Movie Reviews from the Dark

Greetings again from the darkness. There haven’t been many documentary trilogies over the years, yet this is the third in a series from husband-and-wife documentarians Joshua Tickell and Rebecca Harrell Tickell. The first two were KISS THE GROUND (2020) and COMMON GROUND (2023), and all three deal with the importance of regenerative agriculture … a solution to our food problem and, it’s no exaggeration to say, the key to our future.

The film clearly defines regenerative agriculture and explains the importance of the movement. The bottom line is that decades of industrial agriculture (designed to feed an exploding population and maximize profits) has degraded farmland soil to the point that entire ecosystems have been damaged and biodiversity lost. Thousands of farms across five continents have been studied and the film takes us trotting around the globe to witness both the damage and the efforts to turn things around. We learn the importance of elephants in Kenya, how coffee crops in Columbia have been affected, and what damage in Brazil’s Amazon region has meant. We also learn how India is working to reverse the severe negative impact of industrial agriculture by transitioning to regenerative farming.

For skeptics, it should be noted that this is not some extreme liberal theory that the other side tends to dismiss so easily. Regenerative agriculture means the healthy soil better holds carbon and water to enhance the global ecosystem of fungi-plants-animals. The solutions exist, and some steps are as simple as having cows rotate pastures for grazing. We are reminded that, if we allow it, nature can heal itself. Birds are the best indicator that the system is healthy … the importance of birds could fill another documentary.

Actors Woody Harrelson and Demi Moore once starred as husband and wife in the 1993 film INDECENT PROPOSAL. Here, they narrate the Tickells’ film and explain that the very achievable goal is one billion acres transitioned to regenerative agriculture … that’s ten percent of the world’s farmland. The reward for saving the soil is that it also saves our climate and our food source … meaning it also saves our world. We are cautioned, “Don’t treat soil like dirt”. It’s a catchy phrase delivering a vital message. Joshua and Rebecca Tickell have been awarded the Golden Globes Prize for Documentary at this year’s Cannes. If this advice is followed, much bigger awards await.

The film will release on Prime Video this summer.

Trailer not available at this time

 Greetings again from the darkness. Documentaries with a message are usually most effective when they engage in debate … share both sides of the argument, if you will. Preaching from a soapbox typically causes the viewer to tune out, and the opportunity is missed. The one exception to this is when the stance is heavily supported with history, facts, data, research and pertinent interviews. Husband and wife co-directors Joshua Tickell and Rebecca Harrell Tickell deliver what amounts to a visual thesis on how to break the big oil monopoly.

Beginning with a montage of beautiful and colorful automobiles, we are quickly reminded of Americans love of their cars which leads to the addiction to oil. The next 90 minutes provides a trek through the key historical events that led to our oil dependency, and ends with a proposal on how to stop it.

The history lesson discusses John D Rockefeller and his Standard Oil monopoly, followed by his political influence to get Prohibition passed. This after Henry Ford called alcohol “the perfect fuel”. We then learn of how large companies drove out the trolley system in favor of an interstate freeway system for cars. We re-live the 1973 gas shortage as the Arab countries flexed – or extorted, depending on your take. Jumping to 2008, the surge in oil prices to $147 per barrel is described as the economic earthquake, with the Stock Market crash termed an aftershock. In other words, oil is the foundation of our economy. Today’s global market is discussed along with the exponential growth of China’s car industry – 15 million cars sold this year. This time-line with specific data leads to the impressive second half of the film … how to get ourselves out of this mess.

For those who say it’s foolish to discuss breaking our dependency on oil because it is used in so many other ways, they are missing the point. The cause is less oil dependency for cars, not a total break from it’s use in products such as medicines, clothes, plastics, etc. The filmmakers offer the options of both electric cars and alternative fuel sources.

Elon Musk’s Tesla Motors is briefly discussed, with the acknowledgment that battery technology improvement is vital to the future success of electric cars. A more immediate solution comes in the form of alternative fuels – ethanol and methanol. We see the exceptional strides Brazil has made with strong leadership. We see how our current vehicles already have the capability to run on these biofuels, if not for a simple software adjustment built-in by auto-makers. Nine million flex fuel cars on the road now, and many of these owners remain unaware of their options. Why? Because fueling stations are so tough to come by, as only the most independent of stations are not contractually obligated to big oil companies.

The film is exceptionally well researched and the data delivered in an easy to understand format. The Tickell team won the Sundance award for the 2008 documentary Fuel, and their message is even stronger this time out. By the way, Ms. Tickell is a former child actress known as Sam Elliot’s daughter in the 1989 Christmas classic Prancer. She and her husband are now renowned environmental activists, and this project is really a call to action … the choices are available NOW to break the oil monopoly.

watch the trailer: