Basil Gelpke, Reto Caduff, Ray McCormack (2006) A Crude Awakening - The Oil Crash (DVD)

Amazon.com: While the previous eco-doc Who Killed the Electric Car? spent some time on the world's oil crisis, A Crude Awakening (formerly OilCrash) builds an entire film around the subject. Swiss journalist Basil Gelpke and Irish filmmaker Ray McCormack have constructed their narrative in a conventional manner, alternating between talking heads, archival footage, and modern-day material, but the addition of several pieces by Phillip Glass is an artful touch (and evokes his work on 1988's The Thin Blue Line). Throughout, a diverse array of experts from the U.S., Azerbaijan, Venezuela, and other countries explain how the 20th century became addicted to "the blood of the dinosaurs," and why contemporary society needs to change course. As attorney/activist Matthew David Savinar puts it, "Oil is our God." As Stanford professor Terry Lynn Karl adds, "More and more oil is going to come from less and less stable places...places that actually challenge the taking of oil in the first place." One of the more chilling revelations concerns the discrepancy between the reserves oil-producing nations claim they possess and the actual amount. These padded estimates allow them to drill with impunity, leading to an abundance of wealth in the short term and cataclysmic consequences once they've depleted their supply of this non-renewable resource. A Crude Awakening isn't exactly a day-brightener, but Gelpke and McCormack are comprehensive and impartial in their inquiry, which makes for an informative examination of a vitally important subject. Extras include extended interviews with four participants and bonus chapter Petrostates. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Product Description: An unforgettable and shocking wake-up call A Crude Awakening offers the rock-solid argument that the era of cheap oil is in the past. Relentless and clear-eyed this intensively-researched film drills deep into the uncomfortable realities of a world that is both addicted to fossil fuels and blissfully unaware of the looming "peak oil" crisis.Drawing on an international cast of maverick energy experts and thinkers directors Basil Gelpke and Ray McCormack debunk the conventional wisdom that oil production will continue to climb and instead stare bleakly at a planet facing economic meltdown and conflict over its most valuable resource. Featuring a haunting score by Phillip Glass and a fascinating array of rare archival footage the film explores oil s rocky relationship with human progress in locales ranging from ancient Baku Azerbaijan to dusty oilpatch town McCamey Texas.Amidst a dark and disturbing vision of our future A Crude Awakening hints at a humbler way of life built around sustainability and alternative energy providing a visually stunning boldly prophetic testament which provokes not just thought but action. Running Time: 85 minutes.

Chris Paine (2006) Who Killed the Electric Car? (DVD)

It begins with a solemn funeral…for a car. By the end of Chris Paine's lively and informative documentary, the idea doesn't seem quite so strange. As narrator Martin Sheen notes, "They were quiet and fast, produced no exhaust and ran without gasoline." Paine proceeds to show how this unique vehicle came into being and why General Motors ended up reclaiming its once-prized creation less than a decade later. He begins 100 years ago with the original electric car. By the 1920s, the internal-combustion engine had rendered it obsolete. By the 1980s, however, car companies started exploring alternative energy sources, like solar power. This, in turn, led to the late, great battery-powered EV1. Throughout, Paine deftly translates hard science and complex politics, such as California's Zero-Emission Vehicle Mandate, into lay person's terms (director Alex Gibney, Oscar-nominated for Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, served as consulting producer). And everyone gets the chance to have their say: engineers, politicians, protesters, and petroleum spokespeople--even celebrity drivers, like Peter Horton, Alexandra Paul, and a wild man beard-sporting Mel Gibson. But the most persuasive participant is former Saturn employee Chelsea Sexton. Promoting the benefits of the EV1 was more than a job to her, and she continues to lobby for more environmentally friendly options. Sexton provides the small ray of hope Paine's film so desperately needs. Who Killed the Electric Car? is, otherwise, a tremendously sobering experience. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein (2004) The Take (DVD)

Product Description: In the wake of Argentina’s spectacular economic collapse, Latin America’s most prosperous middle class finds itself in a ghost town of abandoned factories and mass unemployment. Thirty unemployed auto-parts workers walk into their idle factory in Buenos Aires, roll out sleeping mats and refuse to leave. All they want is to re-start the silent machines. But this simple act has the power to turn the globalization debate on its head. Filmmakers Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein take viewers inside the lives of the workers and their families, who must fight for jobs and their dignity by confronting factory owners, politicians and judges. The result is a real-life political thriller that pits ordinary workers against the local ruling elite and the powerful forces of global capitalism. (From Amazon)

Here is the official website of the movie. And here are couple of reviews by Chris MacDonald and by Roger Ebert.

Morgan Spurlock (2003) Super Size Me (DVD)

Filmmaker Morgan Spurlock, rejected five times by the USC film school, won the best director award at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival for this alarmingly personal investigation into the health hazards wreaked by our fast food nation. Under extensive medical supervision, Spurlock subjects himself to a steady diet of McDonald's cuisine for 30 days just to see what happens. In less than a week, his ordinarily fit body and equilibrium undergo dark and ugly changes: Spurlock grows fat, his cholesterol rockets north, his organs take a beating, and he becomes subject to headaches, mood swings, symptoms of addiction, and lessened sexual energy. 

The gimmick is too obvious to sustain a feature documentary; Spurlock actually spends most of the film probing insidious ways that fast food companies worm their way into school lunchrooms and the hearts of young children who spend hours in McDonald's playrooms. French fries never looked more nauseating. --Tom Keogh