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“Bomb It” Synopsis

Bomb It – The Movie The Global Graffiti Documentary is the explosive new documentary from award-winning director Jon Reiss investigating the most subversive and controversial art form currently shaping international youth culture: graffiti.

“Bomb It” Review

Bomb It is the explosive new documentary from award winning director Jon Reiss of Better Living Through Circuitry fame. Bomb It travels the globe showcasing the different graffiti scenes. The cities the DVD was filmed in, include: Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, London, Paris, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Hamburg, Berlin, Cape Town, Sao Paulo, and Tokyo.

While visiting these cities, the documentary features interviews with artists from each of the cities. Some of the artists featured in the documentary include: Cornbread, Taki 183, T-kid 170, Revs, Shepard Fairey, KRS One, Chino, Revok, Pose 2FX, Tracy 168, Stay High 149, Cope 2, Inkie, Lady Pink, Zephyr, Skuf, Blek le Rat, Daim, Pike & Nug, Falko, Faith47, Scage, Mickey, Zezao, Chaz Bojorquez, Belx2, Tribe, Tats Cru, Ron English.

Few people are neutral on the subject of graffiti. One the one hand you have the practitioners who see themselves as everything from the true artists of the urban landscape to revolutionaries reclaiming public space on behalf of the people. On the other, you have property owners and government officials who see graffiti as vandalism and those who create it as at best public nuisances and at worse as criminals.

One reason graffiti is such a volatile issue is because it touches on many fundamental questions of urban life. What constitutes public space? Who gets to decide how it will be used? Is advertising in public spaces a form of pollution? Can graffiti achieve the status of art, and as such should it be protected from defacement by other graffiti artists? What constitutes a work of art anyway, and who gets to decide? Does spraying your name on a wall constitute a significant political act, or would such energies be better directed elsewhere?

Jon Reiss’s 2008 documentary Bomb It raises these questions and more, presenting a wide sampling of graffiti art from around the world, and a variety of viewpoints relating to graffiti. He includes interviews with everyone from first-generation graffiti artists to academic theorists: segments shot in South Africa, Brazil, Europe and Japan are particularly useful in broadening the discussion. The main weakness of this documentary is the lack of integration or analysis: most often viewpoints are simply juxtaposed with the result that the documentary acts primarily as a collage of statements and images to be taken at face value, with no attempt on the part of the filmmaker to verify them or inquire further.

Bomb It is clearly in the pro-graffiti camp, as signaled by its tag line: “Street Art is Revolution.” Reiss does give some screen time to anti-graffiti voices, but the preponderance of the film presents graffiti as fun, daring, revolutionary, and beautiful, while the anti-graffiti camp not only gets less time to state their case, but are filmed in a manner which often makes them come off as scolds and killjoys. Ironically, the words of the graffiti artists are often contradicted by the ugly scrawls evident on the walls behind them: if anyone is free to write and paint on public walls, there’s no reason to expect that the artistically untalented will decline to participate.

“Bomb It” isn’t the first documentary to address the history and evolution of graffiti culture, and it probably won’t be the last. But what distinguishes Jon Reiss’s lively, sure-handed film from the rest is that it widens the spectrum by taking a comprehensively international viewpoint.

“Bomb It” isn’t the first documentary to address the history and evolution of graffiti culture, and it probably won’t be the last. But what distinguishes Jon Reiss’s lively, sure-handed film from the rest is that it widens the spectrum by taking a comprehensively international viewpoint.

Traveling from graffiti art’s roots in Philadelphia and New York to Paris, Tokyo, Cape Town and other cities around the globe, the film features interviews with artists (some veiling their identities) whose milieu gives impetus to their activities, which include social rebellion, political agitation, expressions of boredom and simply bringing art to the streets. Though Mr. Reiss’s approach is decidedly pro-graffiti, he also gives screen time to the occasional naysayers: law-enforcement types who consider tagging a public nuisance.

The movie also considers that bombing (the term of choice for graffiti painters), once deemed a subversive act, has inevitably been co-opted over the last decade or so, its influences turning up in video games and marketing campaigns, and the work itself mounted on gallery walls. But if the artists shown here making magic with spray paint are any indication, graffiti will never go out of style. It will continue to move with the times; with luck, the filmmakers there to document it will do it the justice that this one does.

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Video trailer for the award winning movie Bomb  The System

Bomb The System

A Film About Street Art and Graffiti Culture

A Drops Entertainment production. (International sales: The Film Sales Company, New York.) Produced by Ben Rekhi, Sol Tryon. Executive producers, Kanwal Rekhi, Mark Webber. Co-executive producer, Rob Bethge. Co-producers, Smriti Mundhra, Theo Sena. Directed, written by Adam Bhala Lough.

Synopsis: “The average New Yorker sees upwards of 50 pieces of graffiti a day. But they never stop to think about the stories behind those pieces… this is one of those stories.” Bomb the System is the first… “The average New Yorker sees upwards of 50 pieces of graffiti a day. But they never stop to think about the stories behind those pieces… this is one of those stories.” Bomb the System is the first feature in over 20 years to delve into the world of graffiti art. Bomb The System, shot entirely on the streets of New York City, is the feature debut of 23-year-old writer/director Adam Bhala Lough. Mark Webber (People I Know, Storytelling, The Laramie Project) leads a talented young ensemble cast as Blest, a 19-year-old graffiti writer fresh out of high school with no ambition for the future. New York City is Blest’s playground. He spends his days stealing spray paint from local hardware stores – and his nights getting high and “bombing” the streets with his graffiti crew. He is the most wanted writer on the NYPD Vandal Squad’s hit list, and at the same time, is attracting attention from the local gallery scene. But things quickly turn ugly when 15-year-old Lune, the youngest member of Blest’s crew, is arrested and brutalized by the NYPD. The crew retaliates by waging an all out “graffiti war” against the city: a war that ends up costing more than one life in the end. Bomb the System is a true New York story – a cinematic poem dedicated to the art of graffiti, and to the city where it all began more than two decades ago.

Bomb the System is a drama film written and directed by Adam Bhala Lough, which was released to film festivals in 2002 and American theaters in 2005. It revolves around a group of graffiti artists living in New York City who decide to make a mark on the city, and stars Mark Webber, Gano Grills, Jaclyn DeSantis, Jade Yorker, Bönz Malone and Kumar Pallana. Bomb the System was the first major fictional feature film about the subculture of graffiti art since Wild Style was released 1982. Several well-known graffiti artists participated in the making of Bomb The System including Lee Quinones, Cope2 and Chino BYI. The film’s score and soundtrack were composed by El-P.

In January 2004 Bomb The System was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature.

Bomb The System

A Hip Hop Culture Film

There is an inherent appeal to this kind of subculture of reckless endangerment, social disobedience, and vandalism for the sake of cultural expression and artistic freedom that has a particular romanticism about it, like reinventing the Robin Hood mythology armed with spray paint cans. Bomb the System shows the culture in an admiring, often flattering, light but never quite glorifies the lifestyle either. It is always careful to illustrate the futile cyclical nature of a bomber’s life to counteract the radical appeal, at ease in showing both the glamorous and destructive side of suburban graffiti art. Whether Bomb The System is “authentic” or not seems a moot point, because Bomb the System never feels fake. The graffiti art, featured by various artists too numerous to name, is nothing short of jaw-dropping, and the soundtrack (composed by E-LP) is fantastic.

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New York Graffiti Art

The Source Magazine Reports

Quoted From www.thesource.com

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Art Crimes LA – Underground Hip-Hop culture at its finest here folks. Graffiti has gone hand in hand with hip hop culture since its beginning. Art Crimes is one of the best places online to find graffiti all over the world. The website can be a little hard to navigate at times but that’s okay. We love you Art Crimes

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