By Anthony Kaufman
Special to MSN Movies

Earth Day may have launched on April 22, 1970, but it's only over the last couple years that the globe is really getting its due. Thanks to Hurricane Katrina, some freakishly snowless winters, Al Gore's Oscar-winning documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" and two big movies about little penguins ("March of the Penguins," "Happy Feet"), Earth Day doesn't feel like the poor, young cousin of Arbor Day anymore, but a worldwide phenomenon. The unofficial holiday even got its very own shout-out, of sorts, in 2003's "The Core," a silly, big-budget sci-fi epic about the slowing of the earth's spin cycle, whose opening shot rests on the sign: "Green World Day."

Whatever Hollywood calls it, there's one thing for sure: Environmentalism and entertainment have always had a close relationship. Al Gore may have emerged as the undisputed patron saint of "climate crisis," but he's not the first environmental advocate to use the movies as a way to spread the gospel of green.

Over the years, both Hollywood and independent films have taken up environmental themes, often becoming political lightning rods and, occasionally, leading to grass roots action. As Dennis Quaid's intrepid paleo-meteorologist Jack Hall told millions of moviegoers in America's biggest global-warming spectacle "The Day After Tomorrow," "I think we are on the verge of a major climate shift!" And a cultural one, too.

If movies can't exactly change government policy, they can help foment seismic shifts in public opinion. Who would have ever expected the once stiff-as-cardboard Mr. Gore to upstage Leonardo DiCaprio at the 2007 Academy Awards? Or animated blockbusters aimed at the next generation to directly engage the politics of urban sprawl and over-fishing, as with "Over the Hedge" and "Happy Feet"? Or small movies like "Who Killed the Electric Car?" and "Fast Food Nation" to pressure auto giants and fast-food industries to launch counter-offensive campaigns to ward off negative publicity?

For this Earth Day, why not celebrate with the environmentally consciousness-raising power of the movies? Whether it is eco-horror films, animal welfare adventures or chemical paranoid thrillers, those who care about the planet can honor it anytime, either on DVD or at the multiplex, with a myriad of engaging choices.

Don't Go in the Water: Environmental Terror
Ever since American nuclear weapons tests created a giant Tokyo-decimating lizard in Ishiro Honda's 1954 classic "Godzilla," the eco-horror movie has been a favorite environmental evergreen. And, the memorable Japanese monster flick has never looked more relevant than in a newly restored, uncut version that appeared on DVD last year. The revived "Godzilla" emerges not simply as a kitschy horror movie with bad dubbing, but a horrific metaphor about the return of nuclear apocalypse just a decade after the bombing of Hiroshima. "If we continue testing H-bombs," reads a coda in the new edition, "another Godzilla will appear."

Indeed, while a wrathful nature has attacked us spontaneously and inexplicably over the years ("Volcano," "Dante's Peak," "Armageddon," "Deep Impact"), it's humankind's contribution to environmentally catastrophic events and creatures that arguably has the deeper impact. "The Day After Tomorrow," which lays the blame for climate cataclysm on government and corporate carelessness, spurred headlines the world over ("Global Warming Ignites Tempers, Even in a Movie"; "Apocalypse Soon? No, But This Movie (and Democrats) Hope You'll Think So"). But there's one problem with the movie: It's not very good, thanks to a silly melodramatic father-son plot and over-the-top politics.

For a better thrill-ride and a more cogent critique of government environmental policy and mismanagement, "The Host," a new Korean monster movie, takes us back to Godzilla territory with a hair-raising tale of what can go wrong when American scientists dump chemicals in your river. Funny and smart, spine-tingling and subversive, "The Host" subtly realizes a polluting society's worst fears in the form of a gigantic, bloodthirsty, amphibious fiend. (The famous tagline for "Jaws" -- "don't go in the water" -- takes on a whole new meaning here.) The highest grossing film in Korean box office history, "The Host," unfortunately, failed to capture U.S. audiences upon its release this year, but it's one of the most entertaining environmental wakeup calls in years.

Another little-seen, but effective eco-monster indie, 2001's "Wendigo," gives shape to a Native American spirit -- half-man, half-deer -- that terrorizes a family of New Yorkers on vacation for the weekend. While nothing is so explicit, "Wendigo" eerily confronts the clash between civilization and nature, man and beast.

It's a conflict that's at the heart of many films, from the most basic wild, wild westerns; to Japanese director Akira Kurosawa's 1976 Oscar-winning masterpiece "Dersu Uzala"; to the sublime and surreal cinema of German auteur Werner Herzog, who often pits obsessed men ("Aguirre: Wrath of God," "Fitzcarraldo," "Cobra Verde") against the primeval power of the natural world. And man always loses. In Herzog's recently celebrated documentary "Grizzly Man," he shows that the monster we must heed need not be a supernatural one. It turns out that, for Timothy Treadwell, the majestic grizzly bear is not man's best friend. (The animal ends up eating the real-life naturalist, along with his girlfriend.) While not exactly eco-terror, "Grizzly Man" nevertheless shows there is a limit to man's encroachment on nature and, at some point, we will pay the price.

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