His Wei or The Wrong Way

Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry
Don’t Smash His Camera
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 91 min

Who is Ai Weiwei?  What is really going on in China?  Why is Twitter important?  Big questions!  And big answers are in store in Alison Klayman‘s all over the place, all awesome in all those over the place places, incredible doc Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry

So, really, who’s this Ai [eye] Weiwei [wayway] character?  He’s like the Chinese Damien Hirst (or Andy Warhol for those who don’t know who Damien Hirst is).  And why is he ‘never sorry’?  It’s actually a play on words, on the title of his Munich exhibition ‘So Sorry’, and he’s actually never sorry cause he does things that cause big brew-ha-has, in a good way.  He’s not just an artist, but an activist and champion of human rights, in his motherland that doesn’t let anyone be champions, humans, or right. He’s constantly asking for trouble, and he often gets it, cause Big Brother watches him, but he watches Big Brother, but someone needs to do this, cause if not him, then who?

Before seeing this, we knew next to nothing about Ai Weiwei.  After seeing this, we want to kiss the man, and stroke his beard, and see his art, and love it, and smile, cause he does, LOTS, in the face of misery and bureaucratic crap, and cause his smile is the best jolly fat Asian-man smile since Oddjob’s in Goldfinger.  it’s true, even if it sounds racist, but enjoying Asian smiles isn’t racist, is it?

Let Weiwei show you the wei.  The doc does the showing, and the telling.  It will show you a lot, and tell you even more, and has something for everyone (a cat that can open doors!), and everything for somebodies (call your mother, she worries!!).  It will make you glad you don’t live in China, but sad that China is the way that it is.  It will make you feel better about using Twitter, but make you feel bad that yer wasting your tweets on recaps of what yer eating and blabbing bout how amazing the Nationals are (#NatsBatsStats).  Weiwei is wei awesome, as a person, and a doc, so make your wei wei to a theater and learn, then help, and tweet, and smile, in the face of frowns

Finger Pointing Good:

Study of Perspective 1995-2003

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

go all the way with Weiwei in NY/SF/DC tomorrow, and elsewhere elsewhen

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed