Two films caught my attention this week, for quite different reasons.

Two films caught my attention this week, for quite different reasons.

First, director Lisa Cholodenko’s (High Art, Laurel Canyon) well written and brilliantly acted The Kids Are All Right (Saturday 17^th March, 8.30pm). The film received 4 Oscar nominations last year: best motion picture of the year, best performance by an actress in a leading role (Annette Bening), best performance by an actor in a supporting role (Mark Ruffalo) and best writing, original screenplay (Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg).

I’m more than happy to lambast a film for an unworthy nomination, but I’ve got no complaints with The Kids Are All Right - if only we had more romantic comedies like this.

Witty, honest and moving; it’s a joy watching this dramatic comedy about same-sex couple Nic (Bening) and Jules (Moore) as they deal with their daughter Joni’s (Mia Wasikowska) move to college, and the sudden appearance of their children’s biological father, a sperm donor called Paul (Ruffalo), who Joni and her younger brother Laser (Josh Hutcherson) have tracked down.

What I love is that while it could’ve been angst driven and complicated it is actually as light and accessible as it is smart. It’s an examination of a modern day American family, and while the lesbian subject matter gives the story a twist Nic and Jules’ sexual orientation isn’t terribly relevant - their relationship and family life is much like anyone else’s. This is a story about a couple trying to maintain a long term relationship, deal with their maturing kids and retain a sense of self.

For my second pick this week (and something quite different) let’s talk about hydraulic fracturing, or ‘fracking’.

All of a sudden it seems we’re hearing quite a lot about fracking. It’s a form of drilling for natural gas that involves pumping a mix of water and chemicals (in the case of the United States a collection of 593 different chemicals) around 2500 metres into the ground. Much like a mini-earthquake the intense pressure breaks apart the rock and frees up the gas. This drilling technique is led by American company Halliburton and now takes place in 36 American states.

When theatre director Josh Fox was offered US$100,000 to lease his land in the Catskillls/Poconos region of Upstate New York and Pennsylvania for fracking he decided to go on a personal mission to find out what ‘fracking’ is really all about. The result is this award winning documentary, GasLand (Thursday 15^th March, 8.3pm).

What Fox discovers is disturbing; tap water that can be lit in the sink, residents of drilling areas across the US chronically ill with the same mysterious symptoms, pools of toxic waste that kill cattle and vegetation, and well blowouts and gas explosions covered up by state and federal regulatory agencies. Fracking, he claims pretty convincingly, has contaminated the water supply.

Gasland won the Special Jury Prize, Documentary at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, and went on to be nominated in the best documentary category at the 2011 Academy Awards. It’s a largely one-sided affair, most likely due to those involved in fracking refused to front for Fox’s camera, but then Gasland doesn’t claim to be a definitive documentary. Rather it’s one man’s hand-held and shaky (read: annoyingly shaky - would it hurt to frame a few shots now and then?) road trip across America to see for himself the consequences of fracking on communities.