These are the first days of the rest of our lives!

TUESDAY, AUGUST 29, 2017

An inconvenient beginning: Looking at Houston, it's hard to avoid an unpleasant conclusion: the climate disaster unfolding there represents the first few days of the rest of everyone's lives.

We can't help recalling the way Frank Rich rolled his eyes at Al Gore's allegedly pathetic film, An Inconvenient Truth, back in 2006. What group except us modern liberals has ever chosen its "intellectual leaders" so unwisely?

Rich finally came around, and started fawning, when Gore won the Nobel Prize. But as we watch the disaster unfold, we also think of the coverage Gore's second film, An Inconvenient Sequel, received in late July.

The film was reviewed in the Times on Friday, July 28. It received a mere 494 words.

Other films were more important that day:

Atomic Blonde rated 820 words, penned by Manohla Dargis:

"For her part, Ms. Theron looks hot and color coordinated, with black-and-white outfits that suit her character's ambiguity. Lorraine smokes and drinks and likes cold baths, preferably filled with ice cubes that do wonders for bruises and nipples."

Brigsby Bear got 683 words, once again from Dargis:

"Mostly it's a sweet and sometimes delightful melancholic story of a lonely man saved by imagination and love. That sounds like a bushel of cornball and might have devolved into pure ick if the director, Dave McCary, didn't lead from the heart and wasn't adept at navigating seemingly clashing tones."

Katherine Bigelow's Detroit rated 1483 words, from A. O. Scott, on the Arts section's front page. That may have been completely appropriate. But Sequel languished inside.

Should the Times have paid more attention to An Inconvenient Sequel, whether in its arts pages or in actual news reporting?

We can't answer that question! Rich mocked the first film long ago, in print at the Times, then with Imus; the Times blew past the sequel. According to Dargis, Brigsby Bear didn't "devolve into pure ick."

No one can say that for Houston this day. Or for the world the world's children will face for all the days of their lives.

Ice cubes make Theron's nipples show. People, that's entertainment!