the United States of America," Gore says in the film, repeating a line he has used often.

Sunday, Gore used the Oscar win not to further his political career but to boost his campaign to find solutions for global warming and other environmental problems. "My fellow Americans," Gore said to laughter from the crowd. "People all over the world, we need to solve the climate crisis. It's not a political issue, it's a moral issue. We have everything we need to get started with the possible will to act. That's a renewable resource. Let's renew it."

Earlier in the evening, Gore and Leonardo DiCaprio took the stage to unveil a series of efforts the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences took to make this year's awards more environmentally friendly.

Pressed by DiCaprio about any other major announcement he might like to make, the former vice president pulled out a statement. "My fellow Americans, I'm going to take this opportunity right here and now, to formally announce my intentions to ..." Gore said before the orchestra broke in and he walked off, arm-in-arm and laughing, with DiCaprio.

Backstage, Gore put speculation to rest, saying "I do not have plans to become a candidate for office again." Instead, Gore said he was dedicating all his efforts to pressuring governments to act on climate-crisis issues. "It is the overriding world challenge of our time," Gore said. "I really hope the decision by the academy to honor the work by director Davis Guggenheim and these producers will convince people who did not go see it before to see the movie and learn about the climate crisis and become a part of the solution."
Posted by:Bobby

#33  No, no, no - you gotta keep up. It's no longer 'Global Warming'. It's 'Global Climate Change'.

If it's -3 degrees and snowing - 'Global Climate Change'.

If it's sunny and 97 degrees - 'Global Climate Change'.

If it's sunny and just right - 'Global Climate Change' (Global Warming AND Global Cooling at the same time!)
Posted by: DMFD   2007-02-26 22:31  

#32  My dream is Algore strapped to a hospital bed, loaded with giggle juice, and forced to explain On Camera, Recorders running, just exactly how does Global warming also exist ON MARS? (NASA reported It, I find NASA much more believable than any politician out to make himself famous)
Posted by: Redneck Jim   2007-02-26 21:00  

#31  I think I know where all the polar bears went.
I'm pretty sure Gore ate them.
Posted by: tu3031   2007-02-26 20:47  

#30  Grunt - thx for the Silverman link :-)

did you notice how uncomfortable the Gorebots in the audience were?
Posted by: Frank G   2007-02-26 19:30  

#29  Non-believers/Neutrals must be legally, criminally, and publicly punished for tiny Earth's devastating failure to force the giant Sun = Universe into surrrender. FREEREPUBLIC/LUCIANNE/WORLDNEWS > SEND IN THE MARINES. WORLD OCEANS ARE PRODUCING TOO MUCH WATER VAPOR, THE NUMERO UNO GLOBAL GREENHOUSE GAS. TO SAVE HUMANITY, WE MUST D *** NG IT DESTROY OCEAN'S + FORESTS' ABILITY TO PRODUCE VITAL MAN-BREATHING OXYGEN, ERGO THE SUN MUST SURRENDER.
Posted by: JosephMendiola   2007-02-26 18:47  

#28  Well, some of Al's fans are very, very happy...

HAVANA (Reuters) - Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore doesn't know if his climate change documentary will win an Oscar on Sunday night -- but he has Cuba's vote.

Sunday's Union of Young Communist's newspaper reported acting Cuban President Raul Castro "recognized the effort of the former vice president to denounce" global warming during a two-hour meeting with youth leaders on Friday.

Cuba's official and only television media showed Gore's documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" on prime time this month and an update by Gore, giving the one-time presidential contender more positive publicity than any other U.S. leader in decades.
Posted by: tu3031   2007-02-26 16:04  

#27  You guys who didn't watch are lucky. My wife got hold of the remote and wouldn't let go. OK, I'm henpecked. Gore was really, really bad. But even worse was the song played by Melissa Etheridge to introduce the whole "inconvenient truth" bit. While you were watching dogfights I was watching a dog named Melissa. On the screen behind her they kept flashing "green" messages about how you can do away with your car and hug trees instead of burning oil. Hey, I already ride a train. I'd like to see her do that schtick in China where they haven't yet learned about smokestack scrubbers but, of course, it's all George Bush's fault.
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305   2007-02-26 15:41  

#26  The only impressive thing that I saw was Helen Mirren's acceptance speech in which she gave high praise to Queen Elizabeth. It was quite patriotic. Of course if a US actor said something like that about our government or our country they would never work in Hollywood again.
Posted by: remoteman   2007-02-26 14:31  

#25  The Academy Awards is the most self-serving crock of shit I've ever seen. Who cares. Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" is also self-serving. It has little to do with science. So now he is a scientist, climatologist, internet expert, ya da ya da ya da. Al Gore is part of the hot air problem. I assume the participants "car pooled?" Ellen Degeneras fawned over the "diversity" of the crowd. They are about as diverse and my underwear drawer--all the same. There is no diversity of thought in the crowd. I didn't see any conservatives getting awards (and I won't). No one got up and said we did a good thing by liberating Iraq and Afghanistan from tyrants. No one supported the military. The awards are just a bunch of democrap--wet dream of the liberal left for the most part.
Posted by: JohnQC   2007-02-26 12:30  

#24  Verlaine--If you have "On Demand", most of the "Dogfights" episodes are on there--and they're free!

I'm not surprised by Gore's sci-fi film winning. We all saw posting after posting on Rantburg about how the Dixie Chicks were canceling concerts and getting no air play, yet they cleaned up at the Grammys. Hollywood--just like D.C.--is its own universe.
Posted by: Dar   2007-02-26 11:52  

#23  Ditto, BA. I was a bit taken aback to see the re-emergence of this little gem of media distortion: SCOTUS decided the election, not votes. And did you notice the other howler? The Goracle has shown a "sense of humor" about 2000? WTF? Aside from some self-deprecating cracks on a few TV shows, what is that about? When one takes into the balance the unhinged, shameful vituperative rants in public appearances, directed against US policy and Bush, etc., how can he be described as having shown a sense of humor?

Hell, the only movies I saw all year were Clint's two Iwo Jima pieces, and I was (a) unsurprised but totally disappointed with "Flags" (b) very frustrated, perhaps even angry, with "Letters" for its obvious historical distortion within a vehicle that was supposedly breaking new ground WRT historical insight.

But now I'm pissed because I missed the "Dogfights" marathon - I am so oblivious to everything/anything on the idiot box that I didn't even know about it.
Posted by: Verlaine   2007-02-26 11:39  

#22  "Putting him right up there with Mikey Moore"

Yea he's a loser.

But let's not confuse him with that other Mikki Moore, competent Nets big-man.
Posted by: garbagecowboy   2007-02-26 11:39  

#21  The irony here is Hollywood is still in love with Al Gore and it was Al Gore not the Clintons they supported. They still side with AL but Hillary is out in the cold over Obama. I am really loving this. I think I'll buy a Prius, oh wait nevermind.
Posted by: 49 Pan   2007-02-26 11:36  

#20  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMliLih1jsY

This is Sarah Silverman's take on Al Gore's movie. Too funny...
Posted by: 0369_Grunt   2007-02-26 11:31  

#19  I watched it, painfully, no one's made any comment on the editing piece which slams middle America.
Posted by: anonymous2u   2007-02-26 10:55  

#18  I recall a comment here about a week ago "I just scraped four inches of Global Warming Off My Car This Morning,"

Redneck Jim, that was my comment. And the very next day a 4 ft x 4 ft slab of Global Warming flew off the top of a panel truck and put a ginormous dent in the hood of my car on the Beltway. I was lucky it didn't try for my windshield and/or my noggin. I s'pose I've angered Gaia.
Posted by: Seafarious   2007-02-26 10:52  

#17  This is why I don't watch thesa award shows anymore. They is no longer award artistic merit. They are simply another oportunity to make a political statement.

(See Dixie Chicks and the Grammys)

Al
Posted by: Frozen Al   2007-02-26 10:40  

#16  the 2000 election that was decided in George W. Bush's favor by a U.S. Supreme Court decision.

How much longer do we have to listen to this 2000 election was stolen by (liberal) judges tripe? Recount after recount after recount in Florida proved that Bush won FL, when all the votes were counted. Jeebus, I think the last tally was 13 different recounts came to the same conclusion.
Posted by: BA   2007-02-26 10:24  

#15  I recall a comment here about a week ago "I just scraped four inches of Global Warming Off My Car This Morning,"
Posted by: Redneck Jim   2007-02-26 10:23  

#14  I tried to bet my house on Al winning, but the bookies just laughed and laughed and laughed...
Posted by: tu3031   2007-02-26 09:41  

#13  Somebody please tell me why Roving Mars wasn't nominated. It had my two favorite heroines of 2006 nominated too!
Posted by: Eric Jablow   2007-02-26 09:33  

#12  "Hollywood has long neglected to distinguish reality from fiction. But this strikes me as especially surreal, as if to willfully declare that fantasy is as valid as reality, and that there is no reason whatsoever to differentiate between the two."

I look at it this way: Hollywood, along with the TV entertainment industry, serves the liberal establishment by training people to ignore any distinction between fantasy and reality, and to live 24/7/365 in a permanent, uncritical state of suspension of disbelief in which we will also passively absorb their political messages and internalize their norms. They're training us to be gullible.

How many hours, over the course of a lifetime, did the average person of a century ago spend in that state of suspension of disbelief, such as when attending a play at a theater? A hundred hours? 200? I doubt any more than that. Reality was all around them, only briefly escapable.

What about a person born today, or anytime in the last half-century? How many hours will they spend glued to the Idiot Box over their lifetime? 50,000 hours? 100,000? A quarter-million?

Maybe that's why so many among us are "stuck on stupid"...

Posted by: Dave D.   2007-02-26 09:18  

#11  I did not watch either and specifically because I could not stand to watch this nothing get a hand-job from monied half-wits. I put this supposed documentary on par with Nazi hygiene propaganda.
Posted by: Excalibur   2007-02-26 09:14  

#10  That's the first time you've been creeped out by Hollywood?
Posted by: Nimble Spemble   2007-02-26 09:05  

#9  Hollywood has long neglected to distinguish reality from fiction. But this strikes me as especially surreal, as if to willfully declare that fantasy is as valid as reality, and that there is no reason whatsoever to differentiate between the two.

Michael Moore has nothing to his credit beyond being a big fat loudmouthed slob, and you know they laugh at him as much as with him. Gore, however, was an inch away from the most powerful office in the world. Something about giving a real politician an award for an ideologically sound fantasy seriously creeps me out.
Posted by: exJAG   2007-02-26 08:40  

#8  Is anyone surprised? I would have been surprised if he didn't win it.

I didn't watch it either. Something about professional liars patting each other on the back and telling themselves how relevant and great and oh-so-much-better they are then everyone else....
Posted by: CrazyFool   2007-02-26 08:18  

#7  I didn't watch the crap last night. Watched that "Dogfights" marathon on the History Channel.
Posted by: Charles   2007-02-26 08:12  

#6  Stupis is as stupis does. We can expect him to take up the mantle where Jimmy Carter left off.
Posted by: 49 Pan   2007-02-26 08:00  

#5  So will the Goracle use the Oscar and the Peace Prize as a springboard to the '08 Campaign?
Posted by: doc   2007-02-26 07:46  

#4  Al Gore's Recycled Doom
Posted by: anonymous5089   2007-02-26 07:26  

#3  Patrick J_ Michaels on An Inconvenient Truth on National Review Online
Posted by: anonymous5089   2007-02-26 07:22  

#2  The same folks who funded his campaign with millions of dollars handing him an award? Was there ever really any doubt he would receive one?

I mean, what's the point of controlling the media if you can't gratuitously backslap all of your political heroes?

Posted by: Jineque Shomoque1757   2007-02-26 06:50  

#1  My prediction: "An Inconvenient Truth" will wind up on Wal Mart's bargain bin for $4.86 in less than a year.

They can't even give away the film.
Posted by: badanov   2007-02-26 06:40  

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