‘Tis Not Too Late to Seek a Newer World--the Tickells' PUMP Imagines a Petrol-Free Future

Note: This special guest review is written for TrustMovies 

by Beth Kelly, an environmentally-conscious, Chicago-based 
freelance writer and blogger who contacted me to ask if 
she might write about this film, assuring me that she had no 
personal nor business connection with the film itself nor with 
its creators. Her review seems, to my mind, on the mark 
and now has me most interested in viewing this documentary.

Kicking our foreign oil habit has been a topic of conversation since at least the early 1970’s, when U.S. drivers encountered the effects of two separate oil crises when they went to fill up at the pump. In 1973, members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) stopped shipping oil to the United States and other countries backing Israel in the Yom Kippur War - shocking a generation of Americans that believed oil resources would continue to be plentiful and cheap forever. The 1973 oil shock (below), combined with growing environmental concerns, resource scarcity and rising overseas tensions, elicited a serious questioning of our relationship with oil.

While these concerns linger, the world energy market today is not what it was 40 years ago. Since the crisis in the 1970’s, every national policy we’ve tried as a way to end our oil addiction has failed. In July 2008, when oil prices hit $147 a barrel, reverberations of our dependency on carbon-based resources echoed throughout the global economy. The oil- addicted American household, as it was imagined and invented in the 20th century, was orchestrating its own decline through an unwillingness to re-examine its foundational, oil- stemming weaknesses.

But as many Americans continue to struggle to pay for the gasoline that will transport them to school, work, or elsewhere, others have begun to look for a way to live a life free from fossil fuels. Joshua Tickell, and his wife, Rebecca Harrell Tickell, are such a pair. Fuel, the husband-and-wife team’s first documentary together, was lauded by critics and instrumental in raising awareness of the viability of biofuel alternatives. But the petroleum industry also had something to say about it, launching an impressive smear campaign against the nascent biofuel industry by attesting that ethanol and other non-oil alternatives contain less energy than is required to produce them. The Tickell’s most recent film, PUMP, provides illuminating information against the pervasive Big Oil doublespeak.

Suggesting that we never needed to be addicted to oil in the first place, the film traces the convoluted history behind the crippling of the electric mass transit system, the 70’s gas shock, and the dominant role oil played and continues to play in our foreign policy strategy. Featuring candid testimony from former Shell president John Hofmeister (at right), Tesla Motors founder Elon Musk (two photos below), Internal Combustion author Edwin Black, and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (just below), the Brazilian president responsible for shifting the country to biofuels, the film offers plenty of informed perspectives on the issue.

By making another film that shows replacement fuels in a positive light, Tickell endeavors to propel the biofuel resurgence. Prices at the pump have built a demand for natural gas vehicles, since larger domestic sources of that fuel source mean their availability is not as susceptible to tensions in the Middle East, Russia, or Asia. Natural gas prices and availability have fluctuated little over the past three years, while diesel and gasoline costs are comparatively volatile. PUMP advocates for two “monopoly busting fuels,” methanol and ethanol, and flex-fuel vehicles that will run on a combination of gasoline or any blend of up to 85% ethanol.

Without indicting the automobile itself, PUMP paints a picture of political leaders that are too spineless to stand up to special interests and an oil-reliant citizenry. It should be obvious that there isn’t enough oil on the planet to satisfy our immense thirst for fossil fuel forever, but to acknowledge this is only a fraction of the battle. In order to make the transition from an oil economy to an alternative plan, as a nation we will have to acknowledge some hard truths about our lifestyle, and may have to undertake some potentially uncomfortable changes to make the ultimate shift away from fossil fuels.

Peter Lehner, the Executive Director of the National Resource Defense Council (NRDC), calls PUMP “a must see movie that jump-starts an impor-tant conversation about the crippling costs of our oil addiction,” and there’s no doubt that the issues it explores will make you think hard about the scope of this problem for our times and for future generations - while also suggesting some possible solutions. A documentary that champions the American spirit of innovation, PUMP promises that the same inimitable embrace of progress that got us into this mess will drive us to find a better solution.

Pump, running 88 minutes, opens in theaters this Friday, September 19. Here in New York City, you can see it at AMC's Empire 25 and the Cinema Village; in Los Angeles, look for it at Laemmle's Royal. To see where the film is playing near you, click here and then follow the instructions.

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....