GasLand [2010 documentary film]

America is on the verge of energy independence through "natural" gas exploration, thanks to Halliburton and a host of other brave entrepreneurs. So why is Josh Fox not grateful? Fearful that his beloved backyard river is in peril of being polluted, Fox sets out on a fact-finding mission across the country. What he finds is that "fracking," the practice of using a chemical stew to assist in the drilling process, is laying waste to our groundwater and land. The director/crusader on a mission has become a familiar sight in contemporary documentary. But somehow Fox breaks through this cliché with an astonishing mix of shoe-leather journalism and the idiosyncratic experimentalism of his theater background. A modern Paul Revere hell-bent on show more saving us from ourselves, Fox's achievement promises a hip new era of urgent advocacy films. show less

Are we stupid!!? Yes, we are.

An eerie film technique, evocative and successful.

Part mystery, part travelogue and part banjo showdown, GASLAND documents Josh's cross-country odyssey to find out if the controversial process of hydraulic fracturing--or fracking--is actually safe.

In 2009, filmmaker Josh Fox learned his home in the Delaware River Basin was on top of the Marcellus Shale, a rock formation containing natural gas that stretches across New York, Pennsylvania and huge stretches of the Northeast. He was offered $100,000 to lease his land for a new method of drilling developed by Halliburton and soon discovered this was only a part of a 34-state drilling campaign, the largest domestic natural gas drilling boom in history. Part mystery, part travelogue, and part banjo showdown, "Gasland" documents Josh's cross-country odyssey to find out if the controversial process of hydraulic fracturing - or fracking - is actually safe. As he interviews people who live on or around current fracking sites, Josh learns show more of things gone horribly wrong, from illness to hair loss to flammable water, and his inquiries lead him ever deeper into a web of secrets, lies, conspiracy, and contamination - a web that potentially stretches to threaten the New York Watershed. Unearthing a shocking story about a practice that is understudied and inadequately regulated, "Gasland" races to find answer about fracking before it's far too late. show less