Mountain Biking: Rubber side down- And Now, Back to Your Local News…Since the weather’s getting better, I’m sure we’re all totally jonesing to get onto the trails, but in general, they’re a mess. It’s a bummer to see nice singletracks get trashed and widened, so like all of you, I’m grinding my teeth in annoyance while I try to be patient. The good news is that you [...] […]
- Downieville, Take ThreeOkay, well, things went pretty haywire in race promotion after the registration debacle. The organizer received so many hateful emails and comments about the mishap that it made him wonder if he should even bother putting the race on. I can’t blame him, really. In his shoes I might do the same thing. It sounds [...] […]
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- Edgy Veggie
“The Cove” Oscar coverage roundup: cameras, speeches and the new “Cove” TV show
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT…
In addition to the recent news development from the “Cove” team busting a restaurant serving illegal whale meat, here are some tidbits of “Cove” coverage from the aftermath of that film’s big Oscar win in the documentary category.
Plenty has been said about Ric O’Barry’s unfurling of a banner reading “TEXT DOLPHIN to 44144,” by folks like Mother Jones, Treehugger, the Huffington Post, Ellen DeGeneres, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (which gave the acceptance speech an award for “Fastest cutaway”), Louie Psihoyos:
Still, Mr. Psihoyos said, “it’s hard to get all huffy about that stuff. It’s like spilled milk.”
and O’Barry himself:
“I had butterflies in my stomach. I wanted to throw up on my shoes. But I knew that one billion people were watching, and I had to do it.”
Here’s what Psihoyos says he would have said, if not cut off:
The mayor of Taiji — the city that reluctantly starred in the film — responded to the film’s win by saying that “The Cove” was unreasonable:
In a statement reported by The Associated Press, the office of the mayor of Taiji defended the village’s practices and said “The Cove” contained statements that were not based on science. “There are different food traditions within Japan and around the world,” the statement said. “It is important to respect and understand regional food cultures, which are based on traditions with long histories.”
When asked about the win, the filmmakers have mostly sounded like this: Read more
“Sizzle,” the global warming comedy
"Sizzle" features... this?
Have you seen “Sizzle?” The film is about global warming, but it’s no “Inconvenient Truth” — it’s more of a this-global-thermometer-goes-up-to-11 type of flick.
A mockumentary about global warming. What do you think? Better or worse approach than the straight-ahead documentary (Oscar-winners notwithstanding)?
“Climate Refugees” shows human face of climate change
“Climate Refugees” investigates the migration people are forced to make in the wake of floods, mudslides, droughts, sea level rise and other climate related disasters.
Governor Bill Ritter and the film’s director, Michael Nash, introduced the film to a full audience that included Alec Baldwin on Sunday afternoon at the Boulder International Film Festival.
“This film says that we need to stop the debate about climate change and puts a human element to the issue,” Ritter said. “The face of climate change is the climate refugee.” Read more
‘The Cove’ nominated for Oscar
“The Cove,” the documentary film director by Boulder’s own Louie Psihoyos, just added a line to its C.V. and it might get one more. In the long list — really long list — of Oscar nominations this year, “The Cove” got a bid for best documentary feature.
The film follows a team of photographers and videographers bent on documenting a massive dolphin kill in Japan. Psihoyos says that while some progress has been made, the kill continues.
Other nominees in the category are “Food, Inc.,” “The Most Dangerous Man in America,” and “Which Way Home.”
Blythe Danner, actress and old-school eco-pusher, will attend Boulder International Film Fest
Blythe Danner, center, won the 2002 Ongoing Commitment Award at the Environmental Media Awards.
The latest Boulder International Film Fest announcement has a green tinge to it:
The Festival kicks off Thursday, Feb. 11 at 6:30 p.m. with an Opening Night Red-Carpet Gala and screening of “The Lightkeepers,” starring Richard Dreyfuss, Blythe Danner, Bruce Dern, Tom Wisdom and Mamie Gummer. “The Lightkeepers” tells the story of Seth Atkins, the lightkeeper for Eastham Light, a lighthouse on a deserted beach in Cape Cod in the year 1912. A mysterious man takes the position of assistant lightkeeper, and the two men swear an oath to never get involved with women. However, they soon find themselves contending with two female summer visitors. Movie Pictures Magazine says, “Blythe Danner’s Oscar-worthy performance makes the battling of wits into an art form.” Following the screening of the film, Danner, writer and director Daniel Adams, and producer Straw Weisman will participate in a live question and answer session with the audience.
Blythe Danner won a 2002 Environmental Media Award — the Directors Ongoing Commitment Award.
Here’s what the EMA’s Web site has to say about why she won: Read more
CU students screen short flicks on climate change
From left, Carson McDonough, Patrick McGlynn and Matthew McAllister produced films as part of their "climate change and video production" class at the University of Colorado | DailyCamera.com
Students from the University of Colorado who participated in a class on film and climate change will screen their own global warming flicks tonight on campus.
Matthew McAllister flips off the lights when he leaves his dorm room. He refills his water bottle instead of buying plastic ones, and he rations himself one paper towel when he dries his hands.
But a single flight to Washington, D.C., that he took this semester for a political science course canceled out his efforts, the University of Colorado student says.
He calculates that he would need to recycle 708 aluminum cans to offset his portion of the carbon dioxide emitted by the plane.
“While I would like to think these small, conscious efforts make a difference, the truth is I know they don’t,” McAllister says.
For a course on film and climate change, McAllister produced a short video about the challenges he has with his carbon footprint, as well as environmental equality. (His portion of CO2 for the plane trip was about the same amount that an average person in Tanzania uses all year).
Read the full story at DailyCamera.com.
“The Age of Stupid” — one night only
What if?
That’s the question asked by “The Age of Stupid,” a film about a man living in 2055, looking back at history — now — and wondering why we didn’t do anything about climate change when we could have.
The film premieres tomorrow (Monday), and is playing for one night only in the following nearby locations:
Century Boulder
Westminster 24
Pavilions 15 (Denver)
Fort Collins Cinemark 15
Here’s a list of more “The Age of Stupid” screenings in Colorado and elsewhere. Anybody want to review it for us?
Resources:
“The Age of Stupid” [Wikipedia]
More entertainment on BigGreenBoulder:
“Bananas!” — pesticides, health risks and lawsuits
“The Cove” — dolphins, mercury and guerrilla filmmaking
Louie Psihoyos’ dolphin-killing cove update
It’s been a while since Boulder photographer/director Louie Psihoyos’ documentary “The Cove” made a splash at Sundance and then later made its way to wider audiences with its national release (you know something’s up when Mother Jones reviews your movie).
So what effect does a striking documentary have? Psihoyos recently blogged at HuffPost Green that “The Cove” was responsible for a diplomatic slap on the wrist — apparently the people of Broome, Australia have decided they can no longer be a sister city to Taiji, Japan, the setting for the film.
To this day, the Taiji mayor continues to allow over a thousand tons of dolphin meat to be sold throughout Japan under the guise of “scientific whale” meat. The Japanese government continues to position its argument for killing dolphins as a cultural issue and insist that we, as outsiders, should respect their tradition. But this is no tradition — the dolphin drive has only been going on since 1933. The tradition argument falls apart when human lives and health are severely threatened, and people must take a stand.
September 1st is coming up, the beginning of the yearly dolphin hunt in Taiji. With a little more pressure, we can put an end to a sad chapter in human history and create a new one where we have respect for the environment and other humans.
Related:
Between “The Cove” and “Whale Wars,” Boulder County’s got some pretty good representation in the whole save-the-sea-mammals film industry. Ward native John Mans was director of photography for “Whale Wars.”
“Bananas!” trailer: Pesticides, health risks and lawsuits!
If you enjoyed Food, Inc., but wanted more of the flavor of protest and outrage that Boulder County has seen during the GMO beet debate, “Bananas!” may be the flick for you:
Of course, it’s not out yet. No, there’s a bit of controversy surrounding this one. Read more
