Movie preview 'GhettoPhysics'

So what are you going to do? Play or be played?

That’s the essential question filmmaker E. Raymond Brown asks in his new movie, “GhettoPhysics: Will the Real Pimps and Hos Please Stand Up!” It opens in metro Atlanta today. If you have a maxed-out credit card with a high interest rate, then you’re right to guess that Brown places you in the played category. But if you pay that card off, cut it up and learn to live within your means, well then, let’s just say you’re running things.

We went to a preview screening of the film last month. Here’s our take.

What it is: Something of a political documentary that examines power dynamics around the world, using as a template the relationship between the practitioners and managers of the world's oldest profession. Seriously. Bold, at times campy, a little new agey and sprinkled with a nice dash of conspiracy theory.

How it got here: It was co-written and co-directed by Brown, a lecturer, and based on his book "Will the Real Pimps and Hos Please Stand Up: Peeping the Multi-Level Global Game." During a screening at the Midtown Art Cinema, Brown described how he shopped a rough cut of the documentary around until he caught the attention of independent filmmaker William Arntz ("What the Bleep Do We Know?"). Arntz got Samuel Goldwyn and Captured Light films to distribute it.

Who's in it: Among others, Cornel West, former congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, rappers KRS-One, Too Short and Ice-T, Norman Lear, author John Perkins, and enough original gangstas to fill a player's ball.

The approach: There are moments when this film exhibits the aspirations of a Michael Moore documentary and displays the wit of an episode of "The Boondocks" or a vintage "Chappelle's Show." You get that feeling after an interview with McKinney or Lear is followed by the on-the-ground commentary of blues singer Fillmore Slim or the blunt musings of a smart streetwalker named Candy. But the scenes that take place in the classroom are as melodramatic as a vignette in a Tyler Perry movie.

Caveats: Some people will take issue with the subtitle and premise. Both play on a dangerous, predatory, unforgiving profession. During the Midtown screening, however, Brown said that's exactly why he saw the relationship as a perfect analogy for the power deferential between big business and politicians and people of modest or little means. But if you aren't the type to believe that there are people behind the giant curtain pulling the strings, then this one isn't for you.

The moral of the story: With discipline and a made-up mind you can change things in your corner of the world.

Movie preview

“GhettoPhysics”

Featuring Cornel West and Cynthia McKinney. Directed by William Arntz and E. Raymond Brown.