rigorousintuition.ca

[MacCruiskeen]

A review after a showing at the Toronto Film Festival:

------------------------------------------------------------

Collapse
Director/Country/Time: Chris Smith/ USA/ 82 min.
Documentary
Program: Real To Reel

Headline: “That’s how I learned to separate the ice cream from the bullshit.”

by Scott Tobias September 14, 2009

Scott’s Take: The latest documentary from American Movie director Chris Smith takes the form of Errol Morris’ The Fog Of War, and in conspiracy theorist Michael Ruppert, he’s found a subject just as mesmerizing and irreducible as Robert McNamara. A former LAPD narcotics officer and independent journalist, Ruppert’s current obsession is the issue of “peak oil,” the concern that oil production has reached its apex and as fossil fuels decline, our entire industrial infrastructure will collapse along with it. Ruppert has the sort of apocalyptic vision that would make him perfect for Glenn Beck’s “War Room”—or Stephen Colbert’s “Doom Bunker,” for that matter—but he’s not an ideologue, which makes his Chicken Little scenarios more authentic even before you’re confronted with his confident voice and meticulously crafted arguments. That said, Collapse is by no means an endorsement of Ruppert’s worldview; Smith has enough respect for his audience to allow them to sort out whether he’s a soothsayer or a crackpot. It’s possible to come out of the film thinking, “Oh my God, we’re all doomed,” but there’s also a strong suggestion that Ruppert has walled himself into his own point-of-view by accepting only the information that supports his sweeping theories. And in several immensely poignant moments, we can also see an angry, lonely, vulnerable man whose life epitomizes the title as much as the globe does. There are many layers to the man and the movie, and I for one left the theater shaken.

Grade: A

http://www.avclub.com/articles/toronto-film-festival-09-day-4,32832/?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=feeds&utm_source=avclub_rss_daily

----------------------------------------------------------

Official website, with synopsis, reviews and trailer:

http://www.collapsemovie.com/COLLAPSEMOVIE/
_________________
"Work as if you lived in the early days of a better nation." (Alasdair Gray)

[psynapz]

I'm just glad nobody filmed me a few years ago; inaccessibly maniacal in convictions (which, yep, cause convicts), hopelessly biased and biased towards hopelessness, self-confirmed and at the edge of sanity, ready to cry or scream at a moment's notice about the sheer enormity of the situation, the weight of it all, firmly upon my own shoulders as the lone nut in any room who could see the matrix.

Well, I guess the only thing that's changed is I've calmed the fuck down and accepted near-term inevitability, started being more careful about the truths I try to share, and started to be more selective of the truths I absorb. Not in judgement of the ones I don't, just in whether it will help me with useful tools or actionable intelligence, or just rape me worse.

I envied Ruppert when I learned he had fled to Venezuela. Though even then I wondered whether he had simply been reassigned.
_________________
Eat my steaming shit if you don't like it. Toodles,
- psynapz

[2012 Countdown]

[DrVolin]

[Searcher08]

[Perelandra]

I'm with you, psynapz. I'd say about '05-'06 was a very low point. It took me several years of study in between trying to have a real life in order to grasp, as you say, the enormity. Which of course, I'm still working on. But I'm calmer and more comfortable with uncertainty.

I credit Ruppert as a great help initially in my learning curve, although I take it all with plenty of salt now. I hope to see the film eventually. Too bad the trailer isn't working.

[Jeff]

Recognizing myself as well in a lot of these remarks.

Quoting from my latest post again:

[freemason9]

I do believe that psynapz inadvertently defined the majority of RI people . . . complete with the odd sense of calm resignation, as if before a storm.
_________________
"In the old days, we used to be able to get away from each other. We walked twenty-five kilometers in the hot sun. It would cool off your anger. In Tsumkwe, the fight follows you around."

[smallprint]

Yeah (looks at wine bottle full of bitter tears of despair), 2005 was a tough year.


Also, Dave McGowan has an interesting series of exchanges with Ruppert at his site, starting here:
http://www.davesweb.cnchost.com/nwsltr52.html
_________________
His mind now misgave him; he began to doubt whether both he and the world around him were not bewitched.

[Brentos]

Crossing the Rubicon was my entryway into 911 skepticism. It took the former Bircher who wrote The Creature from Jekyll Island to give me enough 'in your face' facts to force open my dreary eyes. Reading Rupperts book after that was easy.
Not a fan of Ruppert anymore though.

[Wombaticus Rex]

Wow...reading the responses, I feel so lucky to have been raised by a properly paranoid father who had me reading Jonathan Kozol and Hunter S. Thompson in the 4th/5th grade. I got to skip this whole shock phase...definitely didn't get to skip on the depression and despair, though, that always comes and goes.

We get better at hitting demons back every year, folks. We are winning.
_________________

[mentalgongfu2]

[Brentos]

[MWB]

Ruppert's the guy that was conned by a criminal:

http://counterknowledge.com/2009/01/911-truther-michael-ruppert-exposed-as-victim-of-con-man-delmart-vreeland/

Not to mention that the break-in that caused him to "escape" to Venezuela was staged (as confirmed by those who were close to him).

Don't believe a word that comes from his mouth. He's probably compromised.

[Wombaticus Rex]