This Sunday, Gasland Part II premieres at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City. Below, we provide a round-up and refresher of how the original film was received by select media, academics, and independent experts. Will the sequel address these problems, or just double down?

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“Fundamentally dishonest … a deliberately false presentation for dramatic effect … [T]his movie certainly contributes to more public misunderstanding.”

–John Hanger, former Secretary, Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (source)

“…one sided, flawed and personal in the Michael Moore mode.”

–New York Times (source)

“…a long, muck-raking polemic, peppered with sensationalism, emotionalism, and distortions.”

—Towanda (Pa.) Daily Review (source)

“Gasland incorrectly attributes several cases of water well contamination in Colorado to oil and gas development when our investigations determined that the wells in question contained biogenic methane that is not attributable to such development.”

—Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (source)

“[Fox] made errors and … spun some facts to their outer limits.”

–E&E News/New York Times (source)

“As [Josh] Fox may (or may not) be learning, using incomplete data to make sweeping observations may do his cause more harm than good.”

–Tom Wilber, former journalist and editor of Shale Gas Review (source)

“My biggest disappointment in Gasland was that, basically a guy that doesn’t understand the industry at all goes and tells a story – and it truly is a story and a lot of it is fiction and I can see people falling into it.  But, as an expert in the hydrology near the surface and deep oil and gas I have a difficult time going through the whole movie.  It really disturbs me the things he misrepresents….”

–Gary Hanson, director of the Red River Watershed Management Institute, Louisiana State University (source)

“Obviously, Gasland has a lot of pretty dramatic events. I think where I would differ with Josh is his conclusions that those problems are all related to fracking.”

–Jim Marston, Environmental Defense Fund (source)

“[I]t’s maddening to see how easy [Josh Fox] makes it for the film’s critics to attack him, and how difficult for sympathetic but objective viewers to wholly embrace him … Mr. Fox shows a general preference for vivid images … over the more mundane crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s of investigative journalism.”

—New York Times (source)

“‘Gasland’ presents a carefully crafted point of view. Not everything in the film’s narration is precisely accurate. Not all of its subjects are completely credible. Some major components of the story are missing.”

—Harrisburg (Pa.) Patriot-News (source)

“The movie [Gasland] has a critical flaw, and the flaw is that there’s a tremendous amount of innuendo in the movie.”

–Dr. Terry Engelder, Professor of Geosciences, Penn State University (source)

“One glaring error in the film is the suggestion that gas drilling led to the September fish kill at Dunkard Creek in Greene County. That was determined to have been caused by a golden algae bloom from mine drainage…”

—Washington (Pa.) Observer-Reporter (source)

“Fox’s defence for any lack of rigour was that he wanted to start a debate, rather than have the last word. But that doesn’t absolve him of the responsibility to thoroughly check his claims.”

–Financial Times (source)

“One of the clearest examples of a misleading claim comes from north Texas, where gas drilling began in the Barnett Shale about 10 years ago. Opponents of fracking say breast cancer rates have spiked exactly where intensive drilling is taking place — and nowhere else in the state. The claim is used in a letter that was sent to New York’s Gov. Andrew Cuomo by environmental groups and by Josh Fox … but researchers haven’t seen a spike in breast cancer rates in the area.”

—Associated Press (source)

“Sadly, the film’s baseless claims and wild exaggerations have garnered significant media attention, coaxed policymakers to pass laws and regulations detrimental to economic development and energy security and, here’s the kicker, led to it being recently nominated for an Academy Award in the feature documentary category. Given the lack of facts within the film, perhaps a nomination in the comedy direction category would be a better fit.”

–Dr. Michael J. Economides, Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Houston (source)

“With so much need for a clear evaluation of natural gas drilling, the biased and misleading ‘Gasland’ is a missed opportunity.”

–Elizabeth Stelle, Policy Analyst, Commonwealth Foundation (source)

“Whatever your political sympathies, you can’t ignore the evidence that ‘Gasland’ is pure propaganda, not a documentary.”

—The Washington Examiner (source)

“Imagine someone telling people that they are living in an area where the chances of developing breast cancer are shockingly high; picture the alarm and worry. Then imagine if that same person had made up the story — yet was getting cheers from Hollywood stars for telling it. Stop imagining: Filmmaker Josh Fox has done just that.”

–Phelim McAleer, journalist and director of FrackNation (source)

Read More:

• Associated Press: Some fracking critics use bad science
• Letter to Josh Fox: How about Including Some Facts in Gasland 2?
• EID: Debunking Gasland
• EID: For Josh Fox, the Sun Also Rises