Tapped

2009
7.2| 1h16m| G| en| More Info
Released: 31 July 2009 Released
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Budget: 0
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Official Website: http://www.tappedthemovie.com/
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Is access to clean drinking water a basic human right, or a commodity that should be bought and sold like any other article of commerce? Stephanie Soechtig's debut feature is an unflinching examination of the big business of bottled water. From the producers of Who Killed the Electric Car and I.O.U.S.A., this timely documentary is a behind-the-scenes look into the unregulated and unseen world of an industry that aims to privatize and sell back the one resource that ought never to become a commodity: our water. From the plastic production to the ocean in which so many of these bottles end up, this inspiring documentary trails the path of the bottled water industry and the communities which were the unwitting chips on the table. A powerful portrait of the lives affected by the bottled water industry, this revelatory film features those caught at the intersection of big business and the public's right to water.

Genre

Documentary

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Tapped (2009) is now streaming with subscription on Prime Video

Cast

Director

Stephanie Soechtig, Jason Lindsey

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Tapped Audience Reviews

PodBill Just what I expected
Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional
Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.
Ginger Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.
ironhorse_iv The great debate of bottle water vs tap water got bottle up and release as a well-structured awe-inspiring documentary call Tapped. Directed by Stephanie Soechtig & Jason Lindsey, the movie shows the environmental injustice aspects of bottled water. While the movie is indeed one-sided, and can seem biased. The movie does give a chance for bottle water supporters to defend their product. It was deeply surprising to see representative from these big companies, as in most documentaries, they mostly refuse to speak. I do think, their interviews was edited a bit, to make them look dumbfounded to certain questioning or expose them as spin doctors. It was bit too trickery. The movie had a lot of good amount of evidence sources. The way, the documentary told it, through interviews, music, data/graphs, and video footage made watching the film, very entertaining. While, the movie did indeed had a bigger budget, there were little to no slow lectures parts, here. It's clear that tap water is indeed better for you than bottle water. The movie shows us why, but you can clearly go research it, yourself, and you find yourself with the same results as the movie. I think a lot of people need to watch this film, as one of the big reasons why people purchase bottled water is due to the old wives tales inaccuracies. These claims are often create by companies, to set fear into the public, so that the community would purchase overprice water, over nearly free drinking water. This is a great example how fear can somewhat dictate somebody's life. While, yes, there are some proved facts that some tap water in certain areas are contamination. For the most part, even for the low-income & minority households, tap water is deed safer than bottle water in developed countries like the US & Europe. Bottled water are believe to reduce amounts of copper, lead, and other metal contaminants since it does not run through the plumbing pipes where tap water is exposed to metal corrosion, however, this varies by the household and plumbing system. Bottle water often carry similar or worst off chemicals such as PET, PETE, and BPA (bisphenol A). Of these, BPA is the deadliest. This is because due to the lack of regulated by the company. It's not as regulated as often as tap water. One thing the film also forgot to mention is the alarming rate for bottled water in poorer developing countries. Sales of bottled water in Mexico, China, and parts of India, are rising steeply, due to fear of contaminated water. In my viewpoint, bottle water and tap water have the same health risk in those countries, due to the fact, that most bottle water are indeed tap water. While, I don't believe people that should buy bottle water, I do understand the reasons why certain people choice to. The lack of safe drinking water in certain areas should be the only reason to buy bottled water. Even so, I have to agree that plastic tax has be put into place to help recycled the plastic and stop wasteful trashing. Better yet, people should learn how to purification their own water supply, which the film also left off. The movie also left out, the religious questions of if the 'privatization" of water is ethical. One thing that the movie should explore more is the myth is the taste of water because it was one of the contributing factors to the marketing success of bottled water. Pure water has no taste. However minerals and impurities can alter or add to the taste, but it's not very noticeable. Most bottle waters misleads its consumers with this false advertising. While the movie gave a lot of information that can be useful for years to come. It's somewhat already dated. If you want more information about the debate of tap water over bottle water. Watch 2003's Penn & Teller episode on bottle waters to get more information about this. Also check out, 2008's Blue Gold: World Water Wars, 2010's Water on the table and 2008's Flow: For Love of Water. All of them are very good, and worth the time, watching. Overall: I would recommend this documentary to anyone willing to sit down, and think about their future. Indeed, water will play a big role in that.
robert-temple-1 This incredibly shocking documentary and the similar documentary BLUE GOLD (2008, see my review), made by a different team, need to be seen by anyone interested in whether the human species will survive. (One would think all humans would be interested in this question, but so stupid are some people, that they actually are not interested, which is perhaps why our survival is really under threat, namely that the human species contains such a very large proportion of idiots.) It used to be said of a boring person that he was 'like a long drink of water'. Well, the ways things are going, long drinks of water are going to be in such short supply that we'll never be able to use that expression again. This film, unlike BLUE GOLD, limits itself to the United States and the Pacific Ocean. The film shows in detail that public water is being taken by big corporations like Nestle, Coca-Cola, and Pepsi-Cola at the rate of millions of gallons per day, bottled, and then sold back to us as 'bottled water' at 10,000 times profit. And the idiot politicians who allow this seem to think it is OK, perhaps because their wallets have increased by 10,000 times as well for being 'friendly' to the ruthless corporations. The toothless, useless Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has only one member of staff working half-time on the regulation of bottled water production in America! 70% of all bottled water in the USA is sold within the same state, so does not come under federal jurisdiction anyway. The remaining 30% is required to be tested, but the test results are not required to be filed with the FDA or divulged to anyone, and can remain secret within the private files of the corporations. So while municipal free water supplies are tested sometimes as often as 400 times a day, bottled water is effectively never tested. It often contains dangerous chemicals and contaminants. Since 1989 when bottled water began to become available in plastic bottles, which are made from petroleum at refineries, the bottled water for sale has often been full of deadly carcinogenic chemicals leeching out of the plastic into the water. The main dangerous chemicals are PET, PETE, and BPA (bisphenol A). Of these, BPA is the deadliest. So what does this mean? It means that water which is free (70% of all bottled water in the USA comes from municipal free water supplies and not from springs or wells!) is taken in gigantic quantities by large corporations, bottled in poisonous plastic bottles, and then sold to the public at a huge profit under the phoney pretext that it is 'safe' (but if municipal water is 'unsafe', why is 70% of bottled 'safe' water merely 'unsafe water' in a poisonous bottle?). But that is not the end of the story. The bottles are then all thrown away and make their way onto beaches and into the oceans. This is billions of plastic bottles per year. The Pacific Ocean for instance has a huge area larger than Texas known as a gyre which is just a vast sea of plastic. Every ocean has at least one such gyre. All the fish and other wildlife (turtles, seabirds, etc.) of the oceans are being killed by the plastic. In other words, bottled water is now one of the greatest threats to the planet, but even more urgently, it is one of the greatest threats to people. Don't you think it would be ironic if the human species ceased to exist because of bottled water? Wouldn't that just be the funniest of all cosmic jokes? For a species as stupid as humans, this is only fitting, that they should die with neither a bang nor a whimper, but with a pathetic, feeble gurgle. This film was produced by the same people who made WHO KILLED THE ELECTRIC CAR? (2006). The directors of this one are Stephanie Soechtig and Jason Lindsey, both of whom also co-wrote it with Josh David. They clearly had a much bigger budget and team than the people who made BLUE GOLD. Both films and their DVD 'extras' need to be seen together. They do not duplicate, but rather they complement, each other. And I shall here add something which I included in my review of BLUE GOLD: As Ford Madox Ford said in the February, 1924, issue of The Transatlantic Review, of which he was editor: 'That one should stand by and observe without a note of warning the sure shadow of doom engulfing a civilisation would be to display an equanimity passing the power of most men.'
TheEmulator23 Now it's not that film is anything great it just presents a lot of facts that you would think most people would already know about. I have probably bought bottled water maybe a dozen times in my entire life. It was only when there was no other option to get any other sort of water or I needed a bottle to fill up w/ god forbid tap water! I cannot understand for the life of me why Bottled water is a business at all. It is after all nothing more than a giant scam. It simply amazes me that this is a $10 billion dollar or more industry. How is this possible? There is a great "Penn & Teller Bull-Sh*t" that proves just what a joke it really is. They test a bunch of people drinking bottled waters against regular ol' tap water & guess what 8/10 of them went for the tap water! The thing that will upset you the most is the way the "Nestle" company continued to bottle water in Maine, while they are in the middle of a drought! So basically these people all had to ration there water so that "Nestle" could continue to bottle their water. Now I understand to a certain extent the companies side too, because it's a huge boon to them considering they are upping the price by 9,999% so it's an obvious cash cow. Plus you have to imagine even if it is a joke people are buying it & it must help w/jobs & w/the local economy too. Overall it seems really stupid, but there are good arguments on both sides of the fence.
Gregor Suhadolc Some time ago I had a constructive debate with my sister, who is just finishing her bio-genetic study with straight 10's if I may add, on the topic of tapped and bottled water. She was the first person to made me think over this and frighteningly also their tests of PET bottles as well as other EU countries showed the same result as we can see in the documentary. Its bad enough that we all know the excessive use of plastic which is an oil bye product is ruining our natural habitat and our living environment, but its also affecting our health since the corporations care for profits over our health and preserving nature. If you disagree hard with this documentary, than, I guess its time to open your eyes and stop thinking narrow minded as the earth is not here just so this extremely greedy generation could rape her all over again.Documentary mostly focuses on the USA tapped water, but since the industry is driven by world corporations its still a good example probably what's happening all over. And since the USA have (by my opinion) one of the most corruptible government / corporation relationship its a good example what could be there for us all in near future if people will not start thinking a bit "out of the box". And I would not agree with some of the comments that says the documentary is biased. If you watch it carefully, you will see there are quite some interviews or inserts that shows how unregulated this business really is.Most recommended for ALL viewers and ages. 10/10