There's a little surprise behind Matt Damon's latest flick, "Promised Land." No, the surprise isn't that the movie,
according to Phelim McAleer, "attacks fracking—a new way to get oil and gas out of the ground, which has become the latest villain of the environmental movement." It's that the film "is being financed by New Image Abu Dahbi—a company fully owned by the government of the United Ara Emirates."
The UAE is a small Arab kingdom with a spotty record on freedom-of-speech issues and whose economy is completely dependent on selling oil and gas. The UAE stands to lose trillions of dollars if fracking leads to increasing energy independent for the United States and Europe, as many analysts predict.
Media outlets don't seem bothered by this revelation, certainly not to the extent they were bothered by another recent movie release.
“Won’t Back Down,” a film just released at the weekend, casts a cold
eye on the union-dominated public-school system. Starring Oscar winner
Viola Davis and Maggie Gyllenhaal, it is an emotional, heartwarming tale
of parents succeeding against the odds.
But many reviewers have focused on attacking the funding for the film.
The
NPR reviewer called it a “propaganda piece . . . from a conservative
mogul.” Slate.com’s critic called it an “agenda-driven piece of crap . .
. financed by conservative Christian billionaire Phil Anschutz.”
Strange, next to the utter lack of curiosity about funding for “Promised Land.”
Until the media start applying consistent standards and asking difficult
questions about that film’s funding, we’ll never know if Matt Damon has
gone from producing works of art to a new, more sinister type of film —
a very different “movie on demand."
Incidentally, McAleer, a documentary film producer is currently working on "FrackNation," a new documentary telling the truth about fracking. Watch for it.
