You may never have heard of Henry Bean, but he made a movie called The Believer back in 2001 that single-handedly catapulted Ryan Gosling to prominence (if not stardom) before The Notebook was a twinkle in anyone's eye. (He also wrote Internal Affairs and some other, schlockier early-90's thrillers, but you probably don't remember those either.) Gosling played a Jewish young man who became an increasingly fierce Neo-Nazi, at one point donning a tallis while executing Nazi salutes. It wasn't just difficult material, it was impossible material, and the fact that Bean managed to make something coherent out of it is, I think, one of the more impressive accomplishments in indie cinema this decade.

Bean waited seven years before delivering his directorial follow-up, a dark comedy called Noise, and there's a new trailer for it up top for you to watch. (We also ran a piece on the movie last October.) It looks like a new take on Falling Down, except funnier, and with a faux-superhero twist: Tim Robbins plays an urban professional who is so incensed by the incessant noise of car alarms that he names himself the Rectifier and starts smashing up offending cars to shut them up. This causes a political brouhaha, getting the attention of the mayor (William Hurt). Oh, and it's autobiographical: apparently Bean got himself arrested breaking into cars to turn off the alarms. They are annoying, aren't they?

The movie logically gets a New York-only release on May 9th. Early reviews have been mixed, but the trailer is nifty, and the pedigree piques my interest. I hope it manages to expand.

I learned long ago that falling in love with a plot summary is a bad, bad idea, and yet I just can't stop. (Which, come to think of it, is really strange, because I'm not generally an optimistic person. Weird.) The latest summary to work its magic on me is the one for a "dark comedy" called Noise, which was written and will be directed by Henry Bean (this, also, is promising, because his only other work behind the camera was on the highly praised Jewish skinhead flick, The Believer).

In Bean's film, the noise in question is the general sound of New York City (It's noisy here? What? I'm sorry, I can't hear you.), and the movie centers on one guy who, instead of fleeing when he can't take it any more, decides to do something about the din. The main character (David Owen, to be played by Tim Robbins) "renames himself 'The Rectifier' and becomes a vigilante, making war on car alarms that go off in the middle of the night." Yes, I hear you whispering "Brilliant!" to yourself. But wait - it gets better. Being The Rectifier, you see, isn't all kicking (car alarm) ass and taking names: when one chooses to live as an urban crusader, there are consequences. In Owen's case, said consequences involve things like questionable sanity, the destruction of his marriage and, of course, "the murderous enmity of the Mayor of New York."

Noise starts shooting next month in New York, and if there was an Episode I-style line to get in to await its release? I'd totally be in it.