So I rented SHOOTER the other night thinking it’d kind of suck but interested since it’s got Mark Wahlberg in it — who’s so far proven he’s the De Niro of his generation (no f*’in joke — if you want proof just watch THREE KINGS, BOOGIE NIGHTS, and I HEART HUCKABEES) — and Antoine (TRAINING DAY) Fuqua at the helm. The movie’s watchable enough with your standard doses of gunplay + explosions + paranoid military mumbo jumbo. But what really hit me about SHOOTER was how Anti-The Man it was.

The Man in this instance was pork-bellied Ned Beatty playing a corrupt senator, and Danny Glover — who I know is black but still represented “The Man”. It was the return of the MACK, SHAFT, et al., only now the racial stuff was flipped — as it was in TRAINING DAY — where the baddies are black men and the goodies are white boys gleaming with idealism and teen idol haircuts.

Anyway, don’t know if it’ll convince you to watch the movie, but it’s good to know that there are directors out there pissed off enough about shit that they make big-budget movies about how the government sucks, and that it’s hard to keep a brother down. Even if said “brother” once Al Jolson-ed his way into the pop charts by imploring us to “feel the vibration.”

“The Knife”, Grizzly Bear (a cappella)

“The Knife”, Clipse/Grizzly Bear (Girl Talk remix)

Kanye ups his indie cred by releasing this video for “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” starring Will Oldham and Zach Galifianakis.