Usually I like to keep things on the upbeat side around here. There's a lot of negative news coming out of the environmental world that a pessimist could focus on, so I prefer to try to walk the line between pragmatism and hope. On the spectrum of green I most often fall into the Bright Green camp, though I'm not afraid to dip into the Light and Dark side when needed.

 

If the movie Collapse were assigned a color, it'd probably be a deep dark bloody red. Directed by Chris Smith, the same guy who directed The Yes Men and American Movie, Collapse examines the supposed total global breakdown of the systems that support the way we live. The movie's premise is that when oil prices spike high enough, the whole house of cards will collapse down in on itself. It's something I've talked about before; I worked on a piece with Stephanie Rogers last year that talked about some of the possible scenarios that could happen when oil stops being cheap.

 

 

I think it's fitting that Apple's trailer site lists the preview as both a documentary and a horror film. It's scary stuff made even more frightening by the fact that it's not totally crazy ... that it could happen. If cheap oil goes away before we can build a renewable system underneath to take over, life as we know it will be done. It'll be time to get Mad Maxxed up and things will get ugly.

 

Read the Variety's review here. Collapse opens in theaters nationwide Nov. 6.