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Cool Factor: Curtis runs the street with The Friends. Our Gang 'Way Past Cool' is too hard for Hollywood By Richard von Busack The best TV star that isn't a Simpson is Bernie Mac, Denzel and Halle won the Oscars, and actors ranging in tone from Will Smith to Eddie Griffin aren't considered black first and actors second. So what's the purpose of the San Francisco Black Film Festival? One answer is in the local work highlighting the fest, which runs in San Francisco June 1216. Among the films being shown is the west coast premiere of the still unreleased film Way Past Cool, based on West Oakland author Jess Mowry's scarifying collection of tales from the 'hood. Predictably, this adaptation's been finessed a little. It's been gentled by narration, and it's hardly as harrowing as the book, possibly because the film was shepherded into production by Milos Forman and Norman Lear (who was executive producer of The Jeffersons, cited here ironically). The slant of Adam Davidson's direction: to see Mowry's apprentice gangstas as The Little Rascals - only with drive by shootings. This odd metaphor mostly works, especially thanks to Jonathan Roger Nea's acting as Gordon, the Spanky of the gang. "If you don't take the street, you have to take the alley," says the narrator of his life in the Oakland ghetto. We meet the five kids in a gang called The Friends. Though Gordon's the largest and most quarrelsome, the young shaman, Lyon (Wes Charles, Jr.), is the one we follow. Lyon's good enough with his hands to remove a bullet or perform magic tricks. A driveby shooting interrupts The Friends' day, and then the film cuts away to follow the reason for the shooting. It was the scheme of the powerdrunk shakedown artist Deek (Wayne Collins) who likes to take Polaroid photographs of his victims after he kills them. We contrast The Friends' problems with that of Deek's bodyguard, Ty (Terence Williams, Jr.) who is pressured by his boss's increasing viciousness. Ty's also lured into a more peaceful life by his girlfriend Markita (Luchisa Evans). Deek's latest hustle is to pit a rival babygang The Crew against The Friends, hoping they'll kill each other and make more room for him. Exploited and threatened by Deek, The Friends are in the position of the mice trying to bell the cat. Director Adam Davidson won the Oscar for 1990's short film Lunch Date. He's discovered a lot of virgin locations - the refineries, the freeway frontage roads, the huge white cranes that inspired George Lucas to make the tenstory walkingtanks in The Empire Strikes Back. Even if softened by narration, as it stands, Way Past Cool is still too intense a film for Hollywood. It features kids not quite 13 carrying pistols and drinking 40 ouncers - one, the Jamaican kid Curtis, played by Partap Khalsa, is seen pouring sugar into his bottle of Olde English 800 to sweeten it. Watching moments like these, you can just imagine the conversations of moviebusiness executives fretting over the problem of whether showing something means endorsing it ... as if it weren't clear that children placed in hopeless life or death situations wasn't a tragedy, or that it wasn't our tragedy, in fact, as well as our responsibility. Among the other offerings at the SF Black Film Festival is a division called Urban Kidz featuring short films made out of the Oakland Unified School District, as well as a panel being held on June 15 on The 50 Most Influential Black Films, a field the American Film Institute hasn't covered, though it's a fascinating line of inquiry: Shaft or Claudine? Cooley High or Stormy Weather? Way Past Cool (Unrated; 98min.) directed by Adam Davidson, screenplay by Yule Caise and Jess Mowry, starring Wayne Collins, Luchisha Evans, Terrance Williams, and Kareem Woods, has its west coast premiere on Saturday. All events are at the Delancey Street screening room, 600 Embarcadero St., SF. Tickets available through Ticketweb.com or call 1.800.965.4827. www.sfbff.org. [ East Bay | Metroactive | Archives ]