“Urbanized”
Directed by: Gary Hustwit
Format: Big screen
Viewed: Friday 1/13/2012 with my wife and our friend Gosia at the Tower Theatre in Fresno

It’s pretty rare that I walk away from a documentary film feeling genuinely uplifted. But the first Fresno Filmworks screening of 2012, the Gary Hustwit documentary “Urbanized,” was truly inspiring. I enjoyed watching the first movie in Hustwit’s design trilogy, “Helvetica,” a few weeks ago as a primer. But the beautiful cinematography and moving stories of “Urbanized” turned urban planning into real art for me, and I came away from the film quite moved at human ingenuity and people’s passion for the public spaces they love.

Three segments in the movie stuck with me the most. The first was the former mayor of Bogotá, Colombia, who was credited with being a pioneer in building a public light rail system and public bike trails in the early 2000s. He said that there was no universal human right to parking, and he insisted that if you take away parking spaces in a city center that you will then take away cars and pollution. “Parking is not a government problem,” the former mayor said, inciting many giggles from the car-happy Fresno audience.

The second part I loved was the revitalization of The High Line in New York City, a massive transformation of a historic elevated rail line in the heart of the city from weed-pocked and abandoned eyesore into a glorious urban park. The dedication of the Friends of The High Line to preserve a piece of history by transforming it instead of demolishing it made me think of all the little places in Fresno that might benefit from a similar innovative commitment.

The third part I loved was the story of the bike paths in Copenhagen, Denmark, where the city boasts that nearly 40 percent of its daily commuter traffic is done by bicycle. The city spent years taking away lanes from cars and one-by-one converting them to safe bike lines. Most notably, they put the bike lanes to the right of the lane for parked cars, to add a buffer between cyclists and automobile traffic. Such a simple safety move drew great cheers and laughter from the Fresno crowd, which has watched for decades as our city’s bumbling planners and politicians fumble to add a bike lane here or there, but then nobody wants to ride in them for fear of constantly being run over by an SUV. Hustwit’s documentary should be required viewing for all Central Valley mayors, city council members, and planning commissioners.

“Helvetica”
Directed by: Gary Hustwit
Format: DVD from the public library
Viewed: Friday 12/30/2011 with my wife at home

I got my second journalism job while I was still in college. For two years, I produced print advertisements as a graphic designer for The Fresno Bee’s community publications division. I use the term “graphic designer” quite loosely, since it was the mid-’90s and we were using IBM 486s, which featured about a dozen fonts and had just enough power to run PageMaker 2.0 if you shut down all the other programs that you were working in first. The big upside to getting my start in that environment was that all of the ad reps wanted their clients’ ads to look special and different, and so I had to learn very quickly how to use all the basics of design and layout to make a tiny number fonts consistently do the work of a million fancy requests.

The font Helvetica got a real workout.

Helvetica is such a sturdy, efficient, and iconic typeface, and I was happy to get reacquainted with it this past semester on the first assignment for my graphic communication class. My graphics instructor recommended seeing the Gary Hustwit documentary about Helvetica to appreciate the importance of the world’s most ubiquitous family of type. I’m glad that I did. The movie is the first in Hustwit’s design trilogy that looks at the power of typography, design, and urban planning in our daily lives. The director filled the movie with fascinating and eloquent historical dialogue about the font, and some excellent criticism of using design for purposes of control.

My favorite idea in the film came from Wim Crouwel, a Dutch typographer whose work I first came across years ago as part of the Peter Saville-designed sleeve to the Joy Division compilation “Substance.” Crouwel, speaking of his love for Helvetica, said: “The meaning is in the content of the text and not in the typeface.” Thinking back to my days as a beginning designer more than 15 years ago, it seems like I’ve always agreed with him.

“The Future”
Directed by: Miranda July
Format: DVD from Redbox
Viewed: Sunday 12/25/2011 with my wife at home

I loved Miranda July from the first moment I laid eyes on her. Her first movie was strange and wonderful. Her short story collection was obtuse and compelling. Her project website was an artistic challenge to viewers like nothing I had seen before. In short: I will be loyal to this woman no matter what she makes– good, bad, and everything in between.

I did not love “The Future” in the same way that I loved “Me and You and Everyone We Know.” But it took my breath away more than once. It made me cry more than once. And it should come as no surprise that I would recommend the film to anybody who likes Miranda July even just a little bit. Judging by some of the harsh customer reviews on the Redbox rental site, I appear to be in the minority when it comes to liking Miranda July. So be it. This movie is sprawling, surreal, and difficult. It is narrated by a cat. The two protagonists– especially Miranda July herself– are hard to love. None of those things are negatives because the film has a pulsing, beating heart and ugly, glorious guts to match.