Hot on the heels of Mike’s recent “5 Hidden Treasures of 2010″ post in which he highlighted this film, the time seems ripe to highlight the trailer for what certainly looks like one of the must watch documentaries of the year.
The global environmental crisis has, of late, been overshadowed by the financial crisis but that doesn’t mean that docs (and movies) aren’t still being made with an environmental message. What’s sad is that the message is one of doom, gloom and the coming apocalypse. Yes, things are bad, but how bad are they really? Director Ondi Timoner presents another side to the argument by focusing her documentary Cool It on Bjorn Lomborg, an academic and environmental writer who authored the controversial book “The Skeptical Environmentalist.”
Timoner follows Lomborg as he travels the world exploring the real facts and true science of global warming and its impact and the result may not be what we might expect, especially if we buy into the An Inconvenient Truth‘s the sky is falling, end-of-the-world scenario. I can see how some might think that Lomborg is doing a disservice to the push for change but we’re entitled to the truth – or at least both sides of the story.
Mike sings its praises and I love Ondi so this is a no brainer. Cool It opens November 12th.
The Trailer is tucked under the seat.
What is the soundtrack used for that trailer? Is it original to Cool-it or borrowed from a narrative film? Sounds familiar to me.
I am pretty sure its the same music in the film… or maybe it is used from An Inconvenient Truth. Lomborg was at the Q&A at TIFF and you would expect, with all the ‘controversy’ about the guy’s opinions there would be a lot of attacks, and it was just the opposite, the film had engaged the imagination of everyone there and rather than attack him, they wanted to know more about how his ideas could work.
Just watched the film. Quite interesting and inspiring. What a double bill it would make with COLLAPSE!
now you need to go watch Ondi’s We Live in Public, streaming on Netflix. I am becoming a big fan of her work.
Actually a better double bill is Cool It! and Inside Job… something Ondi talked about in the Q&A. Cool It! is optimistic and has a lot of strong points on its side, but they hinge mostly upon policy change and rational thought and a system that does what is in its best interest… when you see Inside Job you quickly realize how little reason has to do with anything.
I actually did the double bill of Cool It! & Inside Job. I was taken aback at how ‘slick’ and polished Inside Job was in terms of aesthetics and flow…considering it is a lot of talking heads and voice-over narration…
I loved “DIG!” and really didnt like “We Live in Public” – whatever message it had seemed well past its date of relevancy, I think she missed her window.
Yeah I still haven’t seen Ferguson’s previous doc, No End in Sight, which I believe won the Oscar. The aesthetics of Inside Job most reminds me of The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Story of Enron.