Makes me GLAD to be a HOOSIER!
Posted on 01/06/2013 5:41:57 AM PST by Kaslin
Matt Damon’s latest film “Promised Land” arrived in theaters nationwide yesterday with a focus on the controversial issue of fracking. Written by Matt Damon (who won an Oscar for co-writing “Good Will Hunting”) and John Krasinski (“The Office),” the story focuses on a small community that is asked to debate the merits of the process when a large corporation arrives in town wanting to buy much of the local land.
In an article from the Wall Street Journal, reporter Daniel Gilbert described -- much more succinctly than the film does -- what the process of fracking entails. He noted that “Fracking involves blasting millions of gallons of water mixed with sand and chemicals into a well to break up shale and allow oil and gas to flow out.”
The community that “Promised Land” is set in is suffering financially and tempted by the thought of having millions of dollars poured into the region. Damon plays Steve Butler, a salesman who tries to convince the locals to sell the land to his company, Global. When a local politician hosts a discussion of the subject in the high school gym, though, Butler spots trouble right away when a teacher (played by Hal Holbrook) interrupts the forum to question the environmental impact that fracking would have in the area. Soon enough, a charismatic environmentalist named Dustin Noble (Karsinski) arrives in town and tries to get the locals to reject Global.
The movie, focusing on the controversial subject, has inevitably received criticism from those on the Right and praise from some on the Left. But it’s not the movie’s political leanings that hold it back. It’s the simplicity in which the writers evaluate the subject.
Superficially, the movie seeks to argue that fracking can be both beneficial and detrimental. Butler argues that it will help the community because it will bring in more money to the individuals who sell their land. Noble argues that fracking will destroy the community and even grossly suggests -- to a group of young students, no less -- that fracking could cause the whole community to burst into flame.
When you think about the real substance of the film, though, its ideology is clear. Like many “evil corporations ,” the fracking company in “Land” has a cold and hardened name: Global. As opposed to the small-town farmers depicted in the movie, the company has arrived in town to take over the community without any respect to its traditions or values. The character’s names also lack much subtlety. Butler is, of course, the character who does the corporation’s chores for them. He gets the locals to sign their land away, working for a company that he seemingly knows little about. (At one point, he even questions some of the damning evidence against his company, noting that if the evidence was true, he would have already heard about it already). On the other hand, the proud environmentalist is named Noble.
So whom would you trust? A Butler who works for a corporation -- or a Noble who loves the environment and loves spending time with regular people?
It should be noted that the story offers some twists that seek to offer more complexity to the main characters. Those twists, however, fail to take the story to a higher level. Instead, they just show how evil -- and ruthless -- the corporation really is. From the beginning of the film, the deck is stacked in favor of the environmental forces. By the end, the story reveals that much of the debate about fracking only existed because the corporation wanted it to exist.
Of course, the movie argues that Global is evil. It’s a corporation that exists solely to make money. And as Butler argues, the townspeople should agree to its requests because they too can be greedy capitalists. In one scene, he argues that the money that the townspeople receive will be “screw you money” (although Butler doesn’t use the word “screw”). But few arguments are offered about the benefits of fracking and why many consider it a viable energy source.
In other words, “Promised Land” takes a complex issue -- worthy of a vigorous and important debate about energy independence -- and simplifies it, leaving the viewer with a blatantly one-sided account of the issue.
I think it was Michael Medved who described “Promised Land” as the “China Syndrome of Fracking”, a movie designed to make people terrified of an energy source.
Natural gas in well water is not necessarily or even usually due to fracking.
More likely it is a result of the slow release of natural gas through existing fissures in the earth. Eventually some of this natural gas could dissolve in water deep underground. When the water is pumped up to the surface the dissolved gas will bubble out, just like a carbonated drink. If the gas is allowed to collect in a well cistern, it could ignite or explode if exposed to the air and a spark.
It would not surprise me at all if such water well explosions have occurred in the past, but it would very much surprise me if any such occurrence could be linked in any way to “fracking”.
I happen to live in an area where the sand used in the fracking process is removed from the landscape and shipped to the drilling sites. While many land owners and the community do benefit from the sale and eventual mining process, the sand mining process needs a closer look. Considering the entire process involved with fracking, the sand mining does indeed make a MAJOR change to the landscape, some good and some not so good. I invite ANYONE wanting to learn more about frack sand mining to look into that mining process before commenting about “fracking”. Get educated.
Now I don’t have to see the movie besides anytime the left coast wants to make a political statement in a film all I can say is Frack them.
It is, but relying upon Hollywood (and more specifically, Matt Damon) is not.
Cheers!
Complicated: Kom-pla-kated.. a word often used when the left needs to make you believe lies devoid of facts to advance their agenda
They make up numbers for everything else so I suspect the day has come when we cannot believe their movie numbers.
After all they benefit greatly if they can fudge the numbers.
Shame on America for what we have become
Welcome to Hollywood!
Just like Al Gore's Inconvenient Crap was.
Don’t you mean welcome to Hollyweird?
Sin is a reproach to any nation.
...and next we have the story of Jane Roe.She had just been told her 'problem' was taken care of when the big TV in the waiting area blurted out the news that 26 had died in another part of Connecticut.
Here are her words...
There will be about 46 of these stories...
from that day...
and the next day...
and the next...
and the...
Too soon to know? We’ve been fracking for 50 or 60 years.
You should really get informed about things you are attempting to opine upon.
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson Tells Congress “No Proven Cases Where Fracking Has Affected Water”
http://youtu.be/L4RLzlcox5c
Just for the record.
Exactly. It’s reminiscent of the way oil seeping up naturally from the ocean floor and washing up on beaches was used to ban offshore drilling in California.
what REALLY is a “complex issue”...?
That’s a situation in which leftists KNOW that really a really good study of the issue details by middle-class people will hand them an end-scenario that they’ll view as DEFEAT. So instead of you looking into those pesky details they ask you to rely on them to summarize them FOR YOU.
And they’ll be eager to do that for you because they see the middle-class as IDIOTS whose real raison d’etre is to be manipulated by leftist elites.
When a leftist deems a situation complex...
1. He wants something you have
2. He’s showing his belief that you’re an idiot
3. He’s showing his belief it is natural for him to make decisions for you
“I am surprised conservatives are against this....shouldn’t making up your own mind and decisions be a conservative attribute?”
Life’s too short to wade through all the lefty BS.
If I want indoctrination or to attempt to decipher code or to experience a `feel good,’ Capra-esque, goo-goo moment, I’ll watch `Bowling For Columbine,’ `An Inconvenient Truth,’ `The Day After Tomorrow,’ or any number of Hollyweird agit-prop pieces. On second thought—no, I won’t.
It’s all spinach and I say to hell with it. How’s that?
Say it ain’t so, Jim Halpert. :(
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