- The Washington Times - Tuesday, January 23, 2018

Former Vice President Al Gore may need some ice for that burn after the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Tuesday snubbed his climate-change documentary “An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power.”

The 2017 film failed to pick up an Academy Award nomination for best documentary feature, ending a disappointing run for the sequel to “An Inconvenient Truth,” which took home Oscars for best documentary and best song in 2006.

The first film did exceptionally well for a documentary, grossing $24 million domestically and igniting the global-warming movement. But the sequel fell flat with moviegoers, earning $3.4 million and a tepid 49 percent audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

“Even Hollywood could not give Gore’s climate turkey sequel a mention at the Oscars,” said Climate Depot’s Marc Morano, author of “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Climate Change,” slated for release Feb. 26 by Regnery.

“When a politically correct film like Gore’s is dissed, it means it was below even minimal entertainment standards,” Mr. Morano said in an email. “Gore’s dismal sequel did the impossible, it made Hollywood turn a blind eye to climate change issue!”

The snub capped a somewhat disastrous year for Hollywood films with climate-change themes, such as “Downsizing” and “Blade Runner 2049,” which flopped at the box office.

Reviewers of the movie were kinder than audiences to “An Inconvenient Sequel,” which scored 79 percent among critics, but many reviews pointed out that the film seemed dated, given that it focused on the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

By the time the sequel was released in July, President Trump already had announced that he planned to pull out of the climate-change accord.

Not helping was a flood of criticism from climate skeptics and scientists, led by the University of Alabama at Huntsville’s Roy Spencer, who blasted the film in a bestselling e-book, “An Inconvenient Deception: How Al Gore Distorts Climate Science and Energy Policy.”

Even so, “An Inconvenient Sequel” was nominated in the documentary category earlier this month by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.

“Congratulations to everyone at Participant Media and Paramount Pictures!” said Mr. Gore in a Jan. 9 statement. “We will solve the climate crisis, and as this film shows, we now have the solutions to do it. ’An Inconvenient Sequel’ is about illustrating these solutions and helping to generate sufficient political will to solve the climate crisis in time. And here is one thing we have going for us: political will is itself a renewable resource.”

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences unveiled Tuesday the nominees for its 90th annual awards. Winners will be announced during the March 4 television broadcast.

• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.

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