Does Al Gore actually get his own Oscar?

[liberalnurse]

I'm not sure where Al Gore fits into the Documentary Category. I saw the other fella holding the Oscar and he asked Al to hold it while he gave his thank you speech......but I don't know if Al actually gets' his very own statue.

:shrug:

[NYCGirl]

1. No, he doesn't. NT

[terrya]

2. No.

That was nice that the director let Gore hold the Oscar. But since he had nothing to do with the making of the film per se, he doesn't actually get one.

[shain from kane]

3. Again, he was responsible for the vote, but didn't get the prize.

[Poiuyt]

4. No. I'm not sure if it goes to the director or producer, but Al was neither

[OrangeCountyDemocrat]

5. No

I tried to explain this last night, and got attacked for saying Gore didn't deserve the award, or wasn't responsible for the film. BLAH BLAH BLAH!!

All I was trying to say is that Mr. Gore does not actually receive the award. Whether he's the only reason for it or not, the Oscar goes to those who made the film itself, including Davis Guggenheim.

But people here at DU are so shortsighted and in attack mode, they don't bother to listen or understand many things that people say once they make up their minds.

At this point, I'm willing to let those unwilling to reason through the situation, believe that it's his award, and that he'll keep it in the Oval Office if elected. Even if it's not his award.

[liberalnurse]

6. Well then it was a good thing for me to revisit this question.

Thanks for the feed back. O8)

[cgrindley]

7. None of them should get it

It was a powerpoint presentation and included immortal shots of Gore pretending to work on a powerpoint presentation and other immortal shots of an audience responding to images of Gore working on a powerpoint presentation. It never would have won if it wasn't for the current media focus on climate change. It was a horrible horrible film, utterly unworthy of any claim to documentary fame. True, nonetheless, but crapulent. Dull, boring and trite. Wretched, embarrassing filmmaking.

None of this changes the fact that it was true. None of this changes the fact that Gore would make an acceptable president.

Let's just not kid ourselves about the film. It stunk.

PS not really Powerpoint but Keynote, but no one calls a multimedia slideshow anything other than powerpoint.

[crispini]

8. This film CAUSED the current media focus about climate change.

Plus, it was a good enough piece of film-making to make a film about a PowerPoint interesting, which is quite an achievement.

[cgrindley]

13. No it didn't

Jesus. Tell me again how many articles were published on climate change prior to the January 2006 release of Inconvenient Truth?

Wait... I'll tell you: on academic search premier (which is very general), 10,000 refereed articles were published on climate change or global warming prior to the release of Inconvenient Truth.

10,000 articles.

And that's the refereed articles only.

[crispini]

18. Popular media, not academic media.

Seriously, this film has done a LOT to get global warming out there in the mainstream. Was global warming even a TOPIC in the 2004 elections? No, it was not. All of my friends and relatives who are NOT particularly politically plugged in (these are the ones who ask me about current events, haha) have seen this movie and are concerned about this issue now, when before, they were not.

It's like Apple; the iPod didn't do anything NEW but it did it better and it did it in such a way that my mother now has an MP3 player. Repacking it and takin' it into wide release. That's a major achievement.

[Bandit]

61. Ever heard of "Earth in the Balance"?

Published in the eighties......

[NYCGirl]

10. Looks like you're in the tiny minority, critically:

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/inconvenient_truth/

[cgrindley]

14. So what?

The mass opinion is meaningless.

[Missy M]

15. So that means only yours has meaning....

I think I'll go with the masses.

[cgrindley]

19. Fine

So can you give me any... um... you know, filmy, reasons at all why you thought Inconvenient Truth was a better film than Jesus Camp?

[Missy M]

26. You're the expert....

you should be giving me the reasons.

[cgrindley]

29. I thought I did

1. it was a powerpoint presentation
2. it contained scenes of Gore making a powerpoint presentation in front of an audience
3. it contained scenes of Gore pretending to work on his powerpoint presentation
4. it contained audience reaction shots when Gore pretended to work on his powerpoint presentation
5. it contained a huge and pointless digression on Gore's son's non-fatal car accident
6. it was ponderous, plain and dull
7. it was edited with a monumental banality
8. the scoring was idiotic
9. it added nothing new to documentary filmmaking--Borat in its own humble way was a much better documentary
10. and so on...

Come on. It wasn't very good.

I'm not arguing about Gore or his message. I'm not disputing climate change (I've already gone on the record here as believing that it is real and utterly irreversible).

But as filmmaking goes, it wasn't great. It was the Marrisa Tomei of documentaries.

[NYCGirl]

20. It means that people who know much more about film than you do disagree.

[cgrindley]

24. And who would that be?

I'm waiting...

[NYCGirl]

28. Go to this link I posted to find out:

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/inconvenient_truth/

Out of 146 professional reviews, 135 are positive.

Here are just some of them:

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060601/REVIEWS/60517002/1023

http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/reviews/2006-05-23-inconvenient-truth_x.htm

http://ae.philly.com/entertainment/ui/philly/movie.html?id=616935&reviewId=20907

[cgrindley]

30. Oh dear

They're not film scholars. They're newspaper writers.

[NYCGirl]

33. Ebert is not a film scholar? He'll be pleased to hear that.

BTW, I have a film degree.

[cgrindley]

35. He isn't

He isn't a film scholar, nor does he vote in the Academy.

I could care less about your film degree. All that means is that you have zero eye for documentary film.

Did you take a class on it? What was your grade? Who did you write a term paper on?

[NYCGirl]

36. I was a film major at San Francisco State. Theater minor. NT

[cgrindley]

39. Well, did you take a class on documentary film?

Which films did you study? Who did you write about? What was the text book? Who are the scholars on documentary film you most admire? What about documentary filmmakers other than Al Gore?

I don't think you know very much about the genre, or you're allowing your feelings on the subject to cloud your critical vision.

[NYCGirl]

41. Now you're going off the deep end. NT

[cgrindley]

47. So you didn't take a class on documentary film?

You either did or you didn't...

[NYCGirl]

48. Of course I did. How the hell else would I have seen "Nanook of the North"? NT

[cgrindley]

51. So why would you possibly think that Gore's film

was any good at all? You should be on my side in this.

[NYCGirl]

54. Because I thought it was compelling, I was not bored for one minute —

and I learned a great deal, too. I was pleased that Guggenheim didn't just film the slide show, but opened the film up to tell us the reasons why Mr. Gore has been doing it.

I thought "Jesus Camp" was a good film, too — I especially appreciated that the filmmakers didn't "comment" on the subjects, but just let the camera do the talking. But considering the "hotter" subject matter, it was perhaps an easier film to make.

IMO, "AIT"'s biggest competitor was "Iraq in Fragments."

[cgrindley]

64. Well, you've got some good points with the other two

Although I disagree with you about the relative hotness of Global Warming vs the Christian Right.

Jesus Camp at least was presentient with its leering look at Pastor Ted.

Give the films five years. We'll have this conversation again.

[Goblinmonger]

65. Pulling out Ebert as a film scholar

makes you look like an idiot. He gave Short Circuit 2 three stars, he gave Die Another Day four stars, and yet he gave Clockwork Orange two stars and The Tenent one star. He is a fucking hack.

[NYCGirl]

66. Besides a few reviews you've disagreed with, Ebert's written some great books

about film:

http://www.amazon.com/Awake-Dark-Best-Roger-Ebert/dp/0226182002/sr=8-1/qid=1172511279/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-5158441-0966866?ie=UTF8&s=books

http://www.amazon.com/Great-Movies-Roger-Ebert/dp/0767910389/sr=8-3/qid=1172511279/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3/105-5158441-0966866?ie=UTF8&s=books

I don't agree with everything Pauline Kael said either, but I think she was a great film writer.

[dysfunctional press]

57. not really...

most of the people talk about the content of the film, NOT the quality of the filmmaking...they're two different things. and while it may be an important documentary, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's a well-made one.

[NYCGirl]

62. So what are the criteria for Best Documentary? They don't give out

Cinematography or Director awards in that category. Perhaps impact is important?

[dysfunctional press]

67. technically no, but realistically- it's mostly a popularity contest.

and odds are that at least 90% of the people voting didn't see all of the nominated documentaries.

[NYCGirl]

68. As I mentioned elsewhere, the Doc category is decided by a special group for

who they screen EVERY nominee film.

[rustydog]

12. No, really, tellus what you honestly think of the documentary

If you keep holding it in, you'll develop ulcers.

[cgrindley]

17. There are a lot of worthy documentarians out there

And it really annoys film scholars (of which I am one) who work on documentary (which I do) to see silly films (such as Gore's), or outright stupid films (such as that penguin nonsense) win at the Oscars. Okay, everyone knows that the Oscars are without meaning as far as critical reception goes, otherwise Goodfellas and not Dances with Grad Filters would have won the award way back when. Otherwise Kubrick would have won big. And so on. But it still irritates.

Sometimes, popularlity does coincide with quality... eg Michael Moore's Columbine. Most of the time, it does not.

Jesus Camp was a much better documentary.

[Bake]

23. Some see beauty in simplicity

Just a silly slide show? It had a powerful message. It had a compelling speaker. It kept me glued to my seat.

What's wrong with that?

Seems to me the producer and director decided they didn't need to do a lot of "cinematic stuff" to make a powerful movie. They just let the message come through. Some would call that good film-making.

Oh, and it's probably the most important single issue of our generation, for the future not only of humankind but of the entire planet. I'd say that kinda trumps "Jesus Camp."

Bake

[cgrindley]

27. It was supposed to be a film

films are judged on filmy stuff, not on message or a compelling talking head. No one today seriously believes that Dances with Wolves honestly deserved the Oscar--a mistake was made as a concession to the film's trendy PC message. That made Goodfellas lose the Oscar for no real reason.

In retrospect, it is a contributing reason why Departed won this year, when it clearly wasn't the best film.

Films have to work first of all as films. All other considerations are secondary.

[crispini]

42. Shouldn't voters be allowed to consider....

social impact when voting? Especially in a documentary category? Especially for a somewhat amorphous category such as "best?" After all, "cinematography" and "costume" have somewhat clear intents, but what, in fact, makes a picture the "best documentary of the year"? Even a few months after its release it seems to me that this film has had, and will continue to have, significant social impact as far as raising awareness of global climate change.

It's an interesting question: what makes "best," and is "best" a different thing in a work of fiction (which can, after all, exist entirely on its own) than in a work which of necessity takes into consideration a component of life.

[cgrindley]

49. They can consider whatever they want

I'm merely lamenting their choice.

[Bake]

63. AIT was simply a good film that worked.

Tastes differ; maybe you didn't like it. Most people find it hard to separate the story from the film-making. Most of us enjoy a good movie if it tells a good story that grabs us, is well-acted or performed. The "film-making" itself is transparent. Or should be.

I won't argue with you about Dances with Wolves. It was DREARY.

Bake

[NashVegas]

56. As Filmmaking Goes, Jesus Camp Was Superior

The most important thing about AIC is its usefullness in re-inforcing the arguments put out by people who want to do something about Global Warming and debunking the bullshit of Limbaugh, et al.

As a presentation, it was good show and tell.

Jesus Camp was great filmmaking. Its producers created a multi-layer film that took pains to show, not tell.

I wouldn't say I'm resentful; if Jesus Camp had to lose out, I'd rather it went to AIC than elsewhere.

Most people would tell you The Departed wasn't the best film of 2006, but are they upset that Scorcese finally won?

[Greyhound]

40. Translation: I couldn't get into the industry so I teach film appreciation class

at the local community/corporate college, and make a living criticizing other people's work and making the lives of freshmen miserable:rofl: :rofl:

[cgrindley]

52. Whatever

talk to the hand.

[gratuitous]

16. Really amazing

I don't know why the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences goes through all that "reviewing" and "voting" procedure by the top professionals in the industry when one person so much more learned and insightful is available to cut through all the foofaraw and tell the professionals what they should properly think.

Give it up, Hollywood professionals! cgrindley has your number.

[crispini]

21. LOL

A friend of mine is actually an academy member. I don't think he was selected to vote this year, but I remember the year he WAS selected to vote. He took it very, very seriously.

[cgrindley]

22. These are the same idiots

Who gave an oscar to Tommy Lee Jones over Ralph Fiennes, who gave it to Rocky rather than Taxi Driver, didn't give it to Citizen Kane or Raging Bull, and so on... I really don't think that their opinion is all that important. I trust critical reception every time.

Unless, of course, you could find a film scholar willing to defend Tommy Lee Jones' win over Ralph Fiennes in Schindler's List? What about Citizen Kane?

[NYCGirl]

32. If you trust critical reception, go to this link:

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/inconvenient_truth/

[cgrindley]

37. That's not scholarly opinion

And you've got a film degree? Since when is the Wichita Eagle Beacon a good source to use in a film paper on anything other than reception theory?

[Missy M]

43. I will admit I have to agree with you on these points....

many deserving actors and films have lost out on the Oscar, due to the politics of Hollywood.

[theboss]

25. Do you actually know how the films are voted for?

How many of the members of the Academy actually saw the film?

My guess: less than 10 percent.

[NYCGirl]

34. Do YOU actually know how the documentary films are voted for? The special

panel is screened ALL THE FILMS NOMINATED.

[northzax]

31. you can't win, you know

I personally fell asleep in the theater, but then I pretty much do powerpoint (or Keynote, of course) for a living much of the time, so it bores me to death. there was nothing in it that was revolutionary, nothing new, nothing remarkable, from the scientific viewpoint, the filmmaking viewpoint or others. the one thing it did do was become a cultural phenomenon. if this really was the best documentary of the year, (notice the title isn't for 'most influential' or 'most profitable' but BEST) then I mourn for the lost art.

it seems people are having trouble differentiating between the message and the medium, the messenger and the media makers.

[cgrindley]

45. Thank you... people do confuse the message and the medium

not much can be done about it. I wish it was different, but it isn't.

Witness 2004... Errol Morris wins for Fog of War? That was damn dull, and nothing compared to Capturing the Friedmans. Although at the time I was just relieved that My Architect didn't win.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

38. I think you haven't changed many opinions.

And therefore, the film's future box office and DVD success hasn't been that much hurt as a result of your actions.

Peter Parker agrees with me. He says he'll buy Aunt May a copy as soon as J. J. Jameson pays him his latest photo gig.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

46. Not enough car chases, eh?

[cgrindley]

50. No, it just wasn't very good

Have you seen Jesus Camp?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

53. Not enough boobs in that one.

I think Little Man shud have one best dockumentarian.

ZOMG, it was the ROXOR11!!!

[trumad]

58. So I'm guessing if I take your view---Schindler's List didn't deserve an Oscar?

After all---so much had been written about the Holocaust.... what? 10,000 documents or so.

You argument is ridiculous--- actually it's intended for nothing more than flaming.

[cgrindley]

69. Schindler's List was astonishing filmmaking

Every single thing about it (with the exception of a couple of pretty minor technical details) was brilliant. It was really amazing work on so many levels.

It was up against The Fugitive, The Piano, The Remains of the Day and What's Love Got to do with it? It was an easy and a completely justifiable win.

The only director of note up against Spielberg was Altman, but Short Cuts didn't compare to Schindler.

[trumad]

60. Yeah---it sucked...

I could have learned about Jesus Camp from fucking Google.

See where I'm going with this... I'm using your dumb ass logic right back at you.,

[BuelahWitch]

55. No naked titties either

:shrug:

[Maiden England]

70. Well my opinion was that it was a great documentary

I wasn't alone. It was by far the highest grossing documentary of the year.

I enjoyed watching it. I thought it deserved its Oscar.

By the way. Anyone that uses a mac doesn't refer to a slide show as anything other than a Keynote address.

[cgrindley]

71. Box office gross =/= quality

I'm using an iBook G4 right now. I use powerpoint because I know it better than Keynote and because I speak at a large number of conferences and sometimes have to pass my presentation to some operator who only has a PC.

I'll hold firm with the idea that powerpoint presentation will one day be the same as saying kleenex.

[The Straight Story]

72. I actually agree with your assessment , I think for clarity's sake though:

You might want to enlighten folks as to what criteria you judge on.

I think the criteria others may judge on revolves around how they were entertained, not the quality judged by some other standard.

My wife tried to watch it twice, but found it boring. Same with me (though I only tried once).

So the question I asked myself was - how could it have been better, how would I have made it, etc - and I suck at making things like that. But having watched many documentaries I can say it could have easily been made more engaging and entertaining. Throw in a mix of the myth busters, marty perkins, some english guy to narrate some parts, a few animated penguins and we are rocking :)

I am GLAD though it won an oscar simply because I think it will help the cause by getting it more exposure to the general public - and awareness is one of the first steps to solving the problem on a bigger level. This film, simply by it's subject matter, may get some of our young and bright folk aware and working on issues.

Did it deserve it? No. We deserved it to win though because it will be a shot in the arm to a sleeping public.

[johnaries]

75. We must have seen 2 different movies, then.

the one I saw was EXCELLENT!

[KharmaTrain]

9. That Producer Had A Vise Grip On The Thing

Considering the money and risk the guy took in making this movie, I don't blame him. It's easier to green-light a porn movie in Hollywood as it is a Documentary and hopefully the rewards in both box office and hardware will bring other important topics to the screen.

One had to wonder what the Dobsons and Rushbos are thinking...their long meme of no such thing as global warming (they still call it other euphanisms) are being totally repudiated and those who took the right, moral and risky position are being rewarded. May they choke on their 'morality'.

I've heard of Producers and other winners "sharing their Oscar"...having "unoficial" replicas cast for crew members and fianciers...or putting it on public display. IMHO, President Gore's warm welcome and standing ovation was as riching and thrilling as any statue could bring.

[mnhtnbb]

11. It would be a nice gesture if they framed a copy of the card revealing the award

and gave it to Al

[kestrel91316]

44. OMG. What part of this do people NOT GET?????

No, he DID NOT and WILL NOT receive an Oscar of his own for this. HE DID NOT MAKE THE FILM. He was an honored guest of Davis Guggenheim on the stage, and was given Guggenheim's Oscar to hold for a moment while he was allowed to make a brief comment.

The producers acknowledged his role in the making of the film, but because Gore is NOT one of its PRODUCERS (a formal term with actual meaning), he was not nominated.

Sheesh.

[trumad]

59. Easy now

it was a harmless question and a No would have sufficed.

[kestrel91316]

73. It's not like the discussion hasn't been all over DU for days now.......

[trumad]

74. Well that's assuming that the poster doesn't have a life

and has spent the last several days on DU.

It was an OK question.