“Sorry to Bother You,” July 22, 2018, theater. I really enjoyed, frequently laughed out loud, and was also more than a little disturbed by this wacky Boots Riley vehicle. He wrote and directed. He’s the frontman for The Coup, a radical hip hop band that’s influenced by folks like George Clinton. I play their albums with some regularity on my show. I found it entertaining in the same way I enjoyed “Putney Swope” back in 1970. Race, gender, class, work, oppression, resistance, art, culture, brutality, all jumbled together in a wild mosaic of language, black and white voices, criticism of our corporatocracy run amok, and science fiction a la H. G. Wells’ “Island of Dr. Moreau” and Charles Laughton in “Island of Lost Soul,” only in reverse. Are we not animals? Cassius Green (Lakeith Stanfield) is a sweet guy, an African-American in Oakland seeking work while living with his wildly creative, artist girlfriend Detroit (Tessa Thompson) in his uncle’s garage. He’s desperate and takes a job as a telemarketer where he learns that the secret to success is to ‘use his white voice’ (voiced by David Cross). The remarkable success that follows puts him both on the fast track to promotions and at odds with his friends struggling to organize and improve working conditions in their telemarketing shop. It also brings him to the attention of the evil corporate ruler of prison-like production and lifetime (slave) contracts, Steve Lift (Armie Hammer), a soulless abuser for private gain, war profiteer, and secret manipulator of the human genome. Sound like anyone we read about a lot these days? How does one fight against a totalizing system of oppression, the prison of the modern workplace, and political economy? Each must choose and everyone must fight. In all, it’s remarkably Swope-like yet entirely of today, with a kickass soundtrack heavy on “The Coup.” Fine work from voice artists and actors including Danny Glover, Steve Yuen, Rosario Dawson, and Forest Whittaker. For the actors, this one must have been a labor of love and a total hoot to make. It’s a very visual film, so pay attention to the writing on the wall. Bronwen found it a bit too disturbing. I really liked it. It’s that kind of film.