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.System Requirements:Running Time: 85 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DOCUMENTARIES/MISC. Rating: NR UPC: 767685992036 Manufacturer No: NVG-9920

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2305 in DVD
• Brand: NEW VIDEO GROUP INC
• Released on: 2007-07-31
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 85 minutes

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

Review
The best movie I saw at SXSW this year was "OilCrash," a terrific work of investigative journalism-as-film that will scare the living cr*p out of you. Sure, you've read a little about the "peak oil" hypothesis, you disapprove in some theoretical way of the planet's massive (and rapidly worsening) fossil-fuel addiction, you're in favor of alternative energy sources and all that. You may even have the sense that things will get fairly bumpy as we try to develop cheaper solar power or new hydrogen technologies or whatever. Am I right so far? Well, Basil Gelpke and Ray McCormack's film paints a vastly grimmer picture than that, and here's the thing. Their sources are not eco-freaks from Vermont or Berkeley in Peruvian clothing, but scientists, financial insiders and retired oil executives, many of them bedrock conservatives. Their message: The era of oil is nearly at an end, and the social and economic consequences are barely imaginable.

"I've been doing TV news for a long time," Gelpke, a Swiss television journalist, told me after the premiere. "I'm not easily impressed. But as soon as I started researching this I could tell it was the most important story I had ever come across." Does his electrifying film, which combines a history of the oil industry's boom and bust with well-informed (if dire) speculation about what lies ahead, paint too bleak a picture? Is it really possible that gasoline will cost $75 a gallon in two decades, and that air travel will become a luxury available only to the super-rich? "It's a call to arms," says McCormack, Gelpke's Irish-born directing partner. "In order to have an impact you have to simplify and dramatize, and I'm prepared to defend that. It's only a depressing story if you're afraid to change."

"We hope we're wrong," adds Gelpke. "Listen, I've got kids and I love cars. I'd like to keep traveling places. Like almost everybody in the film says, I hope we're wrong. But I don't think we're wrong." Whether or not you buy the doomsday scenario of "OilCrash," it's one of the most important films of the year. A distribution deal should soon be announced. --Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com

Review
In case prices at the gas pump haven't scared the bejesus out of you, just pop A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash into the DVD player, and you just might end up with night terrors. Directed by Swiss first-time filmmakers Basil Gelpke and Ray McCormack, this somber, well-crafted documentary argues that oil, what it calls "the bloodstream of the world's economy," is hemorrhaging. The concern is as easy to understand as it is dire: The planet grows more and more dependent on oil as its primary energy source, and we are quickly running out of it. A Crude Awakening doesn't make it easy on viewers, but perhaps the time for niceties is over. This hard-hitting documentary is a wake-up call. The end might just be closer than you think. --DVD Talk

Customer Reviews

Compelling arguements to consider
Today is June 12, 2008, and with oil is above $130 per barrel, we have an ideal environment to take in such a documentary as this. The scenario reminds me of a book called, "What To Do When Oil Is $200 A Barrel." Perhaps by the time you read this, it will be over $200 a barrel.

For this genre, this is a well-produced documentary that combines visual interest with good academic but energizing commentary. It plays out like a story: from the early discoveries of oil, the oil bonanza in the USA to the peaks in Venezuela, Russian states and Saudi Arabia.

As one watches how peak discovery USA or other early regions yielded to peak production then leading to ultimate decline, you quickly see the model used for calculating "peak oil" globally which many experts say is anywhere between 2003 and 2030 (many predicting around the next five years). The famous, so-called Hubbert's Peak is described by the man himself.

US production started around the 30's but peaked in 70's and has dwindled to a fraction of peak now. That's apparently what we see now in the giant of giant fields that produce a lion's share - some being pumpued with seawater to maximize output (something normally done when a field is peaking down). ALL these will eventually follow the model peaking scenario that was seen in USA, Baku and other areas. North Sea is also peaking apparently if you follow news in EU.

Arguements for being at a peak include the strong and sustained rise in demand, the apparent signs of peaking of the giant fields today and the fact that no fields this big have been discovered in a while (given oil companies have mapped much of the planet). This doc makes the strong point that huge discoveries are needed just to keep up with current demand - let alone feed growth - since all current fields will eventually decline.

But with price of oil so high, it will and is opening up discovery previously not pursued until crude hit a magic threshold price. The doc could have presented such supply-side possibiities more clearly to give more balance. But, this is a compelling documentary that will stimulate your own analysis. If nothing else, you will probably see just how oil permeates so much of our lives in the products we buy and way we live. PS: Some of the best writers on this topic in my opinion are economists who have little direct bias or professional stake in any particular outcome ("A Thousand Barrels a Second" is a quite good analysis of the situation).

crude crap
THese guys that write these book must do one sided research, Peak Oil LOL not yet. We're finding out the earth core is producing more oil, sounds crayz ,but true. However, according to Popular Science Apr 2008 there are 175 Trillion thats right 175 TRILLION barrels of oil in Tar sands in Canada that they can extract a barrel of oil from for about $20.00 a barrel. Then you have 5 Trillion barrels of oil in OIL Shale in Colo,Wyo & Utah that they can produced a barrel of oil for about $40.00 a barrel. Then theres the Bakken Formation that stretches from Montana to N. Dakota and southern Canada that has 503 billion barrels of oil, then theres 40 or more billion barrels of oil on the Alaskan North Slope. 1/2 to 1/3 of the Gulf hasn't been explored and the present pools are refilling from deeper deposits seeping upward- from where -do you remember the core.
I have a best frined who's brother works on the Gulf oil rigs and he states they've capped off many excellent producing wells- wonder why? Maybe because Big Oil and Wall Street Commodity Traders want to keep getting richer with tight supplies.And we have all kinds of oil off the coast of Calif and Fla,plus 2 giant oil fields were just found recently off the coast of Brazil. China supposedly has all kinds of oil but no infrastructure to get it out and piped to refineries which they don't have either since it's rural country for the most part. Do we need to move from oil absolutely but not for quite awhile yet. But, fear books sell better, yet all the above info is readily available on the web if one has the time and searches for it.

Awakening.
This documentary describes a process that is inevitable... but at least it describes it rather than putting ones head in the sand and denying it.

The more people that are aware of what will happen when cheap plentiful energy becomes scarce expensive energy the better.

Highly recommended.