Barbershop Punk -- Film Review

4:47 PM PST 11/8/2010 by Sheri Linden

Net neutrality might not be the most alluring topic, but it should be of urgent importance to anyone who values the right to free speech. So argue most of the talking heads in “Barbershop Punk,” a thoughtful piece of advocacy journalism that screened recently in the Alt/Art section of AFI Fest.

First-time filmmakers Georgia Sugimura Archer and Kristin Armfieldoverdo the cinematic flourishes, though their material is strong enough to stand unadorned. At the heart of the matter is the deregulation and privatization of communication channels in the electronic age. The common carriage laws — which applied to oldfangled mail delivery and dial-up phone lines and specified that all messages must be delivered without discrimination — have been eroded, and it took an unlikely figure to offer proof against no less a behemoth than Comcast.