Oil Crash Movie

skyemoor · Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 9:23 am Post subject: A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash

I saw the US premiere of this documentary last night at the Swiss Embassy. My impressions;

I invited a well-known video journalist to join me (who has two V8 SUVs himself) and he was completely moved by the experience; one could see the gears turning. He expressed concern for the welfare of his children and the state of the economy in the near future. I have mentioned some statistics to him in the past, but seeing this footage and hearing from the experts directly, with a carefully woven story, made for a convincing slamdunk.

Producer Gelpke was on-hand to field questions, and while not a scientist or geologist, was quite adept at handling questions. To my question about the peaking of North American natural gas, he said he understood that to be the case and could greatly slow the extraction of oil from Canadian Tar Sands, limit near term hydrogen production, and place the Country at greater risk for foreign energy dependence.

The film will be shown on cable (Sundance was mentioned) on or around April 19th(?). It will be available for wider screenings in May with DVD sales shortly thereafter. I will be purchasing the DVD.
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MattSavinar · Elite Joined: May 09, 2004 Posts: 1990

skyemoor

Back on the subject of this thread, the movie and its effects;

Dukat_Reloaded · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Jul 31, 2005 Posts: 1005

I liked the movie, one thing which was odd was near the end of the movie they were talking about processing ethanol while showing clips of palm oil plantations and palm fruit being processed.
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oilcanboyd · Posted: Sun Apr 08, 2007 12:57 pm Post subject: Re: Oil Crash Movie Review

Just to let everyone know, as of April 4th the movie can be rented at all rogers video outlets in Canada.

BTW, Matt, I liked the "katrina bunker"

As soon as I can purchase one from Rogers, I will be off to "early adopt" our city council on this matter.

Over all, I thought the movie was a good informative well thought out doc to move this problem on the front burner along with Gore's movie. All we need is 4 or 5 dollar CDN /Liter of gas through a hickup in the system and may be an acadamy award in two years.
imho- prediction

OCB

killJOY · Fission Joined: Feb 21, 2005 Posts: 2379 Location: ^NNE^

I can't believe how long it's taking this film to reach general release.

About the comment:

AlCzervik

I got mine hot off the press yesterday and watched it this morning. I hate to have to compare it to End of Suburbia, but it is the best way to explain what this movie offers that others don't. First, this movie is much more focused on global impact and employs many more international experts than EOS. I also like that it really drives home the point that population is ultimately the underlying problem when it comes to fossil fuel depletion.

The best part of the movie was the historical focus. The producers show Baku, Lake Maracaibo, and McCamey, Texas in their heyday, then they smack you over the head with the current situation in the form of abandoned fields and rigs, and it just makes you want to puke.

The experts in this movie absolutely beat the piss out of the official line on reserve numbers.

In terms of the players, we get the usual dose of Simmons and Campbell. It was refreshing to see Roscoe Bartlett and Matt Savinar weigh in with their insight. Matt's value to this movie is cutting through the bullshit when this movie flirts with possible techno-fixes (nice work explaining that "solving" peak oil is like colonizing pluto, not landing on the moon). For the most part, David Goodstein is the star in this movie the way Kunstler is in EOS. He gets an A- for his performance. He is crystal clear in explaining the facts in layman's terms, yet he has this look of horror on his face the entire time that almost has more impact on the viewer than the substance of what he is saying. He goes a little awry when discussing how he thinks a space type program for energy could save us, but you get the idea he doesn't really believe this when he then breaks down the numbers for nukes and biomass, although he does leave a glimpse of hope on the solar issue. In the end, at least we don't get the New Urbanism mantra from EOS and the movie pretty much tells you it's over for hydrocarbon man.

The production of this movie is incredible. It's even crisper than EOS. My only beef is that it really seemed long, although I realize it is about the same time length as EOS. I just think the producers could have shaved off ten or twenty minutes cutting out all of the cool shots of deserts, obscene energy infrasturcture, Saudis in flowing robes, and giving us the schlocky '50's/60's era U.S. petroleum commercials that we saw in EOS. My point is, I felt like I gave birth after this movie, so I think the unitiated might turn this thing off halfway in or have to take it in small doses. Oh yeah, and the classical music track in the background gets annoying after a while. Very Happy

Anyway, this was well worth the $40 and a great educational resource for peak oil newbies and experts alike, although I should note there is nothing that earth shattering for anyone following peak oil issues the last few years.

DantesPeak

This was shown on the Sundance Channel, and yes, it was very good. In fact it is an excellent movie to initiate the curious about PO.

While to the PO aware, some scenes may seem long and drawn out, chilling scenes of vast rusting oil fields and equipment around the world drive home the message that the era of easy oil has already passed by.

I'm not sure if and when it will be shown again on Sundance, but if so, I will try to place a reminder here.
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Transient · Coal Joined: Apr 21, 2007 Posts: 7 Location: Scotland, UK

I've read and heard a lot of positive stuff about this docu. Any word as to when it's available in the uk?

seahorse · Expert Joined: Oct 15, 2004 Posts: 2082 Location: Arkansas

I just watched the movie (ordered and received from LATOC). My favorite is still "End of Suburbia." However, Crude Awakening was better on lack of alternatives to oil.

killJOY · Fission Joined: Feb 21, 2005 Posts: 2379 Location: ^NNE^

Just received mine from Matt's store. Slapped in at lunchtime yesterday and watched.

My immediate impression: there's nothing more to say.

Really, it's all been said & said. But that's from my jaded, over-informed perspective.

What about as a source of information to the uninitiated? It's good.

"End of Suburbia" has already tread that ground, however. The makers of "EOS" need to be very proud of themselves. They have set a template toward which other films will be judged.

I will say, "Crude Awakening" is much better than the limp, ponderous, overly-long "Crude Impact" (it's a shame their names are so similar). It illustrates, perhaps, the differences between an American (moralistic, politically-correct, prescriptive, happy-happy-joy-joy) point of view and a Canadian/European view (more objective, give-a-Fark-what-you-think- of-me, figure-it-out-yourself) point of view.

I agree that the high point of "Crude Awakening" is the "McCamey Texas now/ Baku now/ Maracaibo now/ segment: brilliant. Of the category "a picture is worth a thousand words."

The filmmakers have adopted "End of Suburbia"'s technique of swapping interviews, contemporary footage with archival 40s, 50s, 60s footage with ironic effect. It works, but I kept thinking "It's been done."

It was nice to see other faces: Professor Goodstein, etc. Simmons and Campbell make welcome appearances. The "cast" seems more professionally-oriented than EOS, and the focus is definitely more oil-based.

As a doomer-in-spite-of-himself, I was slightly disappointed, but as I say, that may be a flaw in my perspective, not the film itself. I'm going to watch it again this weekend with select Doomer Friends. I'll post here again my "second thoughts."

This is definitely going to be shown in my classroom, in spite of the redundancies with "End of Suburbia." It's the right length (1:20; I'll have to figure out a way to cut off five minutes) unlike the perpetual motion machine of "Crude Impact."

I have to hand it to the filmmakers for not succumbing to "Crude Impacts" tempation to offer feel-good panaceas at the end. No "messages" like, "Put in CFLs and feel good about your consciousness!"

Three stars out of four.

dinopello

It's tough to put yourself in the mindset of who really should be watching this, which is the lesser informed. I think it was on par with EOS, although I miss Kunstler. There were some good old clips in both, although the footage of the abandoned oil provinces in Crude Awakening was compelling. I would have to watch it again but one complaint is that the interviewees didn't have their titles/roles shown on the screen much if at all while being interviewed. I may have missed it though.

I bought 3 copies of EOS and lend them out. I would do the same with this.

killJOY · Fission Joined: Feb 21, 2005 Posts: 2379 Location: ^NNE^

Just finished a second viewing of "Crude Awakening."

It holds up, sort of [I have changed my mind]

The concensus around the room was that this film is too confusing for the uninitiated. The "initiated" see it as retreading the same ground as End of Suburbia.

Crude Awakening, while far superior to "Crude Impact," doesn't have the panache of End of Suburbia. The pacing is sluggish. There is no narrative framework: it's easy to get lost in facts and figures and to wonder, "where are we in the story"? Barrie Zwicker's narration in EOS really brought it all together.

The subtitles are simply unreadable.

There are some parts that are so close to EOS as to seem like plagiarism: Matt Simmons' comments, Colin Campbell's comments, the archival footage used humorously, the prospects for suburbia--all seem completely derivative.

There are parts of this film I really like and will show parts to my class. As a whole, however, it's just not worth the 1-1/2 hours of class time.

For the record, I paid the full $40 for the DVD.

MattSavinar · Elite Joined: May 09, 2004 Posts: 1990

MattSavinar · Elite Joined: May 09, 2004 Posts: 1990