''THE CLIFFIES'' 2014 - Cli Fi Movie Awards -- Winners List -- Awards Program Tagline "Can Cli Fi Movies Save the Planet?"

UPDATE: The annual Cli Fi Movie Awards has launched worldwide with the 2014 winners listed below. The list will go public with major media headlines on February 15, 2015, a week before the Oscars. But the soft rollout here now is the real thing. SPREAD THE WORD!

There are now enough cli-fi films being made that we are curating an Oscars-type award  to honor and draw attention to the top movies in the genre. By top movies, we mean “most engaging and meaningful” as cli-fi cinema.

about glitz or glamour or movie stars. They are about the very future  of our planet. Hollywood has a big role to play and indie movies, too.  

AWARD ''STATUETTE'' PHOTO:

http://thefutureofreading101.blogspot.tw/2014/08/the-2015-cli-fi-movie-awards-aka.html

AMONG THE FINALISTS THIS YEAR WERE: [hat tip to you know who  for partial movie summaries...and thanks!]

SNOWPIERCER 

This innovative cli fi film by South Korean director Bong Joon-ho is based on a French graphic novel; it takes place entirely on a long, long train. When an experiment to forestall global warming goes horribly wrong, it creates a modern-day Ice Age. With the Earth frozen over, the last remaining human inhabitants are congregated aboard the Snowpiercer, a perpetual-motion train that travels the global wasteland smashing through ice and snow. Stars include Chris Evans, Ed Harris, Tilda Swinton, Octavia Spencer.

INTO THE STORM 

School buses, barns and airplanes are sent spinning into oblivion when an onslaught of tornadoes touches down. Special effects are skillfully wrought, scary and exciting. As a meteorologist in this summer of 2014 cli fi movie  put it, nothing has been quite the same since Hurricane Katrina and Superstorm Sandy. “While the words “climate change” are never uttered — most likely for fear of turning off non-believers and limiting box office potential — the concept hangs over the movie like the darkest of clouds,” the USA TODAY movie critic Claudia Puig noted.

NOAH

Darren Aronofsky’s  visually mesmerizing cli fi saga based on the ancient and mythical Hebrew scriptures. Genesis was not a true story nor is this movie, but as a cli fi drama, there is a strong wake up call to viewers to pay more attention to what we are doing to the Earth. Starring Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Anthony Hopkins.

THE ROVER 

From Australia, director David Michôd’s crime drama features a hardened loner who pursues the men who stole his only possession, across a drought-plagued landscape 10 years after a global economic collapse. Climate changte and man-mad globarl warming are not front and center but they are in the background, if you pay attention. Starring Guy Pierce and Robert Pattinson.

YOUNG ONES

Jake Paltrow’s cli fi story about a teenage boy who sets out to protect his family is set in a future where water is hard to find. Filmed in a very dry region of South Africa. Starring Nicholas Hoult, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Michael Shannon and Elle Fanning.

INTERSTELLAR -- (''HUMOR note'': ONLY THE FIRST THIRD OF THE MOVIE WAS NOMINATED IN THE ''CLI FI'' CATEGORY, alas)

Christopher Nolan’s mesmerizing space cowboy epic could have been a powerful cli fi movie if only it had just focused on the first third of the story, the first act, so to speak. So only the first third of the movie was nominated for the best cli fi movie of the year (2014). Can we do that? Starring Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Michael Caine.

COMMENTS?  EMAIL US AT :

  THECLIFFIES2015@GMAIL.COM

THE CLIFFIES THEME SONG FOR 2014 PRESENTATION:

"LIBERATED CARBON" -- a song written and composed by New York state musician Andy Revkin -- and a longtime friend and student of Pete Seeger -- is to be the ''theme music'' song of THE CLIFFIES -- the cli fi movie awards program -- on February 22, 2014 - [PREVIEW HERE]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzZ_M4rnD48

Note: upon request, Andy kindly and generously donated the song to the movie awards event. Here is his song. Perfect music for THE CLIFFIES. Listen to it while you are reading this page!

NEWS LINK TO CLIFFIES BACKSTORY"
http://korgw101.blogspot.tw/2014/08/cliffies-will-award-climate-change.html

FINE PRINT: The Cli Fi Movie Awards are made possible by a generous grant from the Bernie Bloom Never Give Up Foundation (Avenue J, Brooklyn).
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BEST CLI FI MOVIE OF THE YEAR (winners in red below)
This category is for the cli fi movie that was the most engaging and meaningful and released in 2014.

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FINALISTS IN THE RUNNING FOR A CLIFFIE IN THIS CATEGORY

• NOAH                        USA  - VIEW TRAILER HERE
• INTO THE STORM     USA  - VIEW TRAILER HERE
• INTERSTELLAR         USA   - VIEW TRAILER HERE
• YOUNG ONES          USA/SOUTH AFRICA/IRELAND   - VIEW TRAILER HERE
• THE ROVER          AUSTRALIA    -- VIEW TRAILER HERE
• SNOWPIERCER         SOUTH KOREA  - VIEW TRAILER HERE

BEST ACTOR IN A CLI FI MOVIE IN 2014

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FINALISTS IN THE RUNNING FOR A CLIFFIE IN THIS CATEGORY

• NOAH                      USA
• INTO THE STORM    USA
• INTERSTELLAR        USA
• YOUNG ONES        USA-SOUTH AFRICA-IRELAND
• ROBERT PATTINSON IN THE ROVER             AUSTRAILA
• SNOWPIERCER    SOUTH KOREA

BEST ACTRESS IN A CLI FI MOVIE in 2014

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FINALISTS IN THE RUNNING FOR A CLIFFIE IN THIS CATEGORY

• NOAH                      USA
• INTO THE STORM     USA
• INTERSTELLAR        USA
• USA/SOUTH      AFRICA/IRELAND
• THE ROVER         AUSTRAILA
• TILDA SWINTON IN SNOWPIERCER      SOUTH KOREA

BEST DIRECTOR OF A CLI FI MOVIE IN 2014

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FINALISTS IN THE RUNNING FOR A CLIFFIE IN THIS CATEGORY

• DARREN ARONOSKY -  NOAH    USA
•  INTO THE STORM         USA
• INTERSTELLAR          USA
• YOUNG ONES           USA/SOUTH AFRICA/IRELAND
• THE ROVER              USTRAILA
• SNOWPIERCER                   OUTH KOREA

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A CLI FI MOVIE IN 2014

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FINALISTS IN THE RUNNING FOR A CLIFFIE IN THIS CATEGORY

• NOAH                      USA
• INTO THE STORM    USA
• INTERSTELLAR     USA
• YOUNG ONES      USA/SOUTH AFRICA/IRELAND
• THE ROVER      AUSTRAILA
• ED HARRIS  IN SNOWPIERCER    SOUTH KOREA

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A CLI FI MOVIE IN 2014

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FINALISTS IN THE RUNNING FOR A CLIFFIE IN THIS CATEGORY

• NOAH                      USA
• INTO THE STORM      USA
• NTERSTELLAR      USA
• ELLE FANNING in YOUNG ONES    USA-IRELAND-SOUTH AFRICA   
• THE ROVER             AUSTRALIA 
• SNOW PIERCER       SOUTH KOREA

BEST CLI FI MOVIE OF 2014 THAT MOST CLOSELY MIRRORED CURRENT CLIMATE SCIENCE ISSUES

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FINALISTS IN THE RUNNING FOR A CLIFFIE IN THIS CATEGORY

• NOAH                      USA
• INTO THE STORM     USA
• INTERSTELLAR    INTERSTELLAR USA
• YOUNG ONES                   USA/SOUTH AFRICA/IRELAND
• THE ROVER            AUSTRALIA 
• SNOWPIERCER            SOUTH KOREA

BEST PR CAMPAIGN CONDUCTED BY A STUDIO MARKETING DEPARTMENT FOR A CLI FI MOVIE IN 2014

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FINALISTS IN THE RUNNING FOR A CLIFFIE IN THIS CATEGORY

• NOAH                      USA
• INTO THE STORM     USA
• INTERSTELLAR USA
• YOUNG ONES      USA/SOUTH AFRICA/IRELAND
• THE ROVER                AUSTRALIA
• SNOWPIERCER      SOUTH KOREA

CLI FI MOVIE THAT  SPOKE MOST FORCEFULLY TO THE PUBLIC 

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FINALISTS IN THE RUNNING FOR A CLIFFIE IN THIS CATEGORY

• NOAH                      USA
• INTO THE STORM    USA
• INTERSTELLAR      USA
• YOUNG ONES      USA/SOUTH AFRICA/IRELAND
• THE ROVER     AUSTRALIA 
• SNOWPIECER      SOUTH KOREA

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

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FINALISTS IN THE RUNNING FOR A CLIFFIE IN THIS CATEGORY

• NOAH  - Darren Aronofsky and Ari Handel    USA
•  INTO THE STORM       USA
• INTERSTELLAR       USA
• YOUNG ONES      USA/SOUTH AFRICA/IRELAND
• THE ROVER      AUSTRALIA
• SNOWPIERCER     SOUTH KOREA

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

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FINALISTS IN THE RUNNING FOR A CLIFFIE IN THIS CATEGORY

• NOAH                      USA
• INTO THE STORM      USA
• NTERSTELLAR        USA
• YOUNG ONES      USA/SOUTH AFRICA/IRELAND
• THE ROVER     AUSTRALIA
• SNOWPIERCER - Joon-ho Bong and Kelly Masterson        SOUTH KOREA-USA

BEST NEW DIRECTOR OF A CLI FI MOVIE IN 2014

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FINALIST FOR A CLIFFIE IN THIS CATEGORY

• JAKE PALTROW for  YOUNG ONES      USA/SOUTH AFRICA/IRELAND

SPECIAL INTERNATIONAL MENTION: BEST CLI-FI ANIMATED SERIES FOR CHILDREN
This category recognizes achievement in the use of animation to convey engaging climate-themed stories and information. 

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FINALIST VIEW TRAILER HERE:

• WEATHER BOY! (觀測站少年) - director Chiu Li-wei (邱立偉) - TAIWAN

AND.... (drum roll):

*** VERY SPECIAL MENTIONS: BEST MEDIA COVERAGE OF THE 'CLI-FI' MEME AS A ''CULTURAL PRISM'' IN 2014
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THE NEW YORK TIMES, TIME MAGAZINE, THE HUFFINGTON POST, GRIST, USA TODAY, MORPHIZM, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, THE WRAP

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FINE PRINT: The Cli Fi Movie Awards are made possible by a generous grant from the Bernie Bloom Never Give Up Foundation (Avenue J, Brooklyn).

(c) 2014, 2015 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. REPRINTING ANY OF THIS MATERIAL IS STRICTLY PERMITTED!


Twitter Hashtag #clifi (hat tip to PR maven in London Lisa Devaney for the idea!)

NOTE: The Cliffies are also about taking action -- in personal, determined ways, both as individuals and as members of action groups -- to stop climate change and global warming on this Earth of ours before it's ....too late! The Cliffies are not about glitz or glamour or movie stars. They are about the very future of our planet. Hollywood has a big role to play and Indie movies too. In the end, this rolling online awards program  is a wake-up call.  [*** (''hat tip'' to UN economist Claude Nougat in Rome, Italy for the update]

"LIBERATED CARBON" song by musician Andy Revkin to be theme music of THE CLIFFIES -- cli fi movie awards program -- on February 22 - PREVIEW HERE

"LIBERATED CARBON" -- a song written and composed by New York state musician Andy Revkin -- and a longtime friend and student of Pete Seeger -- is to be the ''theme music'' song of THE CLIFFIES -- the cli fi movie awards program -- on February 22, 2014 - [PREVIEW HERE]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzZ_M4rnD48

Note: upon request, Andy kindly and generously donated the song to the movie awards event. Here is his song. Perfect music for THE CLIFFIES

http://korgw101.blogspot.tw/2014/08/cliffies-will-award-climate-change.html

"Liberated Carbon, it'll spin your wheels." The new recording of his song about the fossil fuel age -- including some fun Thomas Edison stop-motion animation. The CD here http://veryfinelines.com

How to correctly pronounce movie title "INTERSTELLAR" for Oscars speeches

http://youtu.be/_Hc_LrElwjs


INNER- stellar
or
IN ter STELL ar
or
interSTELL ar

?

Channeling your inner 'Interstellar" - innerstellar vs interstellar?

America is a large country, north, south, east and west, and regional accents abound. Some say tomato and some say tomahto, and some say potato and some say potahto. I'm from the Boston area originally and I sometimes say "wah-der" for "water" and "eye-dear" for ''idea.'' So what I am writing about today should be read with a dollop of good old American humor and regional nitpicking.

ON OSCAR NIGHT how to say  'Interstellar" - PRONOUCE GUIDE inner-stellar vs inter-stellar? #HUMOR #FF - http://youtu.be/_Hc_LrElwjs
============================

 Case in point: I recently heard a television reporter on CNN, beamed into my home here in Taiwan via satellite, pronouncing the new Christopher Nolan space cowboy epic as "inner-steller -- with her emphasis on "inner."====================

 Or at least that is what my Boston ears "heard." But a quick check on Youtube shows a list of pronounciation tutorials for the word "interstellar" and they all say the correct way to say the movie's title is with the "t" in ''inter'' pronounced just as in ''international'' or ''interview'' and with the emphasis on "stell" as in "inter-stell-ar."===============

 But what is the correct way to say "Interstellar" and is there one correct way or not? Come the upcoming pre-Oscar and Oscar awards season, the movie's title is sure to be spoken from a host of podiums and banquet hall stages. And maybe on Oscar night from the Oscar stage.====================

 When I contacted the CNN reporter and asked her is she was aware of the unique way she pronounces "interstellar," she replied in a kind and understanding email: ''Dan, please isten carefully and you will see that I pronounced it 'Interstellar' in the news segment. However, my Southern California accent tends to make the 't' a little silent. I say Internet the same way."===============

 So it is "Innersteller" or "Interstellar" and does it make a difference? We shall see.===================

 Meanwhile, I did some research on South California accents, where the CNN reporter is from, and I found out that in fact, many people born in that area of the country do in fact leave the first "t" out of words like "Internet" and "interstellar" -- so for some folks it's "innernet" and "innersteller." And that''s cool.===================
 Even though we are a nation of 50 states united on one huge continental landmass, with Alaska and Hawaii a bit off the map in some places, we Americans do speak with a plethora of regional accents. So I say "Interstellar," but someone else will say "Innersteller." And during the movie awards season we will find out just what most people say and how they say it.=======================

 Here's one Youtube tutorial among many that explains just how one should say "interstellar" -- ON OSCAR NIGHT how to say  'Interstellar" - PRONOUCE GUIDE inner-stellar vs inter-stellar? #HUMOR #FF - http://youtu.be/_Hc_LrElwjs

 How do ***YOU*** say it?

"CLI-FI IS REAL" -- The THILL is not gone.

"CLI-FI IS REAL" --

The THILL is not gone. -----------------------

Scott Thill comes up today with the most important cli fi cultural essay of the 21st century. --------------Read it ten times. -------------------

The man is a genius and he teaches us that cli fi is a cultural prism, in which to see our world. ---------------------

Huffington Post major splash: ------------------------------

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-thill/cli-fi-is-real_b_6072518.html?utm_hp_ref=climate-change

''INTERSTELLAR'' is a silly, ridiculous sci fi movie that could have been an important 'cli fi' movie with a different script but....

HOW TO PRONOUNCE "Interstellar" movie title? ----- re a reporter in Hollywod pronounced the title of the movie as "INNER-steller" when in fact the correct way to say it is "inter-STELL-ar". ------------------Where did he ever get the inner thing there? SMILE. ----------------No biggie but for future reference see this video explains it better; ------------------ http://youtu.be/_Hc_LrElwjs

-

UPDATE! CLI FI MOVIE AWARDS AIM TO REACH HOLLYWOOD PLAYERS!
http://entertainthis.usatoday.com/2014/10/23/climate-fiction-cliffies-awards-movies/

NOTE BEFORE READING BELOW: -- "Interstellar" suggests the survival of the species may depend on enough people extending a sense of empathy beyond their immediate family. It acts as a tribute to those adventurers of the past who were able to sideline short-termism in the service of exploration. But the cast agreed what would be needed to prevent such action from becoming necessary in the first place was a rapid and concerted effort.

and one comment at the Guardian review said it well: from ClareLondon -- ''It is typical but it irks me that someone as rich and famous as Michael Caine did not 'believe' in climate change - while knowing nothing about the subject.

Then, once he knew something about it, suddenly he 'believes' in it.

I just wish the media during this last generation of internet had not allowed anonymous right-wing trolling which has totally confused the educational message for a huge number of people, who seem to continue to believe that it's a matter of 'belief' rather than scientific fact.

So frustrating.

Also frustrating is hearing about Hollywood stars 'trying to support small ethical businesses'.

Look - Hollywood stars - what you need to do is proclaim the message loud and clear that you will not travel on aeroplanes anymore unless it is for a medical emergency in your immediate family - that you will travel only in hybrid or electric cars, that you will stop supporting the meat industry and go vegetarian and that you will vastly reduce the huge CO2 emitting contraptions in your homes, including no longer using your heated pools.

That kind of thing would be useful. 'Trying' to 'support' small ethical local businesses; is not going to do rat shit towards reducing emisisons and saving humanity.

When will you lot wake up? When will politicians wake up?

Maddening. And no - I do not want to watch a film where any effort to curb climate change is replaced by a boy's adventure story concerned with fleeing the planet. Where does humanity go? This is an obscenity.

Save the planet. Act on climate change first.

 ''INTERSTELLAR'' -- al169 minutes of it! -- is a great sci fi movie that could have been an even better 'cli fi' movie but....that mvoie will have to wait for another director, another time, another Hollywood awards season.

As it is, Christopher Nolan's INTERSTELLAR achieves all it set out to achieve and more, and it's getting strong, powerful, positive reviews worldwide as we speak. It's a sci fi lover's sci fi movie. It's a sci fi geek's sci fi wet dream. It's the sci fi movie of all time (at least until some other director dreams up an even better story with even better visuals). But...

 But think of what INTERSTELLAR could have been had it focused more on the climate =-changed world on view in the first part of the movie and left the sci fi part out of the picture completely. As it is, the movie is pure escapist entertainment, food for thought but almost a total waste of time.

 Christopher, we are at war! The Earth is on fire. And you are going on and on about wormholes and journeys to other planets?

Imagine if a Hollywood studio could put together a movie with the power of ON THE BEACH in the 1950s, but this time an ON THE BEACH of the 2020s -- and not about nuclear war and nuclear winter but about the devasating impacts of climate change and man-made global warming. AGW. The IPCC reports. The fate of the Earth, the fate of the human species.

 A movie is just a movie, and Hollywood is mostly there to entertain us. But imagine if instead of focusing on the sci fi silliness of wormholes and black holes, ''INTERCLIMATE'' focused more on the reality of life in an AGW-impacted Midwest farming region where the crops were failing and the food (and water!) were scarce.

Shades of Paolo Bacigalupi's 2015 cli fi novel-in-the-works THE WATER KNIFE (due out for public reading in May of 2015).

And a character named {Gary} Cooper who looks like he just stepped out of a John Steinbeck novel, with maybe a dash of Cormac McCarthy's THE ROAD and some of Margaret Atwood's apocalyptic scenarios linked in for good measure -- and focus not on Cooper's silly search for life in outer space since there is only more genertion left to survive on Earth but rather on what the next 30 generations of humans HERE ON THIS EARTH are going to face IF WE DO NOT deal with the reality of a warming world and ocean acidification and rising sea levels and globam warming impact events worldwide and not just for white blue eyued movie actors from North America to entertain fellow white movie fans from North America (and the global market, too: Hollywood is not stupid; they know a good money maker when they produce one!)...

 The ''caretaker generation''? We need cli fi movies in the future about the caretaker generations to come, over the next 500 years.

Time is runing out. And all Hollywood can offer is silly sci fi extravaganza space epics with no basis in reality and no real usefulness other than to spend three hours forgetting about the real world and the real climate issues we humans face?

 I wonder what people like Joe Romm and Andy Revkin and Chris Shaw and Elizabeth Kolbert and Nathaniel Rich and Barbara Kingsilver will say about INTERSTELLAR after they see it? Is this what the world needs now? Sci fi escapism? Sci fi silliness?

US$160 million spent on movie to take people away from the very real problems we face now as a species vis a vis climate change impacts events coming down the road within the next 30 generations? Is this all that Hollywood can offer? No! Hollywood can rise to the challenge and start greenlighting some good and important cli fi movies. There's still time for cli fi to make an impact in Hollywood. But at the same time, as we all know that time has maybe already run out. And we are doomed, doomed.

And all Hollywood can offer is more escapism?

Even some of the stars of INTERSTELLER agree the movie was offbase and waste of time.

The Guardian notes that ''Interstellar'' suggests the survival of the species may depend on enough people extending a sense of empathy beyond their immediate family. It acts as a tribute to those adventurers of the past who were able to sideline short-termism in the service of exploration. But the cast agreed what would be needed to prevent such action from becoming necessary in the first place was a rapid and concerted effort.

“I think mother nature’s gonna be just fine,” said Matthew McConaughey. “But we might not. The masses have to have a personal stake in things to take action.”

Ann Hathaway pointed to societal structures as a cause of such inertia. “I don’t think we’ve learned how to broach with the topic with your average person that your life is being controlled by a small group of people who are themselves controlled by greed.”

But to be fair, both actors, as well as Chastain and Nolan, reported that they nonetheless remained optimistic, and had faith in the sentiment of the film’s tagline: “The end of Earth will not be the end of us.”

Caine, however, remained sceptical. “If Earth screws up, I think we all go,” he said. “How many people can go through a black hole in a rocket? It’s not a bus.”

Asked if he was taking measures to try reduce his own ecological footprint, Caine jokingly protested that he was still making up for a frugal youth. “I was so poor for so long. I didn’t use anything or eat very much so I figured the world owed me a debt. Now I’ve been eating very well and have had a big car for a long time.”

His fellow cast-members banged the ecological drum a little harder, with vegan Jessica Chastain championing “meat-free Mondays” and Anne Hathaway saying she timed her showers and tried to support small, ethical businesses. Nolan, meanwhile, expressed enthusiasm for pooling resources, “gathering people in one place, like a movie theatre – you can save an enormous amount of electricity”.

McConaughey’s character is mentored by a man played by Michael Caine and loosely based on the astrophysicist Kip Thorne. Thorne’s work both inspired and informed the film, but Caine, 81, said that until he spoke with the scientist, the only wormholes he’d been familiar with were those in his garden.

Caine, who has now worked with Nolan six times, said his own re-evaluation of the reality of climate change coincided with his making the film. “When I went to do this movie in LA two years ago I left on 2 October. It was 86 degrees here and when I got to Los Angeles it was pouring with rain. That is the exact opposite of what it’s supposed to be. That worried me. I’d never believed in global warming and I went: ‘Whoops. Maybe there is something in it.’”

How Interstellar made Michael Caine think again about climate change

Mother nature’s going to be fine – but we might not be, adds Matthew McConaughey, star of film that addresses humans’ place in the cosmos

''Interstellar'' suggests the survival of the species may depend on enough people extending a sense of empathy beyond their immediate family. It acts as a tribute to those adventurers of the past who were able to sideline short-termism in the service of exploration. But the cast agreed what would be needed to prevent such action from becoming necessary in the first place was a rapid and concerted effort.

An interview with the curator of the Cli Fi Movie Awards

WEBPOSTED NOVEMBER 15, 2055 QUESTION: The Cli Fi Movie Awards is a great idea, and it seems to be catching on. What's your future plan with this? CURATOR: I hope to see the project grow year by year, and over the space of some 25 years become part of the Hollywood cycle of important awards shows. I'll be dead then but it's been fulfilling to take part in its inception. QUESTION: Okay, you came up with six good cli fi movies this year, well, five and a third, so to speak, with your humorous comments about INTERSTELLAR being just a third of a cli fi movie, so what's your hope for next year? CURATOR: I hope to see at least six more good cli fi movies on the list and maybe ten. The goal of the Cliffies is to inspire more and more cli fi movies from Hollywood and idie directors. But this will take 10 to 25 years. Movies don't get written or greenlighted overnight. So this awards program has a long arc. But for the awards in 2015, I hope we can find ten good cli fi movies. Time will tell. QUESTION: Okay, the normal awards categories were given out, Aronofsky for best director and screenplay (with co-writer Ari Handel) and "Snowpiercer: for best movie and best adapted screenplay, things like that. And recognizing actors like Robert Pattinson and Elle Fanning and Tilda Swinton and Ed Harris, way cool. Nice. But what was the deal with the two below the line catepories for INTO THE STORM with gongs for best PR campaign and movie that best mirrors current climate science and has broad public appeal? CURATOR: Good question! You know, the Cliffies have two purposes: one is to honor and recognize good cli fi movies each year and serve as a kind of incubator for future cli fi movies the fight against climate change we humans are in. So I was keen this year to give out some awards with a social conscience to them, a science feeling, and a PR feeling as well. INTO THE STORM's press material called it a cli fi movie and the critics in several non-English nations picked up on it and called it a cli fi movie in Spanish reviews and in Portuguese in Brazil and in French, mostly thanks to the AFP news servioe which published news stories on INTo THE STORM in those three languages. But not in English. I don't know why AFP did not use the term in their English news stories. C'est la vie, I guess. So yes, it is important to note the three awards for best mirroring of current climate science, and also for best PR campaign for a studio using the cli fi motif in press materials and also for a movie that most impacted the public. So INTO THE STORM did well. QUESTION: What's next? DAN BLOOM: Getting ready for next year now. QUESTION: Has there been any press on this awards launch? DAN BLOOM: Yes, good stories in USA TODAY, THE WRAP in Hollywood, The San Diego Jewish World online newspaper and TELEREAD. IWith more to come. The media interest in the Cliffies will last for the rest of this year and into the first half of next year. And then we will get ready for the next awards event in November 2015. We are all on a roll. A nice quiet roll with not too much fanfare but just enough. I like it this way. We will grow the Cliffies slowly, step by step, year by year. QUESTION: And then? DAN BLOOM: Well, and then I die. I am getting to be an old man now and my days are numbered. I am just glad I lived to see this day. I did what I set out to do. I can retire in peace and contentment. There's a deep meaning to the Cliffies and I hope they make a difference and impact the world somehow. Cinema has power. QUESTION: I noticed that when one of the news stories about the launch of the Cliffies was published on a website in Hollywood, the initial subheadline that was online for about 24 hours before being fix read: "Online climate-based awards also honor Robert Pattinson, Tilda Swinton, Elle Fanning, Ed Harris and Gwyneth Paltrow." But of course the copy editor who wrote that subheadline meant to say JAKE Paltrow, not Gwyneth Paltrow. She is his elder sister. Cute gaffe. Did you see that mistake? DAN BLOOM: Yes! I saw and smiled and then sent an emergency email to the editors of that site asking them to fix it. They did fix in about three minutes after some inter-office emails among editors and sub-editors there. I loved that little mistake. Makes the Cliffies experience all the more human. Gwyneth? Jake? It's all in the family, in the end. But yes, they corrected it now. I am sure nobody saw it but me. I am a retired prooofreader from way back and worked at newspapers in Washington, DC and Alaska and Japan as nightshift proofreader. I wasn't very good at it. But when I read for leisure, for fun, my eyes still catch a few typos here and and I especially love these things called "atomic typos." QUESTION: What's an atomic typo? DAN BLOOM: Great name, right. I will tell you next time we chat, or better yet google it or see the blog site at http://atomictypo.blogspot.com QUESTION: Thanks for your time, Dan. You must be tired after all this work 24/7 on behalf of the Cliffies. DAN BLOOM: Not tired. Energized. Deeply, madly, passionately energized. Doing this was important. It wasn't work. It was an assignment I took on, and also a personal commitment.. QUESTION: One last question, Dan. DAN BLOOM: Shoot. QUESTION: You or one of your colleagues in the cli fi community has nicknamed the Cli Fi Movie Awards as "The Cliffies" -- with a capital T and a capital C for both words. How did you arrive at the nickname of "Cliffies" and did you do it in a semi-humorous way or what? DAN BLOOM: I get that question a lot now. We came up with the Cliffies as a good, easy-to-prononce (and write) nickname for the movie awards program since I wanted something short and memorable and useful for newspaper headlines and such -- and also easy to say, yes. But of course, Cli Fi is pronounced as ''clye fye" or "klye fye" with a long "i" sound and in "eye" or "my" or "sigh." Yet for the nickname of the Cliffies, we use a short "i" sound as in the word "cliff" or "if." So the nickname is a bit different from the formal name of the awards program, but I feel it's a cute nickname and good for PR and headlines and even acceptance speeches for the winners. And yes, it was done in a semi-humorous way, to add just a bit of lightness and levity to these very serious issues of climate change and global warming in the movie world. QUESTION: Have their been any jokes about the nickname? DAN BLOOM: Surprisingly, no one has ever really made a joke about it yet, and you are the first interviewer to even ask about that side of the name. But yes, everyone once in a while, I get a tweet or an email that asks if "The Cliffies" has anything to do with female Radcliffe College graduates at Harvard who are called ''Cliffies'' or if the name has anything do with movie or TV "cliffhangers" or anything like that. One joker asked, I think seriously, if the name had anything to do maybe with humankind at the edge of a cliff in terms of climate issues and if maybe the Cliffies was intended to signify people jumping off a cliff of despair or something. No, no connection with Radcliffe or TV cliffhangers or lemmings at the edge of cliff about the jump down to their eternal demise. No, no, no. Just a nickname taken from the "cli-fi" term, and yes with a dollop of semi-goofy humor, too. QUESTION: Well, good lucky with all this, Dan. DAN BLOOM: Thank you. We are going to need all the lucky we can muster! Global warming is the most dangerous existential threat the human species has ever faced. I hope these movie awards, and the attendant publicity that surrounds them every year, can play a small role in serving as a kind of wake up call on the issues we are facing and will be facing for the next 1000 years, if we get that far. QUESTION: Are you a pessimist or an optimist? DAN BLOOM: I wouldn't be doing this if I was a pessimist! I am a full-speed-ahead pedal-to-the-metal optimist. But yes, I am worried. Concerned. Very concerned.