An Inconvenient Truth

Directed by Davis Guggenheim

Written by and starring: Al Gore

100 minutes

The most boring part of any war film is when the officers pull out the charts and maps to plan their offensive. An Inconvenient Truth plays like a compendium of briefings.

Part multimedia Learning Annex lecture, part self-aggrandizing infomercial and completely void of anything even remotely cinematic, Al Gore’s oft delivered and well rehearsed lecture on the horrors of global warming, based on his book by the same title, has been captured on film for the ages. As cinema, this had the potential for a great book on tape that comes with an accompanying Thomas Guide.

My initial suspicion was that this was in part a propagandistic attempt by Mr. Gore and his handlers to position him as the Democratic frontrunner for the next presidential race. While guesting on KPBS-Radio’s “Film Club of the Air,” Los Angeles Times columnist Patrick Goldstein noted: “Having interviewed him, I got the very strong indication that he realizes that he’s not a natural politician. I think he’s very wary of going through the media scrutiny.”

While Gore may be suspicious of being gored by the media, he is anything but chary when it comes to basking before a camera. For a guy who heretofore seemed to have the personality of a California redwood, Gore is downright electric. Interspersing his well-rehearsed lecture with one-liners, he works the room like a seasoned stand-up comic.

A good portion of the film veers from the subject at hand in order to paint a portrait of a nice guy. The overriding majority of people who will see this film are the ones who voted for Al Gore. We don’t need more talk of the man who lost an election even after securing the popular vote. With concrete evidence that glaciers are vanishing, water temperatures are rising and Earth is in great danger of destruction, why pad the running time with talk of his young son nearly being killed by a speeding car?

What rankles me most is that when Gore, a passionate environmentalist since the late 1970s, ran in 2000 and had the world’s attention, he almost never addressed global warming. According to Mr. Goldstein, Gore was advised by his handlers to avoid the topic for fear of losing the voters’ interest. You have to ask yourself how important this pet project was for Mr. Gore to totally abandon it in order to win an election.

An Inconvenient Truth is a four-star message packaged into a one-star movie.

Rating:

Who Killed the Electric Car?

Written and directed by Chris Paine

With: S. David Freeman, Frank J. Gaffney Jr., Mel Gibson and Phyllis Diller

86 minutes

Although the similarly-themed Who Killed the Electric Car? doesn’t open for another week, I suggest that you save your entertainment dollars for when it does. While the visual monotony of An Inconvenient Truth will lose nothing when it plays television, WKTEC? is worth a trip to the theater.

The film presents a devastating overview of General Motors’ EV1, one of the fastest, most efficient production cars ever built. Powered by electricity, the environmentally friendly automobile produced no emissions. In fact, the only things it did make were owners happy and enemies of oil companies and Republican presidents.

We follow the scant six-year rise and fall of the technological wonder car that was sacked in part by a government that now blames us for being addicted to oil. Shots of the fleet being rounded up and confined to a yard where they will eventually be crushed and shredded remind the viewer of a vehicular Night and Fog.

Director Chris Paine, eager to lay blame on the guilty, breaks down his film into seven different sets of “suspects” ranging from car and oil companies to the government and we, the people. Even batteries and the hydrogen fuel cell are given a rigorous grilling.

From political insiders to adoring owners, the film relies on dozens of onscreen contributors to get its points across. There are even a few unlikely witnesses. Comic legend Phyllis Diller, positioned before a portrait of GOP henchman Bob Hope, remembers early pre-1920 EVs. Even Mel Gibson takes time away from the men who killed Christ to extol the virtues of the EV1.

Ultimately, the electric car was silenced because it threatened to rock the status quo. Chris Paine presents an “allegory for failure” that he sees “reflected in today’s oil prices and air quality.” Paine uses a steady hand to hold his mirror against society. Prepare to leave the theater a lot angrier than when you arrived.

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Nacho Libre

Directed by Jared Hess

Written by: Jared Hess, Jerusha Hess and Mike White

Starring: Jack Black, Ana de la Reguera, Héctor Jiménez and Peter Stormare

100 minutes

Whenever Groucho Marx was asked which of the 13 Marx Brothers movies was his favorite, he always placed Leo McCarey’s Duck Soup at the top of the list. He was quick to point out that it was the only time in their career that the team was guided by a talented director. Contemporary comics need to listen to their elder’s advice.

After extensive research, I uncovered no relation between the Napoleon Dynamite director and Hitler’s deputy Rudolph Hess. It should have been apparent. Not only was Rudy a better dresser, no matter how warped it was, he possessed a vision. I’ve produced diarrhea with more consistency than Jared Hess’ Nacho Libre.

Jack Black (becoming more and more self-important with each passing film) plays Nacho, a man who grew from an abandoned orphan to a staff cook in a Mexican monastery. In order to save the place from financial ruin, Nacho hatches a plan to make money as a Lucha Libre wrestler. How’s that for a high-concept screen story?

When not exposing his bare midriff, a prime source of the film’s feeble laugh-power, Libre is forced to scavenge tasty nachos in order to top off the monastery’s otherwise vile provisions. It is on one such hunt that Nacho encounters Esquelito (Héctor Jiménez), an emaciated beggar who functions best as a fraught attempt to come up with another merchandisable character like N.D.’s Pedro. I’m sure that the filmmakers took great delight in pairing fatty and skinny as tag team partners. No laurels for this barely hardy variation.

This time, the filmmakers add the one ingredient that Napoleon Dynamite couldn’t begin to imagine: a love interest. Nacho is smitten by Sister Encarnación. Instead of casting yet another facially deformed anomaly, the role went to doe-eyed Mexican beauty Ana de la Reguera. The one lasting truth that I take away from the film is if you can convince a nun to fall in love, you can beat the crap out of a seasoned opponent four times your size.

In order to create an absurd comedy universe, one must first establish a set of ground rules with which to play by. The finest of these types of comedies are the ones propelled by their own unique brand of logic. Nacho smears horseshit over Esquelito’s eyes and has him run across a field for bow-and-arrow practice. How is this supposed to make anyone a better wrestler?

Later, Nacho approaches local wrestling legend Ramses (Cesar Gonzalez) to ask if he would be kind enough to sign some autographs for his band of ragtag orphans. Prior to this, we see evidence of Ramses’ brutality only in the ring. His reaction to Nacho’s request – he throws our hero to the ground – is completely unmotivated. This is convenient, simple-minded character development at its worst. Perhaps I’m the crazy one for putting more thought into the film than the writers did.

Produced by Nickelodeon and aimed straight at the hearts of 9-year-old boys, the film has enough fart and doody material to clog a bus terminal men’s room. Given the glut of juvenile scatology on display in both of Hess’ films, I was shocked to discover that co-author Jerusha was Jared’s wife, not younger brother.

A colleague was eager to point out that the film employed many of the locals in Oaxaca. She forgot to mention that it employed them as freaks and morons. First off, the film failed to credit Speedy Gonzales and the Frito Bandito as dialogue coaches. There is one painfully unattractive gentleman who is given at least six close-up shots throughout the course of the film. Hess sets us up to think this guy is going to have an impact on the film’s outcome. Perhaps he’s Papa Libre? Instead, he’s simply on display so that we may take mean-spirited delight in his physical ghastliness.

So far this year, Hollywood spat out Date Movie and Grandma’s Boy, thus making it impossible to dub Nacho Libre the worst comedy of 2006. That’s about the nicest thing you will ever get me to say about the film. Hey, Jack, take Groucho’s advice and next time upgrade to Dennis Dugan.

If you’re really desperate for a Mexican wrestling picture, find any of the El Santo epics, or better still Wrestling Women vs. the Aztec Mummy. Whether they knew it or not, these films had more of a stylistic sense when it came to establishing a surreal universe than anything on display here.

Rating: 0