Update on BP's gulf oil spill: Joshua & Rebecca Harrell Tickell's investigative doc, THE BIG FIX

A kind of companion piece to Dirty Energy (a little-seen documentary we covered earlier this year), THE BIG FIX indicts oil giant BP for not simply causing the accidental 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill inflicted on the Gulf of Mexico, but for its actions -- as well as those of our own governments, local and national -- ever since. The Big Fix is a worthwhile entry into this growing collection of investigation about BP, big oil and government collusion, though it is not nearly as well done, moving or important as Dirty Energy. See them both, because they complement each other, even to the point of using some of the same people to interview. But whatever you do, don't miss Dirty Energy.

Unfortunately The Big Fix, clearly for purposes of marketing (and perhaps for raising money to complete the movie), inflicts on us a couple "name" actors -- Peter Fonda (above) and Amy Smart -- who happen to care, genuinely I'm sure, about the environment. Fonda says a few words and appears in a couple of scenes and then has to go; Ms Smart does even less. Both are a waste of time here and any moviegoers they might bring in will only be disappointed in how little they see of the two.

The product of husband/wife team -- Joshua Tickell (shown at right) who a few years back gave us an interesting but flawed documentary called Fuel, and Rebecca Harrell Tickell (shown below), who, during the course of this film, seems to become a victim of the very thing to which the Tickells are calling our attention -- the movie starts a little shakily. But hang on. As it continues, the film expands (rather like that initial spill), allowing us to see that the problem here goes much deeper and wider than the spill itself, until it involves big oil, state government, and national government -- all exceedingly dirty. Mr. Tickell has dropped some of the cute and energetic cheerleader pose he used in Fuel. He's older now and has grown up some, it seems.

Together the pair explore a bit of Louisiana history (where Mr. Tickell was raised) and the state's connection to the oil industry; then we learn of BP and its own checkered (putting it mildly) history where safety and reliability are concerned.

We hear about the spill itself, the unhealthy dispersants used to break up that oil so that it will appear to have been cleaned up rather than accumulating beneath the water (as is apparently happening), the effect all this has on sea life and the people living on the shores of the gulf, not to mention the dying fishing industry that has been so devastated by the spill and its even-worse after-effects.

We hear again from marine biologist Riki Ott (above, right) and other scientists, along with fishing families like Kevin and Margaret Curole, though no one comes across as strongly here as he or she does in Dirty Energy -- which was anecdotal, it's true, but thoroughly engaged us both intellectually and emotionally, while presenting its information in a way that seemed genuine and truthful. We also see what the spill has done to sea life/seafood (below), how the FDA has fudged their inspections, and why it might be smart to either give up seafood entirely or make certain you know from where what you're eating originates.

What The Big Fix does have, however, is a wider net. In its second half, it connects the dots that have long seen the oil industry in bed with local and national politicians via campaign contributions, lobbying, and finally even lawmaking. Our current administration is every bit as guilty as have been those of the past. This all comes down once again to money in politics. Until we stop political "contributions" and the purchase of our politicians, we're simply stuck with the sleaze that this money continues to elect. And, yes, I mean you, President Obama.

But that's another day, and another movie -- or 20 of 'em. For now, you can stream The Big Fix via Netflix, but you can only save Dirty Energy to your queue. Let's hope that NF sees the light and either orders DVDs or purchases the streaming rights....

Is Bryan D. Hopkins' DIRTY ENERGY the most important documentary of the year?

Could be. In any case, it's a must-see. For several reasons. First, it will open your eyes as to why, at some point after BP's massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, you and I and most everyone we know imagined that this horrendous man-made environmental disaster was pretty well cleaned up. After all, the photos we were seeing of the gulf looked surprisingly free of oil. And where were all those other photographs of dead birds, fish and what have you that we usually see in the media after these spills? Gee: not there.

See DIRTY ENERGY--The Deepwater Horizon Disaster: firsthand stories from the Louisiana Bayou and you'll understand why -- along with a lot of other disturbing answers to questions asked by the folk who live in (and earn their living from) the Louisiana Bayou area most affected by the oil spill. Directed and co-edited, -shot and -produced by filmmaker Bryan D. Hopkins (shown at right), the documentary puts us up-close and personal with some of the people who suffered most from the spill, and then connects the dots to help us understand what happened afterward, who was responsible and what the results have been.

As the residents and workers in the area make clear, even Hurricane Katrina was not as long-term devastating as the BP oil spill. "It's the first time we've had to depend on someone else to clean up the mess," notes one. And, as we see, they didn't really clean it up; instead they used toxic dispersants to help cover it up.

More shocking and depressing appears to be our own government's use of the U.S. Coast Guard to act as a kind of "security" for BP, running interference for the behemoth company, as it takes over the coastal area, completely controlling the "clean-up" operation, not allowing the use of cameras to record the operations and then spraying the toxic dispersants at night so that the following day, when the clean-up crews arrive to remove the oil, that oil appears to have disappeared. BP would not even allow clean-up crews (above) to wear protective respiratory suits. (Why -- because it would create a bad PR image for the company?)

Among the several important connections the movie makes, thanks to one of its most impressive narrators -- Dr. Riki Ott, Ph.D., marine biologist, educator and activist (shown at left) -- is between this latest BP-caused oil spill and the Exxon Valdex spill in Alaska in 1989. Both spills pitted locals against a major corporation and both appear to be having the same results: sleazy practices by both corporations ensure that help to the businesses and people most affected by the spills will either not come -- or will arrive as a tiny percentage of what was originally promised. The movie also addresses the despicable attempts -- and success -- of BP's "divide-and-conquer" campaign so that citizens end up fighting each other rather than the joining against the corporate cause of their troubles.

BP evidently learned from the "mistakes" that happened to Exxon earlier -- not how to prevent a spill (above), of course, but what kind of actions were needed to head off bad publicity afterward. The movie is more or less divided into segments that cover the spill, the "clean-up," health issues, corporate negligence, government failures, and how the communities involved are fighting back. The narrators here provide a good mix of science, history, activism and on-the-spot, anecdotal evidence.

What we see and hear -- as ex-local and commercial seafood buyer Karen Mayer Hopkins (at right) as community organizer Kindra Arnesen (below, left) point out -- addresses the current and growing bond in America between government and corporate power to the exclusion of the rights of citizens, resulting in the crazy idea that BP is somehow more important than the working people we see before us, not to mention the very environment that

provides our home and food. (We are told that the Gulf of Mexico in which the spill took place provides around one-third of the seafood consumed in the U.S., some of which is now -- and for how many decades hence? -- diseased and probably unfit for consumption.)

The people we see and hear do not rant and scream at us; they are mostly just quietly angry and disappointed in our government. But the movie should make viewers extremely angry. Dirty Energy is one of the most anger-making of documentaries because it gets to the heart of what is going on between government and corporate power and money -- and then shows you what this is doing to working folk from a viewpoint that you will find very difficult not to share.  

At one point local fisherman George Barisich (at right) questions why the Coast Guard was allowed to do BP's bidding. "Maybe someday we'll find out," he muses. Well, why not now? Follow the money: the contributions BP and its connections have made to the Obama campaign. Yet, even when this rather blatant trail is dug up and made clear, Americans seem still not to understand nor care what is going on. We don't believe it. Or we don't want to believe it. This is the land of the free, after all.

Normally, I am so pressed for time, with so many further films to cover that I can't view any of the usual "extras" that appear on most DVDs. This time, I simply had to watch them, and they proved more than worthwhile. In addition to the trailer for the documentary, look for a 19-minute Three years after the spill short that gives you an update on the people and events in the Bayou area, plus a six-minute In-Depth looks at Gulf Shrimp that should put you off seafood for a long while.

Why wasn't a movie this powerful released in theaters? You know the answer already. Though it has been shown at various film fests, where it won a couple of prizes, it is now going straight to DVD, thanks to Cinema Libre Studio. With a running time of just 94 minutes (but don't forget those "Special Features"), this is a couple of hours very well spent.