In 1989, when the Exxon Valdez oil spill happened in Alaska, Americans were inundated with the media attention given to the wreckage, complete with heartbreaking images of black-slicked baby seals. It's less commonly known, however, that the Ecuadorian Amazon has contamination levels estimated to be at least 30 times as severe, and that 30,000 Ecuadorians have been locked in a legal battle seeking remediation since 1992. And if you think baby seals are upsetting, wait until you see the effects on the indigenous people whose water and soil are contaminated with the toxic sludge. Along with the support of activist organizations to save the Amazon (and Trudie Styler!), director Joe Berlinger's (Metallica: Some Kind of Monster) documentary Crude aims to rectify this ignorance in hopes of throwing more weight behind the little guys fighting the corporate goliath Chevron, who inherited the lawsuit when it bought out Texaco. by Marjorie Skinner