A good review of Ken Burns' (he's all over ... saw him on Dave, he's on Rachel Maddow tonight) new documentary hits to the charms and problems:
America's redwood forests are not private play areas or profit centers for aristocrats and entrepreneurs. Here, everyone can drive or walk in. It's the essence of democracy, declares Burns, and he's right.
Working from that premise, he creates a masterful historic document, a vivid portrait of the land set against the stories of those who worked to acquire it and then protect it against those who still would dismantle or compromise it.
But the series, which runs through next Sunday, also plays like a video Ph.D. thesis. It's full of poetic ruminations by distinguished historians and rhapsodic odes to ancient Sequoias that were growing before the time of Christ.
It feels, too often, like a lecture at a very proper institution where the class is expected to maintain reverential decorum.
I can say the same about Michael Moore, who also is all over (Democracy Now!, Larry King, Keith Olbermann, etc.) ... he fights the good fight, but I don't quite like his m.o. -- sort of the fat man making a stink approach. As I recall, someone once compared his display at an Academy Awards ceremony as compared to a more restrained comment by another person there.