Crude Awakening - The Oil Crash (Movie Review)

Movie (Documentary) Review by Zinta Aistars

Directors: Basil Gelpke, Reto Caduff, Ray McCormack
Format: Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC
Language: English
Number of discs: 1
DVD Release Date: July 31, 2007
Run Time: 85 minutes

Price: $26.95

Another documentary, a companion to Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, that I am recommending to everyone that crosses my path - especially if they are crossing in a machine. This is the wake-up call to our oil-addicted nation that we need to get started on those 12 steps of ending addictive behavior, and we need to do so in fast forward.

Produced by award-winning filmmakers Basil Gelpke and Ray McCormack, A Crude Awakening explores the crisis approaching at blink speed, beginning with those nations, US at the top of that list, who are dependent on oil (and don't think we are talking just about our cars, but all products produced from oil, e.g. aspirin, plastics, paint, candles, solvents, perfumes, lotions, cosmetics, carpets, toothpaste, roofing, etc.) who will be hit the hardest. Just a few short decades ago, we were told this supply of "dinosaur's blood," "black gold," would last forever, at least a few more centuries (said Nixon), but in fact is nearing the bottom of the barrel now.

How are we responding to this approaching crisis? Are we doing research? Developing alternative energy sources? In small pockets, perhaps, but not nearly enough to replace what energy we are using now. No solar, nuclear, wind, or other forms of energy can possibly replace the amount of oil energy we are presently consuming. Indeed, watch those who line up to buy Hummers, these steel road monsters that get a whopping 10 miles per gallon. Are we really so incapable of thinking beyond our own shallow and selfish instant gratification? Are we so willing to make our children and grandchildren pay? One wonders whether such drivers shouldn't be prosecuted for treason. Even as we continue to keep our heads in sand, we now desperately dig for oil in sand - another sign that the pure stuff is already nearly gone.

In a series of interviews with various experts, this film explores what has been, what is, what will soon be if we do not face up to our oil addiction immediately. Concluding thoughts with which the film leaves us: we are accountable for the government we have voted into place. We have an administration that responds (at best) to a crisis, but does nothing to prevent a crisis. It is up to us, the voters, to make the calls, write the letters, create the loud and clear demand that alternative energy sources be researched and developed as soon as possible. As in, yesterday. It is up to us to let our representatives know that we will support them if they work toward alternative and sustainable energy sources. It is up to us to make this a primary concern in upcoming elections. It's time. It's past time.