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Windmills cause cancer. They’re killing birds and whales. Electric vehicles don’t work. Have you heard about the electric sharks? Climate change is a hoax. There are many things Donald Trump has said about climate change and renewable energy that are difficult to make sense of, but Trump’s newest line on climate change is both dumbfounding and truly dangerous: He is now determined to convince the world that climate change is a good thing.

Trump has certainly downplayed the effects of climate change in the past. He’s...

The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures has unveiled its slate of public programming for the 2024 spring season, which will include a tribute and retrospective of the work of Marlon Brando, a May the 4th “Star Wars” celebration and a world premiere 4K restoration of “Amadeus,” among others.

The Academy Museum will screen John Waters’ short films “Roman Candles” and “Hag in a Black Leather Jacket” with live commentary by Waters. Exhibitions include a celebration of Oscar-winning music in Indian cinema, a film series focused on queer female lensers in early Hollywood, a retrospective on actor Youn Yuh-Jung, a behind-the-scenes presentation of Dykstraflex, used to film the original “Star Wars” trilogy.

Special guests will include Ed Begley Jr., Cary Elwes, Jane Fonda, Yunte Huang, Nyla Innuksuk, Dr. Naomi Oreskes, Patricia Rozema, Bird Runningwater, Mink Stole, John Waters, Youn Yuh-jung and more.

“This spring, we’re delighted to present an array of one-of-a-kind programming,...

For decades, various industries have weaponized American individualism, laying the blame for systemic issues at the feet of individual citizens. Tobacco companies wouldn’t exist without smokers, the story goes. Litter wouldn’t exist without us litterbugs. Cars wouldn’t crash if we weren’t such speed freaks. And, of course, climate change wouldn’t exist if we weren’t all such gluttons for fossil fuel energy.

The framing of climate change, in particular, as something that wouldn’t be an issue if “we” had all just made better consumer...

DocumentaryThe film successfully manages to link the micro to the macro, exposing how our actions have a devastating impact on the planet.Geetika MantriDavid Attenborough/BBCTwo people are walking in the snow, shovelling it away till they hit the hard ice underneath. Beneath the surface of the ice, we see several white bubbles – round and opaque. One of them hits on the ice where a bubble can be seen. A hissing sound, and gas visibly gushes out from the bubble. A lit stick is brought into the picture, and before you know it, the small flame catches on to the gas rushing out of the ice, and becomes a cloud of fire, rising up into the air with an ominous whoosh. While watching BBC Earth’s Climate Change: The Facts, this scene stood out the most for me, for it seemed to perfectly encapsulate what will happen if we don’t do something to contain,...

DocumentaryThe film successfully manages to link the micro to the macro, exposing how our actions have a devastating impact on the planet.Geetika MantriDavid Attenborough/BBCTwo people are walking in the snow, shovelling it away till they hit the hard ice underneath. Beneath the surface of the ice, we see several white bubbles – round and opaque. One of them hits on the ice where a bubble can be seen. A hissing sound, and gas visibly gushes out from the bubble. A lit stick is brought into the picture, and before you know it, the small flame catches on to the gas rushing out of the ice, and becomes a cloud of fire, rising up into the air with an ominous whoosh. While watching BBC Earth’s Climate Change: The Facts, this scene stood out the most for me, for it seemed to perfectly encapsulate what will happen if we don’t do something to contain,...

In order to cover every big story, the big 24 hour cable news networks need to find experts to debate and discuss this bit of information. This is most often presented in the now standard split screen format with opposing takes to the story, now viewable side by side (sometimes the host or anchor will take up a third portion of the screen). Split screens are almost always used when another report or study is released that concerns climate change or global warming. On one side a researcher or scientist (former staple of kids’ programming Bill Nye “the Science Guy” has now become a news staple) explains the findings while a representative from some organization (“Citizens for…”, “The …Foundation, etc.) dismisses it with the popular mantra “not all the studies are in…”. But, just who are these naysayers, and what are these groups they speak for? Science historians Naomi Oreskes and Erik M.

Magicians use deception to steer the audience away from the means they use to perform a trick. Look over here and I’ll do something over there without you seeing; there’s no magic, just a grand illusion created by the performer’s deception. Throughout Merchants of Doubt, Robert Kenner (Food Inc.) uses this analogy to explain how powerful corporations manipulate the masses by hiring “experts” to doubt the real scientists. The corporations reassure the populace that their unhealthy or detrimental products are safe by butting heads against academia with bold-faced lies. Merchants of Doubt argues that the tactics used to trick people about the harmful effects of cigarettes are now being used to ignore the scientific fact of man-made climate change.

During the 1960s, when many were starting to question the health problems caused by smoking cigarettes, tobacco companies started hiring scientists in unrelated fields to combat the evidence.

There is nothing in Robert Kenner's "Merchants of Doubt," his follow-up documentary to 2008's fascinating expose of corporate malfeasance in the food sector, "Food Inc," that we disagree with, or even want to weakly rebut. Nothing. The fluidly argued points flow with flawless logic one into the other, and the manner in which he traces the strategies used currently by vested interests in defense of their bottom lines, straight back to the playbook set out by Big Tobacco in the 1950s, is irrefutable and wholly convincing, especially when presented in so enjoyably arch and ironic a manner. We vehemently agreed, laughed along at the more incredible and egregious fallacies highlighted, and felt every single other member of the audience at our Goteborg International Film Festival screening doing the same. And that's a problem. "Merchants of Doubt," inspired by the Naomi Oreskes and Eric M Conway non-fiction book of the same name,...

This is a must see documentary that will open your eyes to the insane world of propaganda that surrounds everyone here. Sony Pictures Classics has debuted the official trailer for the doc Merchants of Doubt, from director Robert Kenner (of Food, Inc. previously), that looks at the "pundits-for-hire who present themselves as scientific authorities as they speak about topics like toxic chemicals, pharmaceuticals and climate change." Essentially, it sheds light on the various lobbyists and corporations that fight endlessly to deny facts in order to maintain a political/financial agenda in their favor. I'm quoted in the trailer as I saw this in Telluride. The most interesting connection I can make: remember the group of lobbyists from Jason Reitman's Thank You for Smoking? This is about the real life version of that group. They do really exist. Here's the trailer for Robert Kenner's documentary Merchants of Doubt, in...

There is nothing in Robert Kenner's "Merchants of Doubt," his follow-up documentary to 2008's fascinating expose of corporate malfeasance in the food sector "Food Inc," that we disagree with, or even want to weakly rebut. Nothing. The fluidly argued points flow with flawless logic one into the other, and the manner in which he traces the strategies used currently by vested interests in defence of their bottom lines, straight back to the playbook set out by Big Tobacco in the 1950s is irrefutable and wholly convincing, especially when presented in so enjoyably arch and ironic a manner. We vehemently agreed, laughed along at the more incredible and egregious fallacies highlighted, and could feel every single other member of the audience at our Goteborg International Film Festival screening doing the same. And that's a problem. "Merchants of Doubt," inspired by the Naomi Oreskes and Eric M Conway non-fiction book of the same name,...

Opens our eyes to the PR sleight of hand that huge corporations deploy to protect their profits when facts and science aren’t going their way. Enraging. I’m “biast” (pro): I know that reality has a liberal bias

I’m “biast” (con): nothing

I have not read the source material

(what is this about? see my critic’s minifesto)

The merchants of doubt are the people you see on your TV, sadly shaking their heads with derision and condescension at the scientist on the other side of the split screen attempting to boil a complex issue down to a snappy soundbite (and failing). They are the people who took the playbook that Big Tobacco used for half a century to stonewall the public on the deadly impacts of smoking, and are now using it to prevent real action on global warming. Filmmaker Robert Kenner opens our eyes...