Since World War II North Americans have invested much of their newfound wealth in suburbia. It has promised a sense of space, affordability, family life and upward mobility. As the population of suburban sprawl has exploded in the past 50 years, so too has the suburban way of life become embedded in the American consciousness. Suburbia, and all it promises, has become the American Dream.

But as we enter the 21st century, serious questions are beginning to emerge about the sustainability of this way of life. With brutal honesty and a touch of irony, The End of Suburbia explores the American Way of Life and its prospects as the planet approaches a critical era, as global demand for fossil fuels begins to outstrip supply. World Oil Peak and the inevitable decline of fossil fuels are upon us now, some scientists and policy makers argue in this documentary.

The consequences of inaction in the face of this global crisis are enormous. What does Oil Peak mean for North America? As energy prices skyrocket in the coming years, how will the populations of suburbia react to the collapse of their dream? Are today’s suburbs destined to become the slums of tomorrow? And what can be done NOW, individually and collectively, to avoid The End of Suburbia ?

www.endofsuburbia.com ($21.99 @ amazon.com)

(2001)
Every day brings news of human beings’ impact on the life-support system known as Earth. But what is the truth behind the headlines? In 1999, an international group of more than 70 scientists analyzed the condition of the five ecosystems on which all life most heavily depends — freshwater, agriculture, forests, grasslands, and coastal ecosystems. Their findings are the scientific basis for Earth on Edge, which premiered on PBS June 19th, 2001 at 8 P.M. The program presents the findings of scientists who are studying the health of our world, as well as stories of ordinary people working to restore the health and well-being of the ecosystems they — and ultimately all of us — depend on.

www.pbs.org/earthonedge ($29.95)

By Stanley Kubrick (1964)

From IMDb: “An insane general starts a process to nuclear holocaust that a war room of politicians and generals frantically try to stop.”

(2002)
DAM/AGE traces writer Arundhati Roy’s bold and controversial campaign against the Narmada dam project in India, which will displace up to a million people. The author of The God of Small Things, which won the prestigious Booker Prize in 1998, Roy has also published The Cost of Living, a book of two essays critical of India’s massive dam and irrigation projects, as well as India’s successful detonation of a nuclear bomb. In her most recent book Power Politics, Roy challenges the idea that only experts can speak out on such urgent matters as nuclear war, the privatization of India’s power supply by Enron and issues like the Narmada dam project.

As the film traces the events that led up to her imprisonment, Roy meditates on her own personal negotiation with her fame, the responsibility it places on her as a writer, a political thinker and a citizen.

As she puts it in DAM/AGE, “The God of Small Things became more and more successful and I watched as in the city I lived in the air became blacker, the cars became sleeker, the gates grew higher and the poor were being stuffed like lice into the crevices, and all the time my bank account burgeoned. I began to feel as though every feeling in The God of Small Things had been traded in for a silver coin, and I wasn’t careful I would become a little silver figurine with a cold, silver heart.”

The film shows how Roy chose to use her fame to stand up to powerful interests supported by multinational corporations and the Indian government. For her, the story of the Narmada Valley is not just the story of modern India, but of what is happening in the world today, “Who counts, who doesn’t, what matters, what doesn’t, what counts as a cost, what doesn’t, what counts as collateral damage, what doesn’t.”

In a clear and accessible manner, the film weaves together a number of issues that lie at the heart of politics today: from the consequences of development and globalization to the urgent need for state accountability and the freedom of speech.

www.bullfrogfilms.com ($390)

THE CORPORATION explores the nature and spectacular rise of the dominant institution of our time. Footage from pop culture, advertising, TV news, and corporate propaganda, illuminates the corporation’s grip on our lives. Taking its legal status as a “person” to its logical conclusion, the film puts the corporation on the psychiatrist’s couch to ask “What kind of person is it?” Provoking, witty, sweepingly informative, The Corporation includes forty interviews with corporate insiders and critics – including Milton Friedman, Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, and Michael Moore – plus true confessions, case studies and strategies for change. Winner of 24 INTERNATIONAL AWARDS, 10 of them AUDIENCE CHOICE AWARDS including the AUDIENCE AWARD for DOCUMENTARY in WORLD CINEMA at the 2004 SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL.

The long-awaited DVD, available now in Australia and coming in March to North America, contains over 8 hour of additional footage.

http://www.thecorporation.com/ ($11.19 VHS/$17.92 DVD @ amazon.com)

By James Bridges (1979)
From IMDb: “A reporter finds what appears to be a cover-up of safety hazards at a nuclear power plant.”

With humor, chutzpah and a piece of vinyl siding firmly in hand, Peabody Award-winning film maker Judith Helfand and co-director and award-winning cinematographer Daniel B. Gold set out in search of the truth about polyvinyl chloride (PVC), America’s most popular plastic. From Long Island to Louisiana to Italy, they unearth the facts about PVC and its effects on human health and the environment.

Back at the starter ranch, Helfand coaxes her terribly patient parents into replacing their vinyl siding on the condition that she can find a healthy, affordable alternative (and it has to look good!).

A detective story, an eco-activism doc, and a rollicking comedy, BLUE VINYL puts a human face on the dangers posed by PVC at every stage of its life cycle, from factory to incinerator. Consumer consciousness and the “precautionary principle” have never been this much fun.

http://www.bluevinyl.org/

By Pamela Calvert/Plain Speech

Pam Calvert’s film on health issues arising from endocrine disrupters in the First Nation’s community surrounded on three sides by the chemical in Sarnia Ontario, across from Port Huron Michigan, is in rough cut and will be shown locally in mid September. The nerve center of Canada’s petrochemical industry, Sarnia, Ontario once enjoyed the highest standard living in the country—but now the bill has come due, in compromised environmental and community health. How do you stay in the home you love when the price you pay may be not only your own life, but the safety of future generations? In The Beloved Community, a petrochemical town faces a toxic legacy head-on. THE BELOVED COMMUNITY is a co-presentation of Detroit Public Television. Jeff Forster, Executive Producer.

For more information: pcalvert@plainspeech.tv

Without words, cameras show us the world, with an emphasis not on “where,” but on “what’s there.” It begins with morning, natural landscapes and people at prayer: volcanoes, water falls, veldts, and forests; several hundred monks do a monkey chant. Indigenous peoples apply body paint; whole villages dance. The film moves to destruction of nature via logging, blasting, and strip mining. Images of poverty, rapid urban life, and factories give way to war, concentration camps, and mass graves. Ancient ruins come into view, and then a sacred river where pilgrims bathe and funeral pyres burn. Prayer and nature return. A monk rings a huge bell; stars wheel across the sky. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103767/ ($11.32 VHS @ amazon.com)

A collection of Cold War public service announcements and other kitsch synthesized into “a comic horror film” by Rafferty et al (1982). From the IMDb website: “An ostensibly tongue in cheek documentary about the nuclear age of the late 40’s and 50’s, juxtaposing the horrific realities of the arms race with cheery misinformation(and simplistic redbaiting) doled out to the public by the US government and private sector. The overall effect is chilling- for every scene of hilariously misguided propaganda and dismissal of nuclear danger(an army film cheerfully assures a fictional fallout victim that his hair will grow back in no time) there’s scenes of Pacific islanders affected by fallout from remote nuclear tests and US soldiers getting debriefed on the minimal dangers of witnessing a nuclear detonation a few miles away(with goggles on, to be fair). Not an objective documentary by any means – not that it should be – the filmmakers excoriate the duplicity of the government and the mock the complacency of the public with equal zeal, but there’s a certain absurdist charm to the whole affair.”