Ghostbox Cowboy

China's economy has been growing close to 10% per year for decades now. All kinds of foreigners have been heading out there to cash in on the outsourcing craze. This depiction is almost surreal in its wild excess, but I would wager not that far from the truth.

This film caught me by utter surprise with its sophisticated critique of 21st-century trade relations, its razor-sharp commentary on capitalist globalization, its caustic and bleak humor, and its excellent pacing. The films takes us on a journey alongside an utterly clueless middle-aged protagonist from his moment of inspiration in a Texas dollar store )where he's dressed like a goofy millenial "bro," Affliction t-shirt and all), to his misadventures selling bootleg segways, to his ultimate destination in the "Inner Mongolian Blank Region" -- the under-construction megacity of Ordos, a sort of inverted version of the land our "cowboy" sought to escape. The film brilliantly explores the absurdities of the symbiotic relationship between a past-its-prime US and a rising "New China" without for a single moment retreating into lame explication, preachiness, or other sanctimonies. Every character is memorable, from "the Specialist" to the foul-mouthed scooter salesman, and the documentary style makes the film feel as real as anything without stretching credulity -- even when it makes a "Sorry To Bother You"-style turn into the realm of the absurd. This is one of the best U.S. indies I've seen in years, and deserves cult status! P.S. I felt obligated to leave a good review of this film considering the poor user ratings (5.5 at the time that this was written) and dearth of buzz it seems to have received from mainstream audiences.

Advice: don't go see this movie if you're looking for Something like That Thing You've Seen Before; *this is not that thing*. Don't go see this movie, in other words, if you're nervous about things like "Clearly Delineated Plot Structure" and/or get overly hung up about things like "Strictly Adhered-To Genre Conventions" -- if you do, well, you'll have only yourself to blame. Go if you want to feel something new in cinema for the first time in a very long time; go if you want to laugh hysterically (if sporadically)... at the very moment you're feeling a vague sense of horrible foreboding that this film might actually somehow be a documentary that was sent back from the future. Because this is a breathtaking and utterly novel piece of cinema -- it's as if a post-Repo Man concept by Alex Cox was written up by George Saunders... and then re-written by a coked-up, paranoid, fever-dreaming Craig Baldwin... and then handed over to the Yes Men to improv, and thereby render even more astonishing. (And yet don't misunderstand me via that mash-up: there's *nothing* derivative about this film.) Whether you ultimately decide you don't need a thing like this in your life (like some of the low ratings would suggest) or, like me, find it instead a Cinematic Hope Rejuvenator, one thing is certain: the whole of it is like nothing else you've seen. So, up to you: wanna be first to the party, and anticipate you kids' reverence for this film by about 15-20 years? Or wanna memorialize your head-scratching and confusion here with a negative review? :)

China's economy has been growing close to 10% per year for decades now. All kinds of foreigners have been heading out there to cash in on the outsourcing craze. This depiction is almost surreal in its wild excess, but I would wager not that far from the truth.

This film caught me by utter surprise with its sophisticated critique of 21st-century trade relations, its razor-sharp commentary on capitalist globalization, its caustic and bleak humor, and its excellent pacing. The films takes us on a journey alongside an utterly clueless middle-aged protagonist from his moment of inspiration in a Texas dollar store )where he's dressed like a goofy millenial "bro," Affliction t-shirt and all), to his misadventures selling bootleg segways, to his ultimate destination in the "Inner Mongolian Blank Region" -- the under-construction megacity of Ordos, a sort of inverted version of the land our "cowboy" sought to escape. The film brilliantly explores the absurdities of the symbiotic relationship between a past-its-prime US and a rising "New China" without for a single moment retreating into lame explication, preachiness, or other sanctimonies. Every character is memorable, from "the Specialist" to the foul-mouthed scooter salesman, and the documentary style makes the film feel as real as anything without stretching credulity -- even when it makes a "Sorry To Bother You"-style turn into the realm of the absurd. This is one of the best U.S. indies I've seen in years, and deserves cult status! P.S. I felt obligated to leave a good review of this film considering the poor user ratings (5.5 at the time that this was written) and dearth of buzz it seems to have received from mainstream audiences.