Sound Taste

Friday B-Boys

A little late on the uptake, but wanted to highlight Jeff Chang's amazing article on why Koreans are the most accomplished B-Boys in the planet.

Even for someone not familiar with the vocabulary of six-steps and one-arm freezes, Chang's descriptions of the R16 competition are clear, kinetic and spellbinding. Add in rebellion against a militarized and straightjacketing culture, the key role of 1.5ers and the timeless boy desire to kick the other boy's ass, and you have a compelling read.

The article mentions Benson Lee's recent doc Planet B-Boy (which is already on my Netflix queue but has not yet been released on video/DVD). Below is this equal parts nicely symbolic and hilarious battle along the border between North and South Korea, which he cleverly dubs "Run-DMZ."

The overhead shot of the line reminded me of the great 2000 Korean movie, Joint Security Area, which takes place (and was filmed) in the DMZ. If you want a little more, the first few minutes of the movie are here.

"Stupid design"

Summer's a little more random, so enjoy, as I did, a great science lesson, courtesy of the only Black astrophysicist most of us know, Neil deGrasse Tyson. (thanks to Liza at Culture Kitchen for the tip).

Be warned: The slide show includes nasty pix of fetuses with birth defects.

DeGrasse Tyson suggests that better engineering would have given us, like dolphins, separate orifices for eating and breathing, to cut down on the possibility of choking. But my favorite line comes near the end: "What is up with what's between our legs? An entertainment complex in the middle of a sewage system. No engineer would ever design that."

I've been stunned hearing what I thought were educated, intelligent people buy into the stupidity of an anthropomorphic higher being consciously designing specifics of life on earth and the universe (as opposed to designing the rules that allow those things to happen).

NdGT is not just a fortunate affirmative action spokesman for science, but one of the rare people who has both the abstract skills of the scientist and the social-verbal skills of the poetic streetcorner philosophizer.

We should all be able to explain basic science in a way the inner 8-year-old in us can understand. But fewer of us understand basic science concepts well enough to explain it even to ourselves. Hence, the gap that religious know-nothings have exploited. So go out and ponder the principle of the lever.

What's up with John Leguizamo?

Hangin' with the Homeboys is not only one of my favorite reel New York movies and a great exploration of male friendships, but to date it's one of John Leguizamo's best naturalistic roles. And those are far and few in between.

Leguizamo is usually best when his performances border on the ridiculous. For every Summer of Sam or Romeo and Juliet, where his Tex Avery mania works, there are goo explosions like The Pest and Spawn, or lugubrious messes like Love in the Time of Cholera. Leguizamo has only occasionally translated his onstage genius into a good cinematic groove.

He sometimes falls into a cliché of himself. In the recent Paraiso Travel (which screened at the Tribeca Film Fest but not sure when it's going into general release), he is once again the bitchy queeny gay/tranny (see To Wong Foo and several character skits in his theater work). Paraiso trailer here.

Leguizamo is super talented but needs directors with an inner crackhead to channel his craziness. Hence, Spike Lee, Baz Luhrmann and George Romero get him. Ironically, while he seems a living cartoon, I have never liked any of his comic book, video game or animation roles (I'm on the fence about Ice Age). And I give him credit for doing what few Latino actors do, appearing in Latin American productions (Crónicas, Paraiso Travel).

For a while, he kinda disappeared, but this year he's back with a vengeance. Aside from Paraiso Travel and The Happening, which opens Friday, he's coming out in Alfredo de Villa's Humboldt Park with Freddie Rodriguez, Righteous Kill and The Ministers. I know little about the last two, and have no high hopes for the Shyamalan flick. But let's see how he makes out in the Chicago-set drama.

Tonight, he's going to be giving a talk sponsored by the NYT. Alas, the event is sold out. But there'll be plenty of him to go around for the remainder of 2008 (he'll also be onstage in a play he did not write, American Buffalo. Hmmm.)

Sleep Dealer at BAM

Sleep Dealer, the border sci-fi film I wrote about here and here is screening tomorrow in Brooklyn as part of Sundance at BAM series.

I'd recommend you go see it, but scoring tix might be difficult. According to the BAM website, you can no longer buy tickets online, but "a limited number of tickets may be released at the box office on the day of the screening."

This weekend director Alex Rivera told me that he scored a distribution deal with Maya Entertainment (which I would have known if I'd read the story here). He added that the film should be released next February, which he said "feels like a long time away." Funny to hear him say that when the film itself took the better part of a decade to make.

So, if you can't catch it at BAM, stay tuned for the wider release. And the film's website also lets you sign up for a mailing list that'll alert you to other screenings.

The other f'd up campaign for prez

We interrupt our regularly scheduled Friday video with a note on presidential elections that have been more tedious and annoying than the one in the U.S. Dominicans are voting today for prez, and you don't have to be a genius to guess that incumbent Leonel Fernandez will be re-elected.

At this time last year, the three major parties had spent RD$409M (about US$12M) -- by now, they've probably spent ten times that amount. Among the expenses? Ads with celebrity endorsers like Vin Diesel.

One of Leonel's big initiatives in this past term (aside from the metro for the misbegotten) has been making the DR a Hollywood-friendly location. He's taken a few trips to the Dream Factory with his wife to cozy up to movie execs, spending millions from the public till.

This "work," and the fact that a long list of celebs have getaways in Cap Cana and other tropical fortresses in the vicinity, has yielded a couple of shoots -- The Good Shepherd and Miami Vice.

Now where does the muscly ex-bouncer and living video game avatar fit into all this? According to a couple of reliable sources, Vin's bio-dad is some Dominican tiguere, and he spent some time there last year getting cozy with his padre patria. That may explain my unholy attraction to him.

Diesel ran some acting and directing classes last year (don't laugh), and has talked about opening up a film school there. (What Godardian or Almodovarian or Scorscesian insights into film Diesel might offer are still a bit of a mystery, but given the current quality of Dominican-made film, it can't possibly hurt).

All of this greased and facilitated by Hollywood-craving Leonel. So payback time came around, as it did for more unambiguously Dominican celebs like merengueros, bachateros & peloteros.

There's a series of 5 Diesel spots, with overlapping material. Most have amped-up behind-the-scenes action film footage and feature various versions of the following dialogue:

"Dominicanos, que tanto quiero, que lo bueno no cambia. Para mi gente, vota por Leonel, el presidente. Es p'alante que vamos" (the last is the campaign's slogan)

Not as cool as the Obama videos Gary Dauphin wrote about this week, but hey.

Listening to Vin, it appears he's just starting to learn Spanish, but already the tigueraje seems to be rubbing off.

Racial politics of kiddie TV: The Electric Company

I had a bicultural childhood, spent mostly in the DR, but with yearly visits to Queens, where I gorged on Cocoa Pebbles and Underdog. For learning English, Sesame Street and other "educational programs" were key. So the news that PBS is reviving "Electric Company" brought back a lot of fond memories.

The show, which ran 1971-1977, was supposed to be the follow-up, age-wise, to Sesame Street. Like Sesame Street, TEC was set in a sort of multiculti utopia. Even when the characters were not racial minorities, the idea of tolerating difference and alternative cultures was always implied.

But I had totally forgotten that Morgan Freeman and Rita Moreno were both regular members of the cast. Cuban character actor Luis Avalos, Bill Cosby and Irene Cara (as a pre-teen member of the Short Circus) also had recurring roles.

Here is the first version of the show intro, very groovy, op art and full of early video f/x.

And here is a hip song featuring Rita as "Millie the helper," built around her trademark yell that was used to open the show: "Hey you guys!" It was one of the only times in her career she was allowed to play against the Latin spitfire type, and allowed to be funny.

And here is Morgan Freeman performing a song worthy of Screamin Jay Hawkins, "I Love to Take a Bath in a Casket." One of Morgan's recurring characters was called "Easy Reader," an Afro'd hep cat, part bebop, part beat, who dug the books.

If the soundtrack of the original show, and the sensibility, was funk and salsa, the new show will of course have a hip hop vibe to it. It only makes sense.

What's going to be interesting is seeing how "Electric Company," which was very focused on the old-fashioned skills of phonics and making reading cool, will fare compared to the juggernaut of Dora the Explorer and newer, browner kids' TV in the Nick-Noggin-Cartoon Network universe.

UPDATE: I didn't have time to do more intensive research on the music attached to the show, but do check this post on the 1972 cast recording with some of the original music. (thanks for the heads up, Dan!) I keep wondering: Is Joe Raposo, the show's musical director for the first three seasons, Latino or Italian?

The Return of Harold & Kumar

The Saturday 9 pm screening of H&K at downtown Brooklyn's multiplex was the place to be. Not only was the audience very brown, even for Brooklyn, but we ran into several friends there. As my friend Roberto put it, "the beanerati, the chinorati and the Gujarati" were out in force.

First things first: was it as good as the first one? Yes and no. As a sequel, it could never be the breath of fresh air that H&K Go to White Castle was. And as much as I loved the intent of the more politicized humor, the satire of white privilege and racism was blunter than in the first. Writers Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg are good-natured rather than acidic. This is no "South Park" or "Colbert Show."

Structurally, this is a reprise of "White Castle." H&K's road trip through the American South west to Texas (rather than South through Jersey) has them meet the same sorts of characters they did in the first. Chris Melloni is back, as is the anthropomorphic bag of weed (only the deus ex machina cheetah from the first movie is nowhere to be seen. Perhaps he had a contract dispute?).

And thank god for the extended cameo by Neil Patrick Harris. Never enough of his whoring, snorting alter ego.

The extended trailer that's been circulating online gives away a lot of the movie's punchlines and funny set pieces. Which doesn't make 'em less funny. But here are a couple of things I noticed.

The new Harold: Like the 6 million dollar man, he's "Better. Stronger. Faster." While my devotion for Kal Penn burns bright, John Cho/Harold Lee got a little extra zing in this version. (Look for a hilarious backstory detail in a flashback to H&K's college years). And how can I not love a guy obsessed with food?

The Latin/Asian alliance: In the last movie, the Harold-Maria romance was a small glimpse into a different social order, not dependent on the Black-white racial axis. In this movie, there are a couple of key moments that establish Latin-Asian solidarity. H&K escape Gitmo with the help of some Chevy truck-powered balseros, and in the KKK rally they stumble into, they are called out as "Mexicans!" Implicitly, we're all in the same yola.

Too blunt: Aside from the caricatures of "Arab-looking" Gitmo prisoners, the weakest moment of the film is the extended scene with "President Bush," which plays up his "regular guy" image. Even under the fellowship of a shared joint, it's hard to reconcile the guy who says "I'm in the government and I don't trust it" with the guy who has pushed us into a security state that, um, puts our heroes in secret custody in a judirical no man's land.

And of all the racial stereotype-jokes put in the hands of zealot DHS agent Rob Corddry, one scene where he points a gun at a black man with a cell phone hits just a little close to home days after the Sean Bell verdict.

The writers' biggest political statement -- aside from the obvious one about racial profiling -- is arguing that despite the war on drugs, we are one nation under a bong, and that anyone who pretends otherwise is a "hypocritizer." Characters of all ethnicities, social levels and security clearances are stoners at heart. A weed utopia.

Speaking of people who must be high, Racialicious has a great discussion based on Tom Carson's GQ article on the movie that bizarrely claims that H&K are, alternately, "Happy-Go-Lucky Negros" and closet Jews. The piece is a perfect example of how stuck mainstream society still is on Black-white racial paradigms and Jews as the only minority with assimilation issues.

Carson's reading of the movie completely discounts how the first became successful, in great part, because it was discovered by Asian Americans eager to escape the binds of model minority status. It's not always about you, white man.

Friday kids

Precociousness alert: if you are not a fan of cute children performing, click away and wait for my next post.

Maybe it's because I have a new toddler niece, but I've been fascinated of late by videos of little kids performing amazing feats of mimicry. Normally, I despise seeing kids hauled out in front of an audience like trained monkeys, but these had me awww-ing and laughing.

Four-and-a-half-year-old "Hero," Ha Young Woong, performs "Hey Jude," one of supposedly about 40 Beatles tunes he has taught himself to perform, though he does not speak English (he lives in Seoul, Korea).

Next up is 3-year-old Jaden Carda, the "Mini Minimalist," who does a spot-on and nearly verbatim recitation/miming of NYT food writer Mark Bittman walking through an instructional video on making chocolate ganache. I nearly peed myself watching this.

And last but not least, diva-in-training Amby, a "Cutie" (I'm just reading the t-shirt), singing her version of Girl in a Coma's "Say" (the blurry swaying is trés arty).

Latins @ Tribeca Film Festival

The Tribeca Film Festival, which has grown by leaps and bounds since its post-9/11 origins, has some intriguing Latin goodies in its lineup this year. Screenings begin Wednesday. Get tickets early for the hot ones, now that the weather's nice people will come out.

The one that tops my personal list is Paraiso Travel, based on Jorge Franco's novel of the same name. Franco is likely the hottest Colombian writer of his generation, and this is the second of his novels that's been adapted to the screen. The other is Rosario Tijeras, which I don't think was released widely in the U.S., but has a title song by Juanes.

Paraiso Travel takes place between Medellín and Jackson Heights, and covers the whole sordid overland migration route. It's been a big hit in Colombia since its release in January.

Another big Latin American hit is the Brazilian Tropa de Elite, which uses documentary-style shooting to tell the story of special forces units and their brutal work in the favelas as well as the corruption rampant within police ranks.

The subject of the documentary Chevolution is one I've thought about a lot: how did the iconic Korda image become such an international selling point? In a recent trip in Santo Domingo, I saw it all over bootlegged merch, and I am more than sure that the closest most buyers have come to the Argie revolutionary is the Gael Garcia Bernal movie.

As you've heard before, I have a personal connection to Going on 13, a documentary about four California brown girls (one African-American, one Indian immigrant, one Mexican-American, one Latina-white halfie). But seriously, it's touching and clear-eyed and respectful of the girls' individuality. Go see it! Take your nieces, neighbors' kids, little cousins.

Another doc, My Life Inside, is a little less cheery. It's about Rosa Jiménez, a Mexican immigrant who ended up tried for murder after the accidental death of her babysitting charge. The wheels of justice do not grind equally for all.

Don't know much about the "hypnotic sexual thriller" Amor, Dolor & Viceversa from Mexico, but check out the description, maybe it floats your boat.

There are three artist-related docs: A Portrait of Diego on the frog-like Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, Celia the Queen on the late Cuban diva Celia Cruz and Old Man Bebo about still alive but on in years Cuban pianist Bebo Valdés. Of the three, I'm betting on the last, fresher in subject at the very least.

Among the shorts, check out El Camino de Ana with the fabulous Marisa Paredes, La Hora Cero from Mexico, Bom Garoto from Brazil and the Latin casanova lesson Mamitas.

If you're curious about any of these movies, check their profiles at the Tribeca site. Most come with a trailer.

One screening you won't see me at is "90 Miles The Documentary," a making-of piece about Gloria Estefan's album by the same name. (Can we place a moratorium on "90 miles" references for anything Cuban?)

[images of Paraiso Travel, Tropa de Elite, Going on 13 and Old Man Bebo via Tribeca Film Fest site]

Nepotism alert: Gary Dauphin in NY, "Going on 13" in Tribeca

I've said it before in public, I'll say it bloggily for the whole world to know: I am very lucky to have insanely talented friends.

Going on 13 is a documentary my long-time friends Kristy Guevara-Flanagan and Dawn Valadez have been working on for something like 7-8 years. It's finally done and getting several screenings locally at the end of the month at the doc's official World Premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival (more on that soon).

The doc, about the crucial changes four brown girls in NoCal go through between the ages of 9 and 13, is tender, empathetic and pulls no punches.

Among its charms, it presents a possible strategy for dealing with the obligations that we storytellers have to our subjects (something Sleep Dealer made me think about a lot): give your subjects say in the story, and always feature them in all materials apart from what the storytellers have to say about them. Ariana, Esmeralda, Isha and Rosie get to shoot video diaries and sometimes talk back to the filmmakers.

Kristy and Dawn (Dawn would say mostly Kristy) have set up a faboo website with info on the film, the girls, an installation representing the girls' rooms, and a blog. The blog currently features K&D's adventures at the Taiwan International Children’s TV and Film Festival (TICTFF), where they get to play with toys, hang with cool translators and eat glorious street food (girls after my own heart).

In the meantime, head downtown and into The Kitchen tonight at 7 pm for a reading linked to one of my favorite magazines, Bidoun. Three writers in the Spring/Summer issue talk about a triplet of telling objects. I'm heading down there to hear the always provocative Gary Dauphin talking about Eldridge Cleaver's pants. The event announcement promises "Magic tricks! Slide shows! A harrowing journey to the Cairo Agricultural Museum!" as well as a video by Ziad Antar. Fun for all.

If you don't know Gary's work, he's been writing a lot of late for The Root, and has revived his intriguing site, ebogjonson. Check it.

[Still of Isha and dumplings pix via Going on 13; Naguib Mahfouz's white linen suit illustration via Bidoun]