Review of GasHole (2010) by Judge L — 17 Apr 2012

A bad documentary with good material. I think if this had been done by a major studio, it could have reached far more people and been taken far more seriously. The animations are elementary, the narration is flat, and some of the material repeats or does not progress as it should. That said, it's got a lot of good content that should really, really make you think about things.

Most notably to me is the story of Tom Ogle. By most accounts I can find, he successfully converted a 4,000 car to a 100 mpg machine in the late 70s. By using vapor instead of a carburator, he was able to maximize efficiency. Why are cars 40 years later still getting 1/3 of that mileage or less? Well, Ogle died at the age of 24, allegedly by suicide. Given the amount of money involved, and given the history of oil and car companies buying and burying other patents that would have changed the world, that's a big allegedly. Truly, this would have been one of the most remarkable bits of science in the last 50 years (or maybe not so much if we had accepted it 40 years ago when we should have, and not grown accustomed to driving 20 mph pieces of shit).

Also some interesting economic stuff about supply and demand. The supply is largely controlled by the oil companies, so when they want to jack prices, they can cut supply and raise the prices for the record profits we've been seeing. All in all, a lousy documentary production-wise, but good enough to really piss you off and get you thinking.