Cleveronix A different way of telling a story

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Suman Roberson It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

vlntryst For me the film got dubious at:"I had this idea the most powerful issue of our time was the interaction of humans and nature." "Needed to show these things in a more seductive fashion" -- James BalogHmm, really? I've always considered humans part of nature, but hey, that's just me. But the question remains, the issue is powerful how exactly? Al Gore kinda powerful maybe? Seems like most climate change proponents, heck environmental protectionists in general, what they really advocate is control, political/social control (Hence my summary). Greatest good for the greatest number anyone? According to James Balog, "we humans are causing it" (climate change). The unstated assumption is that since humans have the power/ability to change the environment, the geology, even the climate of the planet, why not simply change it for the "better." Aye, there's the rub. On the one hand humans are the disease and if they can only be taught to see the error of their ways they can be magically transformed into the cure too. A very seductive idea to the aspiring do-gooder indeed.When the film ended I thought, gee, had some pretty pictures but otherwise not particularly focused or interesting. For those who'd love to change/control the world I'd heartily recommend it. For those like myself who confess we don't know what to do, might flip a coin to decide. Score - 4/10

intelearts Chasing Ice is simply one of the best documentaries of the year. It shows how effort, dedication, and commitment can produce images that can justify change in global policy and public perception.It's subject, the retreat of glacial ice due to climate change, is nothing new, but this is the story of one man's ability to singlemindedly pursue the evidence with a dedicated team: James Balog is a man with a mission.Beautifully shot with mesmerizing ice images, and furthermore, a tale of real human endeavor this is a documentary that rewards the viewer beyond education or expectation - I would say warmly recommends, but perhaps, chilling is more appropriate here.

tomgib As a photographer, James Balog is to me as I am to a cockroach, although I have done a little bit of glacier photography. So it is not surprising that he has worked for National Geographic and has made the movie, "Chasing Ice". I recently traveled some distance to Chicago to see this movie, which contains the most stunning glacier images imaginable.Early in the movie he wades barefoot into freezing surf full of iceberg chunks to obtain pictures of water breaking over the ice. Right there I was hooked into this movie on the basis of the photography even before we get to shrinking glaciers and what they say about global warming.The centerpiece is the Extreme Ice Survey (EIS), the project he established to provide dramatic documentation of the shrinking glaciers. He and his coworkers placed cameras with automatic timers overlooking glaciers in the far north to take several years of time-lapse pictures of these moving rivers of ice.He also clambers over difficult, icy surfaces to photograph the melting itself. Rivers of melt-water flow down the glaciers and into gigantic holes, where the ice has been eaten away, providing a path to the bottom. To photograph this, he needs to climb down difficult, dangerous, icy cliffs that would be nearly inaccessible even to someone with two healthy knees, which he does not have.There are several dramatic scenes showing his tribulations with his nasty knee and balky equipment. They remind us that such struggles are part of the adventure of understanding nature. There is a darkly amusing scene showing his fight just to walk (to get the facts) juxtaposed with the talking heads of the usual gang of global warming deniers (accusing scientists of fakery).The payoff is the parade of the glaciers, the moving (in more ways than one) images of rivers of ice charging forward while the glacier fronts crumble even faster, eating the glacier from front to back. Other images show glaciers shrinking top to bottom so rapidly that it looks as if they are deflating. My only criticism is that these images went by too fast, hence only a 9 rating instead of 10.Shrinking glaciers are natural thermometers, which help document the reality of global warming. I hope that the widest possible audience will be able to see this. It is not, nor was it intended to be, a systematic scientific survey. There have been many such surveys showing, for example, that we are not just cherry-picking the glaciers that are losing mass. Balog's intent was to provide the most riveting possible observation, and he has succeeded. Looking at a thermometer will never be the same.

parallel_projection James Balog has one goal in mind throughout this entire documentary: to photographically demonstrate the rapid melting of our earth's glaciers. He doesn't throw statistics at us (okay, maybe one or two), and he doesn't bring politics into it, all he does is undeniably prove that the vast majority of the world's glaciers are disappearing right before our eyes.What this documentary does is capture his journey to photograph these glaciers. It shows his struggles, his failures, and his successes. Yes, he may come off as a bit of a hero, but what he's doing truly is heroic and simply cannot be missed. The photography throughout this film is spectacular--absolutely gorgeous. In fact, he photographed an article on this topic for National Geographic, and if you've seen their photographs, you know the level of quality we're talking about here.At the same time, however, there's kind of this sense of impending doom amidst all the beauty. It essentially shows all the damage humanity has done, in the past ten or so years alone, and I can only hope it's not too late to fix at least some of what we've caused. If this documentary can't get you to see the world and it's people differently, then I don't think much else can, his results are simply that stunning.