Promised Land

Last evening my wife and I went to the movies and, as I am saving The Hobbit to attend with my very busy teenage son, we attended the new Matt Damon movie Promised Land. My wife says just seeing Matt Damon's smile is worth nine dollars. I am not sure that I would agree with that but I do find Damon very likable.

This movie, straight out of the headlines is about fracking. Fracking is a process of removing natural gas from shale deposits deep under the ground. In recent years we have all heard stories of both landowners gaining untold riches from the deposits under there land as well as horror stories as to the effects this process has on the land and those who use it.

I do not have all the answers. I suspect that the truth probably lays on both sides of this issue. A great deal of money can be made by those fortunate enough to have these deposits underground but there is always a risk in extractions from the Earth.

In the movie Damon plays Steve Butler a mineral rights specialist for the Global company. Steve has been sent into an unnamed small town to gain the mineral rights to peoples land so that his company can start extracting large amounts of the gas believed to be underneath. Steve, as played by Damon, is not a bad guy. Having suffered through the death of his own farming community as a teenager he knows how bad it can get. His town collapsed when the local Caterpillar plant closed and moved overseas. In his mind the chance to earn a million dollars for doing nothing but selling mineral rights is a goldmine to these folks and he fervently believes he is on the side of the angels. He has heard some of the horror stories of the problems with fracking but is told by his company that these are untrue and chooses or wants to believe it. His partner in this process is played by Frances McDormand of Fargo fame. Playing Sue in an understated way she is all common sense and organization to Steve's emotional tent revival kind of salesmanship.

As they make their sales pitch to landowners they find more resistance than is usual. Hal Holbrook plays the town's Science teacher who is very knowledgeable and very concerned about the potential invasion of the gas companies. Soon after this confrontation an unknown man with the unknown of company of Athene Environmental shows up. John Krasinski plays Dustin Noble, a fellow who saw his father's farm and livestock destroyed by the effects of neighboring fracking and tells us the loss of his father's farm. With a receptive audience already concerned as a result of their local townsman's vocal opposition Dustin finds fertile ground for his claims.

Stuck somewhere between anger and disbelief that the locals might well be turning down an opportunity to safeguard their well-being based on untrue claims about the dangers of fracking Steve fights on. Signing folks, some who are more than willing, one gentleman in a trailer makes Steve drink some hooch with him to celebrate their " being partners", to take a chance on making a million dollars.

As the movie comes to the end Frank Yates, Holbrook's teacher, Dustin the environmentalist and of course Damon's Butler work to win votes on the binding town election forthcoming. A sharp twist in the road of the story appears, I saw it coming but not much more than a minute before it occurred, and we are left with a different story. One that is much more definitive on who the bad guy is, but perhaps one that by doing so makes the movie less about looking at an issue that deserves a real airing than defining in a black and white way a problem that might not have a black and white answer.

Still it is a good story, Damon is as he always is, above average though this movie never really takes off. It is as if it is a plane screaming down the runway, you are moving faster than you would driving but you never really take off and soon you run out pavement. When this movie comes to the end of the pavement you never really got off the ground though it was a sort of enjoyable ride.

Lincoln

Lincoln has been as well received as any movie in years. Directed by Stephen Spielberg, based on the Doris Kearns Goodwin book Team of Rivals most consider Spielberg and much of the cast to be Oscar worthy.

The movie, unlike the book, which examines the whole Lincoln Presidency, centers on the last four months of Lincoln's life. At this time Lincoln is working feverishly toward getting the 13th amendment, that which bans slavery, to be ratified by the House, the Senate having previously done so. Lincoln's fear is that with the war coming to an end that the Emancipation Proclamation might be somehow reversed as an executive order under the War Powers Act. He himself admits to the plausibility of it being reversed due to the murky process by which he was invested with such powers.

One would think this would be an easy thing, the North after all was against slavery. However Democrats, still in sympathy, with their Southern brethren, and if not for slavery against anything that might indicate an equality between the races had consistently held any thought of the amendment at bay. With the war coming to an end Lincoln has a limited time frame. He knows he needs to have the law passed before it can be used as a negotiating point for any Southern delegation.

What follows is a legislative battle that most folks today would not have presumed taking place in that long ago time. We have visions of Lincoln being all powerful, at least in the North, when in actuality he was not a popular figure to some, we think of the North holding hands and freeing the slaves in unison, this also was far from the truth. What transpired was bare-knuckled politics. A lobbying group was contracted by Secretary of State Steward to try to convert the necessary lame-duck Democrats ( those who would be leaving office in March of 1965) to change their previous votes. Nothing was above these men. Bribery, Patronage, even blackmail if necessary. It becomes evident that in the case of the thirteenth amendment one must hope that the end justified the means because it was not a pretty process.

In the end Lincoln who, while it had been attempted to insulate him from the dirty politics of the lobbyists) worked hand in hand with them in gaining the votes necessary. Lincoln was a consummate politician. He knew what buttons to push in almost every case. One gets a strong sense of his personality and also the exasperation of those around him. Always quick with a story, sometimes frustratingly so to those who revered him, and wished him to be more forceful he ran the country like I sometimes think I parent. Trying to show examples that deliver the message in a nice way but never being afraid to deliver the message as poison if need be.

Spielberg's direction is flawless, the soundtrack is elegant and the acting is the best you will find.

Daniel Day Lewis might well earn another Best Actor Oscar. None of us ever saw Lincoln in the flesh or even on video but one cannot walk out of the theater without feeling like you saw a genuine glimpse of the man.

Sally Field is wonderful as the harpy wife Mary Todd Lincoln. With stresses all her life the death of her son in the White House two years ago is a sadness that never leaves her.

Tommy Lee Jones as Thaddeus Stevens continues his string of improbable rolls. It has been a long way from Woodrow Call to this but Jones never misses a step.

Hal Holbrook, still alive, I did not know, plays Francis Blair, a pivotal Republican, not in office, but controlling a large block of votes who Lincoln must win to his cause and then manipulate the events and timing of the bill to stay the course and not lose his support.

Everything about this movie is first rate. The only caution I can provide is that because the movie centers on just one short time period, primarily on one piece of legislation, and the battle to get that bill passed, for those without much of an interest in politics, the process as it were, the movie can get long. For those of us who love history, are political junkies and appreciate a beautifully filmed movie it does not get better than this.

My highest recommendation for this movie.