Film: 'The End of the Line' (2009)

 Imagine a world with no fish. This should bother you. If it does, watch this film. If it doesn't (you hate fish, you never eat them; or, you love fish, but you know there are plenty of them in the sea), watch it anyway. I'm f*cking serious this time, kids. Most of what I review here is for my own amusement, and I don't really mind whether or not you seek it out beyond the reviews. This one is different; I really, really want you to go and watch it.

Yeah, I know - I hate nature docs, and I never recommend them. This is not a nature doc. This is a documentary about the horrifying impact human appetite and avarice has on the no-longer-natural world. Ever gone out for sushi? Surf 'n' turf? Made good old-fashioned chowder, or baked a nice filet of haddock? Do you know where the filling in your tuna sandwich was caught, and how? These are easy questions to answer, though the simple-enough answers may lead you towards rather more frightening truths.

Please watch the film. It's easy to get, via netflix or a library. Make your friends watch it. Make your mom watch it (maybe she'll stop making that really horrible salmon casserole every time you visit). I know it's tough. I know you don't want to know what your fellow humans have done to the world you live in, and how you've inadvertently helped them out with that. I sure as hell wish I didn't have to know any of it. But I do know, and I want and wish and hope and pray for you to know too, because I would like to have some world left for us to keep on living in.

For more information regarding what this is all about (and what you can do about it), visit  http://endoftheline.com/campaign/.

You can (and I hope you will) also read journalist Charles Clover's book, The End of the Line: How Overfishing Is Changing the World and What We Eat, upon which this film was based.