NYT Movie Critic Taunts 'Strongly Conservative' Wildfire Victims on Climate Change
New York Times movie critic Jeannette Catsoulis enthused over "Greedy Lying Bastards," a left-wing attack on global warming skeptics, and strangely suggested that an increased gas tax could prevent wildfires in Colorado. The Times illustrated the review with a photo from the doc featuring wreckage from Hurricane Sandy, in sync with the film's argument that a direct line could be drawn from "global warming" to last October's storm.
As the title suggests “Greedy Lying Bastards” sees more value in urgency than in subtlety. For that reason alone this propulsively single-minded attack on climate-change deniers by Craig Scott Rosebraugh may just be the feel-good documentary of the year.
Catsoulis, a liberal who was outraged last March over the pro-life film "October Baby," posed an offensive hypothetical to victims of the wildfires in "strongly conservative" Colorado Springs, basically asking those who don't believe in global warming, "what do you have to say now?"
Collated for momentum, the film’s many interviews, wide-ranging archival footage and montage of modern ecological disasters form a blunt but carefully positioned instrument. And despite a bit of Michael Moore-style nonsense at the end the tightly edited narrative displays a reach (nine countries) and clarity of composition that hold the attention. Yet having spent a fair amount of time with wildfire victims in Colorado Springs -- a strongly conservative area -- Mr. Rosebraugh disappointingly refuses to investigate their beliefs about a tragedy possibly caused by global warming. How many of those displaced residents accept the reality of climate change? And how many would vote for an increased gas tax as one step toward a solution?