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Documentary, movie reviews

Exit Through the Gift Shop

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No one seems to know for sure if Exit Through the Gift Shop is a real documentary or a prank played by street artist Banksy. Either way, it’s a fascinating portrayal of both the street art movement, pop culture and the strange point where the two meet.

The film starts out with Frenchman Thiery Guetta, the cousin of street artist Space Invader, filming various street artists in Paris, Los Angeles and other locations. Street art was the next phase of graffiti that became popular in the 1990s, and we see leading practitioners of this art, such as Shephard Fairey at work, painting their elaborate creations in prominent locations around cities. While some people label graffiti and street art simply as vandalism, and on one level it is -and I doubt that few street artists themselves would argue with this- much of it is also undeniably creative and original. While it’s sort of redundant to say it’s subversive, it may be one of the few statements that can be made nowadays that this could truly be said about, as there’s no commercial intent behind it. Or so it would seem.

Yet Exit Through the Gift Shop ends up being more about the commercialization of art than street art per se. When Thiery finally meets the mysterious English street artist Banksy, we watch him leave his mark around Los Angeles, London and, most daringly, on the infamous wall in the West Bank, right under the noses of military patrols. When Banksy pressures Thiery to put together an actual documentary, however, the result is a disaster and it’s revealed that Thiery knows nothing about filmmaking, so Banksy takes over the project and the focus turns on Thiery. That’s at least the official story, which hasn’t been confirmed to this day.

The denouement of the film comes when Thiery reinvents himself as Mister Brainwash and has a major opening in L.A. that turns him into a celebrity. At this point, a man who starts out as an amiable eccentric is transformed into a near megalomaniac who proclaims himself the next Andy Warhol. Indeed, many of his paintings are variations on Warhol’s themes, with lots of giant Campbell’s Soup cans, Elvis renditions and distortions of famous paintings. Despite the obviously derivative nature of his work, his opening is a huge success, and he goes on to design one of Madonna’s album covers. The people Thiery filmed earlier, from Fairey to Banksy are now less than enthralled with him, and the implication is that he is a sellout while the art critics and general public are gullible fools.

Taken at face value, the film doesn’t quite add up. Why would the anarchic Banksy put his name behind the film if he truly despised the result? The fact that we see Banksy himself with a very public art opening earlier in the film proves he isn’t as adverse to publicity as he pretends. Still, whatever we might suspect about Banksy’s intentions or honesty, he undoubtedly has real talent. In a review in the English paper The Sunday Times, Wendy Ide mentions that she once interviewed Banksy, and he revealed that It’s A Beautiful Life is his favorite film. Probably not coincidentally, that’s the name Thiery/Mister Brainwash gives to his art exhibit that Banksy allegedly had nothing to do with.

Exit Through the Gift Shop [Blu-ray] is a truly postmodern film about contemporary culture, which means its ultimate veracity, or lack thereof is of secondary importance at most. It causes the viewer to contemplate that ancient question, “What is art?” This makes it more meaningful than 99% of other contemporary films.

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Leonard Maltin’s 2009 Movie Guide

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Leonard Maltin's 2009 Movie Guide (Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide (Signet))

Review

“The go-to choice for both film geeks and casual couch potatoes.” —The New York Times Book Review “The best of the bunch.”—San Francisco Chronicle “The single most important reference book in every home.” —Esquire
–This text refers to an alternate

Paperback
edition.

The New York Times bestselling film guide— revised and updatedThe most authoritative book of its kind, now with more entries than ever before, updated and revised for 2009…
Buy Leonard Maltin’s 2009 Movie Guide at Amazon

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Flickipedia: Perfect Films for Every Occasion, Holiday, Mood, Ordeal, and Whim

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Flickipedia: Perfect Films for Every Occasion, Holiday, Mood, Ordeal, and Whim

Review

“Great fun for any movie lover. I’m proud to add this entertaining read to my personal reference shelf.”  —Richard Roeper, cohost, Ebert & Roeper”Easily the most useful movies-to-rent guide I’ve ever come across.”  —Luc Sante, author, Evidence, The Factory of Facts, and Low Life”Easily organized and briskly written. One for any indecisive cineaste’s bookshelf.”  —Oklahoma Gazette”An addictive, perceptive DVD guide.”  —Play”Entertaining and unique.”  —Bozema…
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The Great Movies II

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The Great Movies II

From Publishers Weekly

At times, Ebert’s second collection of 100 essays on great (but not, he’s careful to point out, the greatest) movies reads like an anthology of recycled reviews from his Chicago Sun-Times column, especially when he gets talking about the bonus features on DVDs. But anyone looking for a crash course in cinema viewing—regardless of whether they’ve been through Ebert’s first Great Movies collection (published in 2002)—will find plenty of rewards here. Some…
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1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die: 5th Anniversary Edition

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1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die: 5th Anniversary Edition

From Booklist

Film lovers seeking critical guidance more discerning than daily newspaper reviews but less daunting than scholarly journal articles depend on a handful of critics who write about rarefied films for a general audience. 1001 Movies You Must See before You Die puts a user-friendly mask on the serious thought animating its effort to create a roster of indispensable films and rather belies the erudition of its well-qualified contributors. The chosen 1,001 are chronologi…
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The Paris Review Book for Planes, Trains, Elevators, and Waiting Rooms

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The Paris Review Book for Planes, Trains, Elevators, and Waiting Rooms

From Publishers Weekly

In his introduction to this rewarding anthology, critically acclaimed author Powers (Galatea 2.2; Plowing the Dark; etc.) says that reading is the “last refuge from the real-time epidemic.” To that end, the selections gathered here are grouped by how long they offer escape from real time: waiting rooms need long stories, for example, while elevators demand poems. Roth, Munro and Naipaul are among the 46 big-name contributors. In the Planes section, Junot Di…
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Movies and the Moral Adventure of Life

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Movies and the Moral Adventure of Life (Boston Review Books)

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. The first all-new publication from The Onion’s stable of mad satirists since 1999’s Our Dumb Century, this globe-spanning volume raises the bar for topical humor. Known for their savage, irreverent newspaper parody, The Onion staff delight in playing up stereotypes and skewering perceptions, and they have picked an enormous playground in which to do so; this skewed world atlas compiles enough fictional facts to tickle-and probably offend-jus…
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The Village Voice Film Guide: 50 Years of Movies from Classics to Cult Hits

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The Village Voice Film Guide: 50 Years of Movies from Classics to Cult Hits

From Booklist

For half a century, the Village Voice has set the gold standard for serious film coverage. The New York City alternative weekly has boasted three of America’s best critics–Jonas Mekas, Andrew Sarris, and J. Hoberman–and the backup reviewers have been nearly as good. In the pieces collected here, they turn their acumen to some 150 films, from Bunuel’s L’Age d’Or and Vigo’s Zero for Conduct to Scorsese’s The Age of Innocence, from meritorious crowd-pleasers like Chi…
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