[ThisWeek] The Yes Men at the Kenworthy

[thisweek at kenworthy.org]

This week at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre-

The Yes Men (R)
Friday, February 11
7:00PM
Saturday & Sunday, February 12 & 13
5:00 and 7:00PM
$5 adults  
KFS passes accepted for the Sunday showings
(See Review below)
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In conjunction with the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival
and the UI International Jazz Collections,
the Kenworthy will present a FREE showing of
the 1995 Academy Award nominated documentary film,
"A Great Day in Harlem," by filmmaker Jean Bach.
Wednesday & Thursday, February 23 & 24 at 7:00 PM.
The film will be shown FREE and open to the public.

Mark your calendars now for April 6 ­ 9, 2005 at the Kenworthy Performing
Arts Centre
Sirius Idaho Theatre <www.siriusidahotheatre.com>, in conjunction with new
fangled stages,
presents the United States premiere of
Random Acts of Love, by Bruce Gooch
(Tickets go on sale February 22, through TicketsWest)
* * *

February at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre . . .

House of Flying Daggers (R)
Feb 18 at 7PM
Feb 19 ­ 20 at 4:15 and 7:00 PM

A Great Day in Harlem
February 23 & 24 at 7:00 PM
FREE

UI Architecture Dept presents
Will Bruder lecture
February 25 at 5:00 PM
FREE

Dig (NR)
Feb 26 at 7:00 PM
Feb 27 at 4:15 and 7:00 PM

Regular Movie prices:  $5 adults, $2 children 12 and younger.
KFS passes accepted for Sunday movies

508 S. Main Street, Moscow, Idaho
For more information, call 208-882-4127 or visit www.kenworthy.org
* * *
This week¹s review-

The Yes Men

Directed by Chris Smith, Dan Ollman and Sarah Price
Running time: 1 hour, 23 minutes.
Rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). Contains
some adult language and raucous humor.

As Reviewed by Roger Ebert writing for the Chicago Sun-Times

>From an economic point of view, the Civil War was the least profitable of
all our wars, because the destruction of lives and property involved
Americans on both sides. In our other wars, most of the lives and property
belonged to foreigners. The war was fought to abolish slavery, but slavery
would soon have faded away on its own, because it made no economic sense.
Think how much it costs to support a slave.

The involuntary servitude of imported labor, which is what slavery amounts
to, has been replaced in our times by the much more efficient system of
exporting jobs to countries that are poor to begin with, and thus have lower
maintenance costs for labor. This "remote labor" is the natural alternative
to slavery, and, as a bonus, there is no reason for the worker not to be
free. Thus he is responsible for his own housing, feeding and medical care
-- which can be at a cost level much lower than a slave owner could safely
provide.

The new "remote labor system," enforced by the World Trade Organization
through its system of loans and regulations for poor countries, is much more
efficient for First World capitalism. It exports manufacturing and assembly
jobs to Third World countries where athletic shoes, clothing, home
appliances, tools, computers and toys are assembled by labor forces paid
only pennies an hour. The use of child labor further reduces the cost, and
removing the children from school diminishes the threat of educated
opposition to the system.

On the statements above we can all agree, right? Or was there a point at
which you realized I was making an outrageous and immoral argument, and you
were offended? I ask because when a fake "spokesman" for the World Trade
Organization made the same argument before a WTO trade forum in Finland, the
audience listened politely, applauded, and had no questions.

"The Yes Men" is a disturbing documentary in which a couple of tricksters
named Mike Bonanno and Andy Bichlbaum create a fictional WTO spokesman named
Hank Hardy Unruh, and a fake WTO Web site where he can be contacted.
Real-world groups contact Hank Hardy, and he flies out to their meetings to
deliver a speech at which he summarizes the anti-WTO argument in terms the
audience, incredibly, absorbs and passively accepts. Apparently (a) no one
is really listening, (b) no one is thinking, or (c) the immorality of the
WTO's exploitation of cheap foreign labor becomes invisible when it is
described in purely economic terms. Answer: All three, which is why the
United States and the other nations controlling the WTO can live with the
inhuman cost of its policies, and why so many people simply don't understand
what the demonstrators at world trade forums are so mad about.

What is incredible in the film is the lengths to which a trade audience can
be pushed without realizing it is the butt of a joke. At the meeting in
Finland, which is about "Textiles of the Future," Hank Hardy Unruh concludes
his speech, has an assistant rip off his "business suit," and reveals
beneath it a gold lame body suit. It has an inflatable appendage that pops
up to allow him to view a computer screen at eye level. This appendage looks
uncannily like a large phallus. Do the audience members laugh uproariously
or walk out in anger? No, they just sit there. They have lost all ability to
apply reality to the ideological construction they inhabit.

No one with a feeling for literature and poetry can read the typical
best-selling business or self-help book with a straight face, because their
six rules or nine plans or 12 formulas are so manifestly idiotic, and
couched in prose of such insulting simplicity. If I were a boss, I would
fire any employer reading such a book, on the grounds that he was not smart
enough to be working for me. If I were the employee of a company that hired
one of those motivational gurus, I would quit on the grounds that management
had been taken over by pod people.

But I am a film critic, and must report that "The Yes Men" is amazing in
what it shows, but underwhelming in what it does with it. The film seems a
little hasty and disorganized, as if available footage is being stretched
further than it wants to go. The filmmakers are Dan Ollman, Sarah Price and
Chris Smith; Price and Smith made "American Movie" (2000), without a doubt
the funniest documentary I have ever seen, and one of the best.

As reviewed by Jonathan Curiel writing for the San Francisco Chronicle

Liberals and conservatives have opposing views of Michael Moore, but they
can probably agree on one thing: Moore has radically changed the field of
documentary filmmaking, opening up the genre for directors who use humor to
make bigger points about the society we live in. "The Yes Men" has Moore's
imprimatur all over it. In fact, Moore even appears in this documentary, but
unlike "Fahrenheit 9/11" or "Bowling for Columbine," "The Yes Men" uses
traditional filmmaking techniques to spotlight its subject: two activists
who oppose the World Trade Organization.

These aren't ordinary activists. These are people who impersonate the very
officials they oppose, attending conferences as WTO representatives -- only
to deliver talks that are critical of WTO policies. Mike Bonanno and Andy
Bichlbaum have a history of pulling off successful stunts, and in "The Yes
Men, " they live out the fantasies of many left-leaning activists by
"subverting the dominant paradigm" on a global scale.

The film's humor stems from Bonanno and Bichlbaum, who find funny ways to
attack organizations and people they oppose. "Funny" is a relative term, of
course, so it may only be liberals who laugh at what happened during the
2000 presidential campaign: Bonanno and Bichlbaum created a Web site that
parodied then-candidate George W. Bush; the site was an exact duplicate of
Bush's official site, except that it ripped his environmental policies and
suggested Bush had a past drug problem. When a reporter asked Bush about the
site, he said then, "There's a lot of garbage in politics, and obviously
this is a garbage man." When the reporter suggested the site had gone too
far, Bush said, "There ought to be limits ... to freedom."

"The Yes Men" is filled with cinematic tension, primarily around Bichlbaum's
attempt to pose as a WTO official at a conference in Finland. There, he
wants to show off a "Management Leisure Suit" that features a phallus-like
monitoring device. What Bichlbaum experiences shocks him -- though not in
the way he had imagined. "The Yes Men" troika of directors (Chris Smith, Dan
Ollman and Sarah Price) follow Bichlbaum, Bonanno and their supporters
without judgment. There's no narration here. There's no Michael Moore-like
bombast. The filmmakers let the audience decide whether Bichlbaum and
Bonanno are really making a difference with their pranks. There are some
obvious shortcomings in the film (why, for example, didn't Smith, Ollman and
Price try to get an on-camera response from the WTO?). But "The Yes Men"
achieves what any good documentary tries to: It's thought-provoking,
insightful and entertaining at the same time.

As Reviewed by Sam Adams writing for the Philadelphia City Paper

Call it impersonation or "identity correction," but there's genius in the
activist pranks of The Yes Men, the subject of this documentary by Chris
Smith (American Movie), Dan Ollman and Sarah Price. When a fake Web site
they'd created for the World Trade Organization led to a bona fide
invitation, Mike Bonanno and Andy Bichlbaum became The Yes Men, posing as
WTO members at conferences and on CNBC, taking the free-trade gospel to
absurd, but logically consistent, lengths. In Finland, they argue that
slavery was not immoral so much as inefficient, which seems to go down all
right with the textile conference they're addressing until Bichlbaum rips
off his business attire to reveal a gold lamé "Management Leisure Suit,"
complete with a phallic projection for keeping track of workers. Even then,
the Finns seem more beguiled than upset, as if the reflex to treat
well-dressed people with respect no matter what they say is too inbred to
overcome. (Or maybe they're just bored.) The David-and-Goliath thrill of
watching Bonanno and Bichlbaum's shoestring cleverness subvert one of the
most powerful organizations in the world is hard to overstate, surpassed
only by the heady speculation of the stunts the movie's viewers might be
inspired to pull.

Film reviews are researched and edited by Peter Haggart
* * *

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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PAMELA PALMER, Volunteer
Mailto:ppalmer at moscow.com
Film and Events Committee
Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre

http://www.kenworthy.org
To speak with a KPAC staff member,
call (208) 882-4127
Mailto:kpac at moscow.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  

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