Gore's back — in documentary

Al Gore, leading man?

To borrow a cliche from the Hollywood marketing playbook, the new global warming documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" shows the former vice president as you've never seen him before.

Al Gore wheeling his own suitcase through airports, taking off his shoes and emptying his pockets at security. Al Gore firing up crowds with his one-man PowerPoint presentation show on arctic melt rates, devastating heat waves and dangerous changes in ocean currents.

Al Gore cracking jokes, reflecting candidly on his own foibles.

The failed presidential candidate doesn't immediately come to mind as the kind of charismatic star Hollywood might turn to to dramatize a pet cause. But his quest caught the attention of a group of filmmakers — among them "Pulp Fiction" producer Lawrence Bender — who have translated it to the screen in a documentary slated to premiere Tuesday at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.

Although the 90-minute documentary might not sell out the multiplexes, the screening has sold out at Sundance, and Gore's appearances around the country are drawing throngs. Last week at Vanderbilt University in Gore's hometown of Nashville, 1,100 people filled a large auditorium, with 300 turned away by fire marshals.

Gore was loose and funny. "I used to be the next president of the United States," he told the audience, drawing a roar of laughter.

"I don't find that to be very funny," he deadpanned. "I'm a recovering politician."

Afterward he was mobbed, like a rock star.

In short, Gore has seemingly lost the stiffness that was the hallmark of his vice presidency and White House run as he traipses from campus to campus and country to country spreading a serious message: Unless we stop our polluting ways, we're doomed.

The film coincides with Hollywood's renewed interest in Gore as a possible presidential candidate in 2008, as well as a changing cinematic landscape in which documentaries from all sides of the political spectrum are finding audiences and affecting the political conversation.

He's also assuming a rising profile as a media player. In August, he launched a cable and satellite news channel, Current, aimed at young adults. The network also provides a venue for aspiring documentarians to screen their short films. Earlier this month, Gore invited Sean Penn and Sundance Institute founder Robert Redford to advise fledgling filmmakers on journalistic techniques and storytelling.