After a couple of drinks and shot of Hornitos the conversation turned to the movie. The friends with jobs had already left so it was just myself, my friend, Al, who barbacks at 1/4 and David. The film is about about an Army bomb disposal unit who has just gotten a new bomb diffuser after the original, played by Guy Pierce, is killed in the first set piece of the movie. It’s been playing for a while and has gotten a good amount of buzz, but in a season with Transformers and Bruno and other more popular movies, a work of art like The Hurt Locker will largely go unnoticed.

Obviously the most intriguing aspect of the film is that is focused on bomb disposal, which as Al put it is “the new frontline”. At one point in the movie as the three man team consisting of an intelligence officer, a specialist, and the bomb diffuser, a staff sergeant is rolling out on a mission in their humvee past parked tanks and armored personnel carriers, the specialist sarcastically spouts off “Man, I’m glad we have all these tanks here just in case the Russians attack and we get into a big tank battle!”. We follow this trio, Bravo company, through some very difficult situations in urban Baghdad, bystanders with the potential bomb makers mixed in watching over their efforts to diffuse the complex IED rigs. The tension during these set pieces is enveloping – you feel not only the anxiety of the intelligence officer, Sanborn, and the specialist, Eldridge, as they try to identify threats but the excitement and stress of trying to figure how the hell this IED is rigged up and how to properly diffuse it.

Sgt William James, “who approaches his work more like a jazz musician or an abstract expressionist painter than like a sober technician”, is our guide in the wonderful world of IEDs. A.O. Scott describes him as “a connoisseur, genius, an artist” in his review of the movie. He is exactly right in his analysis of the character. You instantly understand him despite how wild and reckless he is throughout the movie. A large part of this is Jeremy Renner’s performance, which mixes the humor of Jason Bateman (Arrested Development and The Kingdom) with the fearlessness of a Spartan, kind of like a modern day Martin Riggs. His foil, Sanborn, is by the book and looking to get out of Iraq alive and not unlike Murtaugh.

Yet, despite my analogies, there is something extremely fresh about this film, which I didn’t realize until I sat there, my brain lubed with alcohol, talking to Al and David about it. These soldiers aren’t fighting the good fight, they are just fighting. A.O. Scott and other critics pointed to the films reticence, in not taking on the broader issue of the invasion and occupation of Iraq, but I think they miss the subtle commentary that bleeds through these three men just trying to do their job, to fight, to complete their mission with minimal to no casualties and move on. The three men each deal with this plight differently but they all deal with it. They have no greater ideal to fight for, nor are they disillusioned by the politics of the war, but does not mean that it does not affect their psyche and behavior.

“This is our generation’s war film” says Al as I beginning to realize the importance of the movie. I’m not sure he and I are thinking about it in the same way, since it is both a piece of innovative piece of art as well as chronicle of how war has changed and not changed, but I most definitely agree with his statement. Artistically, this film is inventive without losing its footing – the walking contradiction that is Sgt Will James is the best example I can present on this point. Listening to heavy metal and drinking whiskey from the bottle, James’ first move after moving in with Bravo is to push the plywood that protects him from lateral mortar shrapnel away from the window so he can enjoy the sun.

At a less dense level, or shallower level, the movie is still extremely satisfying. Just check out the poster. Oh SHIT!

Oh, and of course, it’s written by Mark Boal.

David Moo, ridiculed anime voice actor and head bartender, works Wednesdays and Fridays. David is well known in the greater Park Slope area among civilians and service industry folk for his creative and precise cocktails, not for Xellos on The Slayers: NEXT and The Slayers: TRY. He is known even less for his wit and wisdom, the topic of this haphazard new Aantiks series, Lessons from Quarter Bar.

This past Wednesday, or was it last Friday?, I was blessed with a sneak peak at David’s new cocktail, You And Me, a play on umami as well as a little liberal counterculture news. ‘The Baffler’s Back!’ raves the Chicagoist in a bland fanboy post. The news was broken on the 24th by some news organization, honestly breaking news doesn’t matter at all anymore, that ‘Thomas Frank is reviving The Baffler, the beloved left-wing magazine of business and culture he started in Chicago in 1988.’ I stole the words in quote from The Observer which provides a quick, informative read to get you up to speed on this cult mag.

David had subscribed to first incarnation of The Baffler, as had a beautiful, married Brazilian girl sitting at the bar with her boyfriend. They gushed over its return providing me and my drunk compatriots with the facts: Frank had criticized our new found prosperity under the Clinton administration – buy now, pay interest – and the budding consumer culture that left no room for any other culture; The old mag was published sporadically, the new mag would be published twice per annum; Frank was from Chicago.

Doesn’t sound terribly counterculture does it? We all put a healthy amount of hot air into the ‘American culture of excess’ balloon. The media doesn’t though. While The Baffler’s critical pronouncements have become mainstream ideas, we still lack an authoritative, or organized, voice dedicated to this particular cultural theme. Hence the exhuming of The Baffler.

David seemed excited about The Baffler 2.0, though I didn’t get a chance to really quiz him on it – my bar mates didn’t quite understand the gravitational pull of the mainstream on fringe ideas (the mainstream is a blackhole, hehe). He made it a point to characterize the mag as counter/fringe culture with a self awareness of its own mainstream mutability. Much of what David talks about is well crafted and thoughtful, but he said this with a hint of pain in his voice. Typically there is alternately fire, love and muted condescension in his voice, but seldom real pain.

Ideas are like summer thunderstorms, hundreds of bolts of electricity arcing from an ether of clouds illuminating your own musings, before you are again left in a long drought with no complementary or supplementary flashes falling from the sky to complete your angle or turn you around. Twitter struck with a June 24th tweet from @BBHLabs asking its followers to discuss the rise of #fringeadvertising signaling the medium’s death at Adbuster Culturejammer HQ. Creative twentysomethings now scoff at older admen wtih such disdain that they forget what the true power of their creativity is. Not only is their power true, but it is great. Uncle Ben’s (Spiderman not rice) words will never be lost on our generation: With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility. (I’m trying to make sure the clarity this storm brought for me is not lost but attaching something rather weighty and mainstream.)

Are we to rely on old men like Thomas Frank to bail out our culture? Blogging, twittering and Facebook status updating these ideas does not a revolution make. Publishing a magazine, actually fucking publishing a magazine is way harder than blogging, has a weight and tangibility that I’m afraid the Internet does not. Even if the writing on the Internet were to get to a 9th grade level, it still seems an unlikely springboard for a modern “renaissance”. We can write creative copy,  put Patrick Ewing in a Snickers commercial, and continually polish an already shiny Apple, OR we can write about things that really matter to each of us. Possibly, in the process, spending less time in the office.