A Snowmobile for George

A Snowmobile for George
is playing in Missoula at the Wilma Theatre

Tuesdsay Feb 19th

**This post is quoted with permission from the filmmaker's recent press release**

"A Snow Mobile for George" is a rambunctious road trip that collects the stories of fishermen, cowboys and firemen who have to face the consequences of environmental de-regulation by the Bush Administration. Starting with a question over the filmmaker's used two-stroke snowmobile engine, the documentary uncovers the political strategy and rationale behind a massive sell-off of public resources.

But if close ties between corporations and the Bush White House don’t surprise you, the film’s approach may. “A Snow Mobile for George” begins modestly as a one-man, one-machine road film that simply asks why rules to clean up a smoky off-road machine got shelved. With no presumption of guilt or blame, filmmaker Todd Darling tows his family snowmobile across the United States What starts off as a loopy personal quest steadily morphs as this petroleum Huck Finn takes the viewer to the sites of more serious environmental changes.

Told with a dry sense of humor, the film traces rule changes back to key Administration players. On this coast-to-coast journey, the filmmaker goes to the Klamath River along the drought stricken California/Oregon border where politically inspired rule changes by the Administration helped cause the nation’s largest fish die-off in 2002. A thousand miles East, in Wyoming, he discovers a range war between ranchers and oil-companies that started when political appointees in the Interior Department suppressed clean water rules for natural gas drilling. and persists in asking that question. The film’s humble point of departure gives little hint as to its ultimate destination.

And finally, he and the snowmobile roll into lower Manhattan. There he meets New YorkWorld Trade Center. firemen, Wall Street workers and residents worried about their health and their lives because White House environmental officials ordered the EPA to side-step toxic waste protocols in the collapse of the

The common thread among these stories is de-regulation – the notion that common citizens benefit when “the government gets off their back”. But the film uncovers how the Administration worked efficiently to match up the goals of select industries with the political demands of the White House at the expense of the little guy.

Through out the journey the original question about the resurrection of the smoky two-stroke snowmobile engine becomes the tragic-comic relief. Bouncing from smog checks in Salt Lake City, buffalo in Yellowstone, college engineering contests in Michigan, and lobbyists in Washington, viewers discover that the snowmobile has some powerful allies. And oddly enough, this seemingly obscure off-road vehicle pioneered one of the Administration’s most sophisticated computer-based political strategies.

At times beautiful, at times wacky, “A Snow Mobile for George” takes the viewer on an American odyssey that poses thought-provoking questions about the deterioration of the public good.

I encourage you to go see this film and show support of its environmental message. For more information about the film please email snomo4geo@gmail.com or visit http://www.asnowmobileforgeorge.com/.