Gasland Part II

Firstly watch the award winning documentary "Fracknation" which blew apart the many falsehoods in "Gasland." The complete nonsense and lies in Gasland were so exposed that the maker had to make this new version "Gasland II" which drops some of the lies in the original but then adds others.

It is a stone cold and well documented FACT that people in areas where there are gas and oil deposits have been seeing fires in faucets since the 1700's. This has been happening with well water in Colorado, NY, or Pennsylvania before there was any oil or gas drilling of any kind in the USA. Fires occurred in bucket based wells, and when pump faucets were added to water wells in the 1700's people saw fired ignite in those faucets. To use this image as a criticism of fracking is complete BS.

Gasland II is almost as bad as Matt Damon's "Promised Land" whihc it turns out was almost fully funded by....The United Arab Emirates" which of course wants the US and Europe to be dependent on natural gas from the Middle East. (Think that is a hoax clam? Google "Promised Land" and "UAE" and find the NYTimes and USA Today articles investigating exposing the shell companies that turn out to be behind Matt Damon's production.

Take a read of The Guardian's articl:e "Russia 'secretly working with environmentalists to oppose fracking." Or the Washington Post "Russian trolls sought to inflame debate over climate change, fracking and Dakota pipeline" which show the Russians have spent tens of millions pushing the anti fracking meme and working with gasbags who oppose fracking and are doing Putins work for him.

When I saw Gasland for the first time last week, it's safe to say I was far past the state of shock, not because of what was happening because of hydraulic fracturing but just of what the actions taken by natural gas companies could mean for the general state of America. Has public opinion and the voice of the people become muffled to the point of unrecognizable murmurs? It's a scary reality we're a bit late on facing.

The film was interesting, to say the least, but was bogged down by questionable stylistic choices, odd, cloying narration, and facts that would likely go over the viewer's head. Now we have Gasland: Part II, a film that goes a bit further by showing the political/global effects on hydraulic fracturing (also known as "fracking") and how affected townspeople have refused to sit idly by and watch their liberties and wellbeing be disregarded tastelessly.

Filmmaker Josh Fox returns to tackle this subject again, not just showing that he has done his homework but also the optional extra credit. Through all his research, analysis, and thought, he has probably given this subject as much or more thought than a college kid currently studying a specific field. His dedication and enthusiasm for the subject is terrific. We open with shots of the oil-ridden Gulf of Mexico, reminding us that the summer of 2010 was hell for not just the Gulf but the residents of the bayou, who experienced hellish living conditions and grossly low profits thanks to oil contamination in their waters. We then learn that BP planes were instructed to hose down the Gulf in chemicals that were supposed to be reducing the impact of the oil. However, the chemicals were revealed that only smother the oil and force it lower to the depths of the waters; it was a blatant cover-up, not a solution.

What follows is almost the same as the original Gasland film in terms of approach; it utilizes the method of reciting many facts and history-pieces, however, in a more concise and understandable way. At least for the first two halves because by the third half, everything has become a bit of a muchness and we're channeling the lines of "Gasland: Part III."

The film is dedicated to three main pieces of the fracking case and uses them all to a solid effect. Its first is showing how constant drilling and methane contamination has left the small town of Dimock, Pennsylvania with an unreliable water supply, filled with unpronounceable chemicals. The second is showing how many townspeople have taken action and stood up for their rights as people of the United States. One man claims he used to be a Republican, but since unforgivable tactics have taken place in his hometown he has since become an independent. After all, private ownership is a direct principle to conservative ideology. The final point is to not belittle but show how even the so-called elite - white, male business owners who have done so much as erect an entire home off of money they've made themselves - aren't immune to the practice of fracking. Even they can be treated like second class citizens and weakened by the lack of regulation on the practice.

Fox's sleepy narration is still in place, but he seems to have woken up a bit since the last film. Moreover, the amount of respect I have for the man himself has grown with this followup film. Fox is more than a talking head with a discernible opinion. It took me to the middle of this film to realize he has an incredible passion for one- man activism, and that his banjo-playing, artistic locational shooting, and quirky sendoffs are more driven to influence and showcase a personality rather than quasi-varietal nonsense. He is a strong man, brave and gutful in his actions of attacking an industry armed with everything in their power to silence the common men and whistleblowers like him. He even gets arrested for attempting to film a public meeting on the matter of natural gas extraction. Not many would've continued fighting a towering man in a cop outfit over something like that.

Gasland: Part II is a notable increase in quality from the redundancy and complexities that were the preceding documentary. It is a lot more poetic and artful in its shots, as well as informing and thought-provoking in its arguments and justifications without the elements that seemed to alienate viewers of the previous film. It's safe to say Fox's impact on the hydraulic fracturing debate have been immense, but his environmentalist impact has begun to surface quite notably.

NOTE: Gasland: Part II premiered on HBO at 8pm central time on Monday July 8, 2013 and will air throughout the months of July and August on the network.

Starring: Josh Fox. Directed by: Josh Fox.

I've never ever encountered any film from HBO would be so unwatchable until met this one. I understand that this documentary may be carried a very alarming message to our lives, but the shaky, never stopped shifting camera work with constantly changing focuses on everything, the poorly synchronized audio recording that often failed to match what we saw in this video only resulted a completely unwatchable viewing experience. You have to adjust your eyesight, your reflex from your eyeballs to your brain to this video's random shifting, but I assure you, it might cause brain damage, ruin your eyesight, cause severe headache during or afterward, pending on how long you could stand. The video uploaded to YouTube is exactly the same, I just couldn't watch it over 3 minutes. I couldn't believe that only about 3 minutes, I suffered spinning dizziness and minor headache.

The other mystery that I could never have solved is the tittle: Why captioned with Part "II"? Where's Part "I"?

It's us. The people. Jobs. Security. Television. Private property. Yale. West Point. Wal Mart. CNN. A new truck. A roasted turkey. Everyone of the complaining parties in the land "Gasland" portraits seems to own a pickup truck. I saw only big trucks. New trucks. Bought with the money the gas and oil corporations paid them for their land to be fracked. Then the chemicals started leaking. Water ruined. The big wake-up. Too late. Money already pocketed, truck bought, TV bought, disclosure agreement signed. Too late.

Truck drivers don't care. We don't care until our own water supply is being taken from us.

I genuinely do appreciate this documentary. It does not only expose the irreparable damage caused by fracking, but it exposes (perhaps without being aware of it) how it is happening. What Homeland America made of? It shows who is fracking who. Corporations only pocked the profit. The 1% doesn't drive hundreds of thousands of trucks. The 1% doesn't drill and operate hundreds of thousands of wells. They pay off our government the same way they pay off us. Disclosure agreement signed.

Vietnam veterans. Iraq veterans. Afghanistan veterans. War criminals in my eyes. Or perhaps 'only' the truck drivers of war criminals 'protecting' the Homeland by destroying other peoples home land continents away. Where is Iraq again? Afghanistan? Is there perhaps oil to be drilled or pipelines to be build in these far away foreign home lands? Let's get them some freedom. Let's get them some truckloads of freedom. Bombs first. Then American Sniper. Then American Halliburton. It's also red. Like Coca Cola. And blood. Blood and stripes.

American war veterans are now being the victims of the corporations they helped so successfully to grow in power.

America is fracking itself.

Go and watch American Sniper. Support war. Don't care about Iraqi citizens. They are all terrorists. They are not citizens anymore. They don't have a country anymore. It has been fracked away from them. It's been drilled apart by Halliburton. You were driving the tanks and the trucks then. You are still driving the trucks now, in your backyard.

How many wells across the US?

How many truckloads needed for one well?

How many truck drivers?

Who cares about your water?

There is no Corporate America. There is no Halliburton. There is only us working for them. To have a job. A new big Ford F250. A TV in the kitchen, to watch the 'news' while we roast our turkeys. Two cars. Three cars. Thank you very much.

On another note, how many ethnic, African American, Native Indian, Asian American, Latino American land owners did we meet in this film? None. The only African American we encounter in this portrait of America are one child and one President.

Also, once we ruined all our drinking water what do we think will happen next? The price for drinking water will sky rocket. And guess who will own the only clean drinking water wells then? I've got a good feeling about it. Thank you very much.

What Gas Companies do the last to reviewers work for? LOL suppose he made up the bleeding noses and fracking gas material in peoples lungs too! Doesn't matter what the facts are to some people I go know for a fact it's unnatural destruction of the environment for corporate profit Good movie worth a watch.

What facts do the previous reviewers that hated it have that it's all propaganda and lies.

Glad I don't live near one of those shales anymore.

But of course the industry isn't causing any of that right

A must watch film