Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno are two guys who just can't take "no" for an answer. They have an unusual hobby: posing as top executives of corporations they hate. Armed with nothing but thrift-store suits, the Yes Men lie their way into business conferences and parody their corporate targets in ever more extreme ways - basically doing everything that they can to wake up their audiences to the danger of letting greed run our world.

The group is responsible for attention-grabbing pranks including the fake New York Times distributed with the headline "Iraq War Ends", and the fake New York Post edition "We're Screwed".

Other pranks that received national media coverage include Bichlbaum's recent arrest in a fake demonstration of the organization's latest gimmick: SurvivaBall. Bichlbaum, wearing the giant inflatable orb known as the SurvivaBall, a bogus product made by Halliburton, one of the largest energy manufacturers and the latest target of the Yes Men's rage against the machine. If you own one of the giant balloon-shaped things with vents, you can survive even when everyone else is dying from the harsh conditions imposed by man-made climate disaster.

One day Andy, purporting to be a Dow Chemical spokesperson, gets on the biggest TV news program in the world and announces that Dow will finally clean up the site of the largest industrial accident in history, the Bhopal catastrophe. The result: as people worldwide celebrate, Dow's stock value loses two billion dollars. People want Dow to do the right thing, but the market decides that it can't.

The reality hits Andy and Mike like a ton of bricks: we have created a market system that makes doing the right thing impossible, and the people who appear to be leading are actually following its pathological dictates. If we keep putting the market in the driver's seat, it could happily drive the whole planet off a cliff.

On their journey, the Yes Men act as gonzo journalists, delving deep into the question of why we have given the market more power than any other institution to determine our direction as a society. They visit the twisted (and accidentally hilarious) underworld of the free-market think tanks, where they figure out a way to defeat the logic that's destroying our planet. And as they appear on the BBC before 300 million viewers, or before 1000 New Orleans contractors alongside Mayor Ray Nagin, the layers of lies are peeled back to reveal the raw heart of truth - a truth that brings with it hope.

Their movie, The Yes Men Fix the World, opened October 7th at Film Forum.

Josh Golden

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AM 1. What or who inspires you? A great song. A great film. Any great work of art really. Something well crafted. Something off the cuff as long as it's soulful and heartfelt. 2. What would be the three main rules if you ran your own country? No money, guns or lawyers. 3. If you could swap places with anyone for one day, whom would you choose and why? George Bush. I gotta know how that guy can live with himself. 4. Tell us one thing that your fans would be surprised to know about you. I can't read music. 5. If you could name a planet, what would you name it and why? Pluto (the planet). I want it back. It was in all the planet books I read as a kid. 6. What is one of your favorite books? Friedrich Nietzsche's "Geneology of Morals". He basically takes a part moral systems. Absolutely mind blowing...but there is still much of the text I cannot wrap my head around. He was out there. 7. Pretend you're 15. Name three songs you'd put on a mix tape for your girlfriend/boyfriend. Nothing but songs from John Hughes films. I remember being very young watching those movies and saying "Wow, that's what life will be like as a teenager!" Ha ha ha. "True" - Spandau Ballet, "Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want" - The Smiths, "Don't You (Forget About Me)" - Simple Minds 8. Are you a myspacer, facebooker, or twitterer? Facebooker...for now. I'm sure I'll be learning some other ridiculous social networking site next year. 9. What was your favorite cartoon as a child? The Superfriends. 10. What is the theme song for the movie that is being made about your life? Oh man. One song that defines the theme of my life? Uh... AM's Store!