Photo: WBAI | Law and Disorder Radio. March 16, 2009.

Theater and film director Josh Fox's documentary Gasland explores the new generation of natural gas drilling, which for a decade has been blasting its way east across the country, tapping shale formations from the Rockies to Pennsylvania, and is now expanding in New York.

Fox is only 37, but he is a veteran explorer of complex themes from militarism to war to globalization and torture who skillfully blends artistry and social message. Gasland is more straightforward than Fox's earlier experimental mixes of theater, dance, music and film, but no less striking.

Nora Eisenberg holds a PhD from Columbia University in English and Comparative Literature and directs the City University of New York's Faculty Fellowship Publication Program for emerging scholars.