Exit Through The Gift Shop

2010 turned out to be a pretty strong year for documentaries. I am still working my way through a lot of them but it has been made easier by Netflix Instant viewing. While Netflix Instant view is slow to get new movies, they seem to be very good at getting documentaries upon their initial DVD/BluRay release. Last night I finally watched Exit Through The Gift Shop. It was an excellent film that deserves its spot as the frontrunner for Best Documentary at the Academy Awards.

The documentary is about the world of street art and the mysterious artist Banksy. Like other docs that have come out this year, the film deals with questions about reality. How much of the film is real and how much is a trick. However in the case of this film, those questions are intentional and they heighten the experience for the viewer. The film focuses on Banksy, a popular street artist who is being embraced by the art world. His rogue art starts selling for insane amounts of money, because collectors decide that his work is genius. Whenever Banksy appears on screen his face is blacked out and his voice is altered to protect his identity. At about the halfway point, the film shifts focus over to Thierry Guetta. Thierry is an aspiring filmmaker who has acquired thousands of hours of footage of street artists filmed over the better part of a decade. His plan was to make a documentary about street art but in reality he just filled box after box with tapes that he has not watched. This is all brought to a screeching halt when Thierry compiles the footage into a rough cut of a documentary and shows it to Banksy. Banksy tells him it is unwatchable. This is when the film really gets interesting as the rest of the running time is devoted to the creation of an artist. I don't want to spoil everything in the movie so I wont say more about the plot.

The movie is very funny and cleverly edited. The main protagonist of the film (Thierry) is humorous in his childlike idealism and naivety.  He is presented as a fairly dimwitted but likeable guy and serves as an entertaing tourguide through the "street" and "legitimate" art worlds. What makes someone a great artist? What makes great art? How do you decide the worth of something so subjective? What makes a film a good film? Exit Through The Gift Shop acts as a prank on the art world and the viewer as well. 

Academy Award Nominations

The Academy Award nominees were announced this morning. Looking at the list of nominations a few things struck me.
1) I am really behind on seeing movies this year.
2) Having ten movies up for best picture is still as dumb as it was last year.
3) I hate it when people in leading roles get pushed into the supporting spot. Mark Ruffalo was the lead male in The Kids Are Allright just like Hailee Steinfeld was the lead female in True Grit.
4) Where was Jullianne Moore? I thought she was as good, if not better than Annette Benning in the Kids Are Allright.
5) Why was Scott Pilgrim completely ignored in at least the special effects and editing categories?
Anyway, below is the list of nominees. It looks like I have got to see a lot of movies in the next few weeks.

Best Motion Picture of the Year
Black Swan
The Fighter
Inception
The Kids are All Right
The King's Speech
The Social Network
127 Hours
Toy Story 3
True Grit
Winter's Bone

Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role
Annette Bening (The Kids are All Right)
Nicole Kidman (Rabbit Hole)
Jennifer Lawrence (Winter's Bone)
Natalie Portman (Black Swan)
Michelle Williams (Blue Valentine)

Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role
Javier Bardem (Biutiful)
Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network)
Colin Firth (The King's Speech)
James Franco (127 Hours)
Jeff Bridges (True Grit)

Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role
Christian Bale (The Fighter)
John Hawkes (Winter's Bone)
Jeremy Renner (The Town)
Mark Ruffalo (The Kids are All Right)
Geoffrey Rush (The King's Speech)

Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role
Amy Adams (The Fighter)
Helena Bonham Carter (The King's Speech)
Melissa Leo (The Fighter)
Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit)
Jacki Weaver (Animal Kingdom)

Best Animated Feature Film of the Year
How to Train Your Dragon
The Illusionist
Toy Story 3

Best Documentary Short Subject
Killing in the Name
Poster Girl
Strangers No More
Sun Come Up
The Warriors of Qiugang

Best Short Film (Animated)
Day & Night Teddy Newton
The Gruffalo Jakob Schuh and Max Lang
Let's Pollute Geefwee Boedoe
The Lost Thing Shaun Tan and Andrew Ruhemann
Madagascar, carnet de voyage (Madagascar, a Journey Diary) Bastien Dubois

Best Short Film (Live Action)
The Confession Tanel Toom
The Crush Michael Creagh
God of Love Luke Matheny
Na Wewe Ivan Goldschmidt
Wish 143 Ian Barnes and Samantha Waite

Achievement in Art Direction
Alice in Wonderland
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
Inception
The King's Speech
True Grit

Achievement in Cinematography
Black Swan (Matthew Libatique)
Inception (Wally Pfister)
The King's Speech (Danny Cohen)
The Social Network (Jeff Cronenweth)
True Grit (Roger Deakins)
Achievement in Costume Design
Alice in Wonderland (Colleen Atwood)
I Am Love (Antonella Cannarozzi)
The King's Speech (Jenny Beaven)
The Tempest (Sandy Powell)
True Grit (Mary Zophres)

Achievement in Directing
Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan)
David O. Russell (The Fighter)
Tom Hooper (The King's Speech)
David Fincher (The Social Network)
Joel and Ethan Coen (True Grit)

Best Documentary Feature
Exit through the Gift Shop Banksy, director (Paranoid Pictures)
Gasland Josh Fox, director (Gasland Productions, LLC)
Inside Job Charles Ferguson, director (Representational Pictures)
Restrepo Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger, directors (Outpost Films)
Waste Land Lucy Walker, director (Almega Projects)

Achievement in Makeup
Barney's Version
The Way Back
The Wolfman

Achievement in Film Editing
Black Swan (Andrew Weisblum)
The Fighter (Pamela Martin)
The King's Speech (Tariq Anwar)
127 Hours (Jon Harris)
The Social Network (Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall)

Best Foreign Language Film of the Year
Biutiful (Mexico)
Dogtooth (Greece)
In a Better World (Denmark)
Incendies (Canada)
Hors la Loi (Algeria)

Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Score)
How to Train Your Dragon (John Powell)
Inception (Hans Zimmer)
The King's Speech (Alexandre Desplat)
127 Hours (A.R. Rahman)
The Social Network (Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross)

Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Song)
"Coming Home" from Country Strong Music and Lyric by Tom Douglas, Troy Verges and Hillary Lindsey
"I See the Light" from Tangled Music and Lyric by Alan Menken Lyric by Glenn Slater
"If I Rise" from 127 Hours Music by A.R. Rahman Lyric by Dido and Rollo Armstrong
"We Belong Together" from Toy Story 3 Music and Lyric by Randy Newman

Achievement in Sound Editing
Inception
Toy Story 3
TRON: Legacy
True Grit
Unstoppable

Achievement in Sound Mixing
Inception
The King's Speech
Salt
The Social Network
True Grit

Achievement in Visual Effects
Alice in Wonderland
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
Hereafter
Inception
Iron Man 2

Adapted Screenplay
127 Hours (Simon Beaufoy and Danny Boyle)
The Social Network (Aaron Sorkin)
Toy Story 3 (Michael Arndt, story by John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich)
True Grit (Joel Coen and Ethan Coen)
Winter's Bone (Debra Granik and Anne Rossellini)

Original Screenplay
Another Year (Mike Leigh)
The Fighter (Paul Attanasio, Lewis Colich, Eric Johnson, Scott Silverand Paul Tamasy)
Inception (Christopher Nolan)
The Kids are All Right (Stuart Blumberg and Lisa Cholodenko)
The King's Speech (David Seidler)

Red State Release Date Change and National Tour

Kevin Smith's Red State premiered this weekend at Sundance and now we just got the news that the theatrical release has been pushed back to October. Smith has decided not to use a studio to release the film and will be handling that himself. He is going to release the film under his new production company, Smodcast Films.

 

However, he is going to be going on a nationwide tour between now and the films release. He is going to be showing the film and following it up with a Q and A session, including himself and various members of the crew and cast. Anybody who is a Smith fan knows that his Q and A sessions are very entertaining. You can actually purchase a few collections of his speaking tours on DVD.

 

It looks like the closest showing to Chattanooga is going to be in Atlanta. Tickets for the tour will be going on sale Friday January 28th.

Looking Forward to Red State

There is a movie coming out in March that I have been waiting to see for about three years now. Kevin Smith started talking about the film Red State shortly after Zach and Miri was released. Since that time he directed another movie (Copout). Copout was the first time he directed a film that was not written by him and the results were by all accounts pretty poor. I personally have not gotten around to seeing it due to the incredibly bad reviews and the way Smith has talked about it since the film was released. My desire to see a film drops substantially when the director himself bashes it.

Regardless of the result of that movie, I have been a huge Kevin Smith fan since his debut Clerks way back in middle school. Being a movie dork at that age, I was awaiting its release excitedly. Of course everyone else I knew had no idea what I was talking about when I told them, “A new director named Kevin Smith has a movie coming out that he shot in the gas station that he worked in. He filmed it nightly after closing, using credit cards to fund the twenty seven thousand dollar budget along with casting all of his friends in the production.”  At some point I am sure their eyes glazed over and they just thought, “Here he goes again.”

So ever since, I have followed his career closely. It is easy to do, since Smith loves talking about every aspect of his life. He has a series of DVD’s that are compilations of him speaking at colleges. While some people have a podcast or maybe two that they produce, Smith has a network with 7 different shows, one show for every day of the week and he is in five of them.

Red State was written shortly after Zach and Miri and Smith had been working ever since on getting the funding to make his dark vision. Red State is unlike anything he has made before. At this point there has been only a teaser released and it is 100% clear that this is nothing like what has come before.

The film revolves around three teenage outcasts who (in the words of Smith himself) venture into the woods looking for sex but instead find God.” He based the tone on a subgenre of 70’s horror films, the devil worship cult movie. In the late 70s and early 80s when the nation was dealing with fears of supposed satanic cults, horror films took the cue and began pumping out films on the subject. Smith has taken the basic idea of a group of teens crossing paths with a satanic cult and flipped it.

What if these teens ran across a group of religious fundamentalist that were as scary as the satanic cult in Rosemary’s Baby?

When it came to finding inspiration it was not hard, Fred Phelps has been making headlines for years now, protesting funerals of gay teens and US soldiers alike. Standing on the side of the road with posters saying things like, “Fags Die God Laughs”. Phelps was the obvious catalyst for a story that goes to horrifying extremes.

He then lined up a cast of promising young actors including Micheal Angarano, Kyle Gallner and Nick Braun. Smith was so impressed with these three young actors, he cast each of them in his upcoming hockey movie, Hit Somebody. The cast also includes some great character actors, Stephen Root (Office Space), Kevin Pollack (The Usual Suspects), and the amazing John Goodman. Melissa Leo, fresh off her golden globe win for her role in The Fighter, stars as one of the cult members.

This leads us to the main star of the film, Michael Parks. Parks plays the role of Abin Cooper, the head of the church and main villain. Parks is a veteran actor who may not be well known to most modern audiences. He caught my eye and the eye of Smith with his role in the Tarantino/Rodriguez collaboration, From Dusk till Dawn. Smith stated he saw him in the opening scene of that film and was blown away. When the scene ended with him being murdered, Smith thought, “Wait a minute, I want to see a movie about that guy.” Luckily, Tarantino and Rodriguez would resurrect that character in four more films after Dawn.

From everything I have heard, Parks blows it out of the water in Red State. His acting showcase is apparently a sermon mid-movie that last over 15 minutes.

I am beyond excited about this flick and am counting down the days to seeing it. In a couple of days, it will premier at the Sundance Film Festival. After that, I just have to hold out until March to see what Mr. Smith’s version of a horror film is.

One last note, I will say for those who are not horror movie fans, Kevin Smith insists this film is not an actual horror film. In his words, “It’s not a horror film; it’s just that horrific things happen.”

The Social Network

When I first heard about The Social Network I had the same reaction as a lot of people. “A movie about Facebook, how could that be good?” This thought was dismissed fairly quickly when I found out that David Fincher was directing it. I figured, if he is interested in this then there has to be a story there I don’t know about. I am a little biased about the movie do to my love of David Fincher. He has directed some of the best movies of the last 20 years, Fight Club, Seven, and Zodiac. Even his lesser films are interesting and always visually wonderful, Panic Room, Alien 3, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. So knowing Fincher was involved got me interested. Then I found out Aaron Sorkin wrote the screenplay and Trent Reznor was composing the films score. At this point I was pumped about, “that Facebook movie”.

The Social Network ended up being a lot more than just the Facebook movie.

At this point late in the awards season it is a little hard to write a review. The movie has been met with pretty much universal critical acclaim and won almost every critic award out there. So the big question is, does The Social Network live up to the hype? Yes it does, in every way this film deserves the acclaim it has received.

The story is told through a series of flashbacks occurring during two separate depositions. Mark Zuckerberg is being sued by his ex partner/best friend for the way their business relationship dissolved. Simultaneously he is also being sued by three ex Harvard students who claim he stole their idea when creating Facebook. The entire movie consists of a few types of scenes, people talking in offices, people talking in colleges, people talking around computers and people talking in restaurants.

Here is the amazing part; Fincher and crew make it completely involving and fast paced. The direction is tight and focused. The cinematography is beautiful to look at. The score by Reznor, is dark and layered and pushes the film along very well. The dialogue is Sorkin at his rapid fire best.  To top it all off, the acting is very strong. Mark is played by Jesse Eisenburg in easily his best performance to date.

Fincher gives us a film that is a great look at our desire to be connected. Zuckerberg is the best kind of protagonist. He is flawed, he is driven and he wants to change the world. It’s staggering to think when the movie begins in 2003 how much is going to change in the next few years. Facebook has become a part of a majority of American’s (and many abroad) life. It had a huge role in the last presidential election. It is practically unheard of at this point to have a business today that does not have a corresponding Facebook page. This movie shows that a few ambitious people with the right idea at the exact perfect time can change society drastically.

There is a scene towards the end of The Social Network, Mark has just delivered news to his partner that they have received a half million dollar investment. This is it, this is the dream coming true, they are on their way to importance, wealth and fame. Mark hangs up the phone and watches the party going on inside of his house. He is becoming important like he has always wanted yet he is still separated from the people he wants to connect with. He wants people to like him, this is echoed over and over throughout the film. He has created this social network that will supposedly connect us all yet he is still removed from the actual social interaction going on. He looks through the glass unable to connect or relate on an actual personal level.

Regardless of if you like Facebook or even care about Facebook this movie will work for you. It deals with the same themes that make all good stories. It deals with ambition, friendship, betrayal, and power. Fincher has crafted a film that speaks to us all. At this point I have seen the film twice and each time it has led to long discussions afterward about life, technology, business ethics and the future of our society.

Seriously what else could we ask for in a movie?

Tron Legacy

Jeff Bridges has had a long and interesting career. He has had hits and misses, Oscar nominations and iconic performances. He was the centerpiece of the 90's cult hit, The Big Lebowski and he most recently portrayed an icon from cinemas past, Rooster Cogburn. Sadly, around the same time the Coen Brother's, True Grit was about to hit theaters, another revamp was released. It has been decades since the Disney, video game film Tron premiered and now for some reason we have been given a sequel.

I suppose it makes sense that Disney would want a sequel. Over time Tron has become more fondly remembered thanks to nostalgia. Special effects have also come a long way giving the filmmakers more to play with in creating a more realistic universe. Fans of the first would love a chance to see the old light bikes and disc battles done in a more impressive 3D world. I have a feeling that most of the hardcore Tron fans out there have not actually seen the movie since they were kids. I would suggest letting it rest in their memories as it is not the cornerstone of cinema some tout it to be.

This new film, set years after the events of the first, is a mess. Its lead character, played by Garrett Hedlund is uninteresting, the 3D is not impressive, the plot uninvolving and most of all, it's boring. Boring should not be an adjective for a 3D/sci-fi/action film.

The story revolves around Sam Flynn, the son of the game's creator, finding a way to enter the world of Tron and his attempts to rescue his father (Bridges) who has been stuck inside for the majority of his life. There are plenty of loopholes and plot contrivances that have kept Bridges trapped all this time, none of which are very interesting. The story attempts to tackle philosophical issues but never seems to totally commit to it. It almost felt like it was a deleted subplot from one of the Matrix Sequels.

The biggest letdown of the movie was Jeff Bridges himself. He is an actor I admire and I usually love his work. Not this time though, he actually seems to be channeling his character, The Dude from The Big Lebowski a lot of the time. As if maybe after the whole rug mishap, he laid off pot for awhile and developed a video game world that he got trapped in.

On a positive note, the movie is very nice to look at for most of the movie. By the end I was over the blue, black and orange. During it's initial action sequences when Sam unwittingly becomes part of the games in Tron, I was quit impressed. The other positive note is the music. Daft Punk put together a really great score that does help move the film along when the pseudo philosophical psycho babble is carrying on far too long. 

Why The Wire Was The Greatest Show Ever

The Wire had the misfortune of introducing itself to the world not long after the September 11^th attacks on America. It premiered to a nation reeling from those attacks. We wanted entertainment that forwarded an ideal of America “the hero”. The nation that was the envy of the world, the right and noble that was honest and righteous. This was the same time that shows like 24 hit the airwaves. 24 was the embodiment of the American justice dream. It was a show with a protagonist who would stop at nothing to ensure the safety of our nation. Its hero, Jack Bauer, was willing to do anything to protect all of the vulnerable viewers tuning in every week to see the evil “other” punished for their radical attacks on our home.  

              The Wire operated on a whole different spectrum. It was not a show about the “other”. It was not about noble Americans fighting the evils from the outside. It was about broken people, with varying motivations, fighting the evils within. For five seasons, The Wire took viewers deep into the world of Baltimore crime and punishment.  It dissected the city like nobody initially expected, all due to creator David Simon’s vision for the show. He knew going in, that if he presented his entire idea to HBO, the show would never have been green lit.  He told the studio they were going to produce a police show unlike any other. Instead of a standard police procedural, that focused on a new case every episode, this was going to be an in-depth look at one long-term case that spanned an entire 12-hour season. The studio was confident in the Homicide creator and gave him the go ahead. Surely having co-creator Ed Burns, former detective, didn’t hurt either.

                  What HBO did not know was what Simon and Burns really had in mind. This wasn’t just a show about cops and criminals. This was going to be a methodically planned out and executed work of art that worked as a cross section of an American city in a post industrial, post modern world. It was going to explore themes of political corruption, the bureaucracy of law enforcement and the brokenness of our education system, the failure of media, and the war on the lower class. The show was ultimately about the structures America had built to protect it and how we had all ended up serving those systems. Throughout the show, the viewer comes to understand the dangers of attempting to turn against or change said systems.

            As mentioned previously this was not all present at first. The first season of The Wire was focused on the war on drugs. It revolved around one crime family in the inner city and the police’s attempt to bring them down through the use of wire surveillance. In this season, we were introduced to the first wave of what is possibly the best ensemble of actors ever brought together.  They were complex characters that blurred the lines of good and evil and operated in the grayness of reality. The cops, Mcnulty, Bunk, Daniels, Kima and numerous others, populated the fractured world of law enforcement. Meanwhile we met drug lords like Avon Barksdale, Stringer Bell and their street level workers D’Angelo, Bodie, Poot, and the tragic Wallace. On both sides we had people working in varying levels of nobility to get their piece of the American dream. Further graying the lines are two of the shows best characters, lifelong heroin addict and career police informant, Bubbles and gay-gangster/drug-world robin-hood, Omar.

            What seemed like a battle between these two sects became more complicated each season when another layer of the city was revealed to us. Season two introduced us to another group of people fighting for survival, the broken system of union employees that populated the port of Baltimore. Season three took us deeper into city hall and the justice system as we began following the mayoral race and one rogue Captain’s ideas about the war on drugs. Season four acted as an origin story. We were thrust into the school system and met the children that would soon be the players in the conflict we had been watching play out for the last few years. Season five ultimately introduced the media’s role by portraying the city’s dying newspaper and its role in shaping public opinion.

            While the show ran for five years it always struggled to find a large audience. It never reached the numbers of HBO juggernaut, The Sopranos, and the reason for this is simultaneously one of the shows greatest strengths and weaknesses.  The Wire never talks down to its audience. It does not go out of its way to explain things to you. In its entire run there was only one flashback used to remind the audience of something and that was in the first episode. David Simon was going to take his audience seriously and he expected the same in return. This wasn’t a show to watch while doing chores or balancing your checkbook. With a huge cast and several storylines, you had to pay attention. It was not a show you could just jump into midseason and appreciate. This hurt its ability to gain an audience over the course of a season. DVD really is the ideal format for this show, you can watch faster and be allowed to appreciate the many layers of the show. Watching it over the course of its run would have made moments in later seasons that were paying off things from the beginning of the first season, very hard to notice. Simon treated the show as a long novel. Each chapter slowly built on what had come before it. That way, there were not many single standout episodes. You have to judge it on its entirety, not its pieces.

The Wire is now over, but my thoughts on it are not. I will consider this entry as just an intro to what was the best show ever and end it now. I will come back every once in awhile to cover more of the show and build my defense for its greatness.

Catfish

Is it real? Is it fake? Were scenes reenacted? Is it overly manipulative? Was it scripted? These questions revolve around the film Catfish but I am not going to address them here. I am skipping them because the movie is entertaining regardless of its authenticity. This documentary is a very perceptive commentary on the world we live in today in relation to the social networks we use to feel more connected than we really are.

Disclaimer: This movie is difficult to review without spoilers. I will attempt to be as spoiler free as possible, but this may result in a vagueness I would not usually want to employ.

The plot revolves around three roommates: Nev, a photographer in his twenties, his older brother, and his friend. Nev’s older brother and his roommate decide to start documenting him when he develops a relationship with Abby over Facebook. Abby is an eight-year-old artist who begins painting his photographs. Through Abby, he develops an online relationship with many of her family members, particularly her older sister Megan. At this point, Catfish turns into a mystery that deals with identity, truth, and the ways we present ourselves to people in an increasingly alienating world. One of the film’s producers is documentarian Andrew Jarecki who made one of my favorite (and most disturbing) documentaries, Capturing the Friedmans.

The film’s first act is wonderfully edited. It only uses a combination of Facebook, YouTube videos and Google Maps to move along the narrative. The rest of the film is more of a traditional documentary following the three protagonists (the photographer, his brother, and their roommate) on a road trip to meet Abby, Megan, and the rest of the family.

Catfish has been referred to as “the other Facebook movie”. It is interesting that 2010 produced two well made, thought provoking films about the social network that is a part of so many people’s lives. The movie ends with a monologue that gives the film its title but it also leaves the viewer wondering how they should feel about the film’s protagonists and the film as a whole.

I highly recommend spending an hour and a half watching Catfish. It will give you plenty to think about and discuss.

 

Starting a Blog

At the urging of my wife, I am starting a blog about movies (and TV, when it is worth writing about). I am not sure if she wants me to write because she enjoys reading my thoughts or if she thinks it will reduce the amount of “movie talk” she has to listen to.

Either way, I have a blog now, Witty Film Geek. I will provide my views on the movie world and on the films I find time to see. Since it is a new year, I will do what most film fans do, spend the first two months of the year talking about movies that premiered last year. I want to start with the movies I deem “The Best Movies of 2010”. I figure there is no better place to start than with the movie I watched most recently, that also makes that “best” list, Catfish.