Men at Work  Coal, chemicals, and campaigning: They're dirty
jobs, but someone has to document them  In this country as in no
other, we have difficulty regarding elective politics as much
more than a wrestling match between loudmouths, the citizenry's
realpolitik needs, rights, and welfare be damned. Why? Marshall
Curry's unpretentious and absorbing video doc Street Fight
doesn't ask or answer, and in fact takes this grim, self-
destructive state of affairs as read, documenting the 2002
mayoral race in Newark and avoiding sociopolitical facts along
the way. Although the film has a righteous heart, by focusing
solely on government as showbiz, it's part of what it decries.
Curry makes uproarious hay with the illegal shenanigans of
incumbent mayor Sharpe James, but is that all there is?  That
said, Street Fight has enough cultural crosscurrents to fill out
a novel: The challenger, Cory Booker, is a young, studly,
articulate, Yale-educated lawyer hollering for change. Also
officially a Democrat, James, in die-hard