HOW'S YOUR NEWS? ****

Directed by Arthur Bradford. 82 min. Real to Reel. Sept. 7, 9pm, Varsity; Sept. 9, 3pm, Royal Ontario Museum.

How's Your News? is a liberating and perspective-altering documentary, executive-produced by South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, about a group of developmentally disabled adults travelling cross-country from New Hampshire to L.A. Armed only with video cameras and a microphone, they confront Americana in all its incarnations, from honky-tonk bars to alligator farms, climaxing with a whacked-out visit to Venice Beach featuring street musicians, a self-styled mystic and actor Vince Van Patten. Director Arthur Bradford has edited the material to avoid condescension -- rather than adopting a tone of PC reverence, he allows the group's humour and strong personalities to come through. AN

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Such absurd beauty informs much of Arthur Bradford's How's Your News? (part of HBO's "Frame by Frame" showcase at the Screening Room), an improbably enjoyable travelogue that follows four men (the aforementioned pair, plus Robert Bird and Sean Costello, both of whom have Down's syndrome) and one woman (the mentally disabled, legally blind Susan Harrington) on a trip across America to discover the answer to the titular query. (Bradford developed the news-team format with them while a counselor at a camp for the handicapped.) As Simonson tells a sunglassed motorcycle enthusiast, "It's my biggest dream. What's your biggest dream?"

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Ever watch a movie only to wonder if the experience had been some kind of alcohol-induced hallucination? Some projects just have the knack for jolting you awake. Usually, you wouldn't expect a kind of surreal confrontationalism from a "CBS News Sunday Morning"-esque program shot aboard a cross-country bound RV. As filmmaker Arthur Bradford readily demonstrates in "How's Your News?", the effect is a little different when hosting duties shift from a now-dead Charles Kuralt to a team of five physically and/or mentally disabled adults.
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Don't get me wrong here. Though inconsistent, much of the film is really good. It's still damned funny with inspired visits to a livestock auction and an alligator farm. The peak is saved for the finale in Los Angeles. Believe me, if there's one place in America that'll welcome a bunch of idiots with a camera, it's here. Actually, the journey ends at the ocean with the inhabitants of Venice Beach. As most locals already possess a tenuous grip on reality, our plucky stars feel as if they just arrived for a party in their honor. They actually BLEND. They even run across one low-level celebrity, writer/actor Vince Van Patten. Typically, Vince takes this opportunity to discuss his writer/star turn in his direct-to-cable film, "Break". His purist Hollywood moment arrives with his cynicism-free description of this opus described as "'Rocky' on the tennis court." In a special film about special people, that's the one thing that sounds truly retarded.

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