Yin and Yang of Inconvenient Reviews

Here's the review summary of An Inconvenient Truth from today's Studio Briefing (hosted over at the IMDB):

After packing 'em in in a handful of theaters last weekend, the Al Gore global-warming documentary An Inconvenient Truth spreads out into many other major markets today and is being welcomed with some loud applause from critics who wear their liberal credentials on their sleeves. One of them is Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times, who bestows four stars on the movie. He writes: "When I said I was going to a press screening of An Inconvenient Truth, a friend said, Al Gore' talking about the environment! Bor...ing!' This is not a boring film. The director, Davis Guggenheim, uses words, images and Gore's concise litany of facts to build a film that is fascinating and relentless. In 39 years, I have never written these words in a movie review, but here they are: You owe it to yourself to see this film. If you do not, and you have grandchildren, you should explain to them why you decided not to." At the opposite extreme, Kyle Smith writes in the New York Post, "[Gore] and his friends were in charge for eight years. His charts say global warming got worse in that time. The environment doesn't seem to care whether the president is a Texas oilman or the Man from Hope. Global warming hasn't noticed that we got the lead out of our gasoline or that Stage One smog days in Los Angeles fell from 121 in 1977 to zero in 2004. All regulations and taxes to date have done nothing. Does this hint that pollution isn't the cause? ... People are skeptical about global warming because it builds up to the same chorus as every other lefty hymn: more taxes, more hypocritical scolding ... and especially more America-bashing."

OK, I may be a tad partisan on this issue, but Kyle Smith's review in the Rupert Murdoch-owned NYPost is really quite the political hatchet job. Crooks and Liars has a good round-up of other reviews.