Collapse Comes to the Alamo for Two Nights Only [We're Screwed]

You'll probably want to have a smoke, too, after you see Collapse.

Collapse
Sunday January 10, Monday January 11
Alamo Drafthouse Downtown (320 E 6th Street)
7pm, $8.50
[tickets and info]

If you're a regular reader of alarmist cranks like Jim Kunstler (which we totally are!), you're already convinced that the human race is careening toward societal meltdown on a biblical scale. The coming energy crisis—combined with environmental and economic decay—will effectively end our decades-long, gas-guzzling, cheap-goods-buying, fast-food-scarfing cultural bender and force a rapid, painful reorganization of nearly every aspect of modern life. Kunstler calls this "The Long Emergency" and by his reckoning, we're right in the middle of it. Crazy, right?

Enter Michael Ruppert, an LAPD detective turned investigative reporter slash weirdo conspiracy theorist (until 2006, he self-published a fringe newsletter titled "From the Wilderness" and his 2004 book Crossing The Rubicon contains allegations that Dick Cheney and Wall Street had prior knowledge of 9-11 **cuckoo clock sound**). Ruppert, a certified peak oil alarmist, has a bizarre history to say the least, and it'd be easy to write him off as a total nutjob were it not for the fact that he's been completely right about some important things.

Ruppert virtually predicted our current economic crisis, and he did it at a time when things didn't seem all that bad, even to fancypants, pipe-smoking (probably) economists. His predictions about international political turmoil have similarly come true over the past decade, and his ostensibly wild 1970s-era accusations of CIA drug dealing were pretty much validated by the Kerry Committee nearly a decade after he made them. Now, Ruppert says, we're speeding toward a future that looks a hell of a lot like the ending of Fight Club. So how crazy is he, exactly?

In Collapse, Director Chris Smith (who also helmed one of our favorite docs ever, American Movie) lets Ruppert tell his own story. Like a bizarro Spalding Gray broadcasting from a dank warehouse basement, Ruppert soberly recounts his career as a subversive journalist, and confidently warns of the coming energy crisis and its inevitable repercussions.

But according to Smith, Collapse is less paranoid warning than sincere, Errol Morris-esque character study, and since its premiere at the 2009 Toronto Film Festival, it's garnered some extremely positive reviews along those lines (including an enthusiastic recommendation by Roger Ebert, and a "Top 10 of 2009" nod from Alamo programmer Lars Nilsen). But whether Ruppert is a misunderstood genius or a paranoid quack, we think Collapse looks totally riveting. If you're still not sold, check out the trailer.

[Official Website]

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