Exit Through The Gift Shop (2010)

Director: Banksy (sort of)

IMDB Page

Score: 8/10

Spot The Joke

-or-

In Which Your Reviewer Waxes Poetic On The Nature Of Art

Exit Through The Gift Shop is a film that I finally saw for the first time, despite knowing it by reputation for years now.  Even if you aren’t familiar with the reclusive street artist known as Banksy, you know his art, and you almost certainly know his name.  He’s one of the most iconic non-faces to ever meet the artistic scene, and his exploits blur the line between art, satire, social commentary, and gigantic social engineering prank-fest.  His reluctance to be seen or known is as famous as his tags, which makes this documentary a bit out of left field.

The problem in reviewing this documentary lies entirely in how much you believe in it.

If you take everything at face value, then Exit is one of the most honest and subversive documentaries in history, in addition to being one of the best-made and most entertaining.  It follows a bizarre French filmmaker-turned-street artist named Thierry Guetta, a man whose look, mannerisms, and outrageous naivete towards art would rival even the likes of Tommy Wiseau.  His compulsive habit (and I do not use the term lightly) of filming everything he sees turns golden when he stumbles into the world of street art and becomes the sole documentarian of one of the most secretive art movements in history.  Upon the art turning into a commercial success, Banksy approaches Thierry about creating a documentary that would truly show street art for what it is and the messages it tries to spread—but the result is so abhorrent and incomprehensible that Banksy effectively steals Thierry’s film while he’s out money-printing his way to fame and fortune as a big-time art dealer and creates the documentary about Thierry instead.

The major problem with this is that Banksy is a well-known subversive, who revels in using irony and back-biting sarcasm to mock his targets.  It’s this knowledge that effectively leans me into the camp that sees Exit as—perhaps—the greatest satire in film history.  If true, this means that Banksy set up the character of Guetta, enlisted his friends to make a false narrative and an entire art exhibition out of scratch, and hoodwinked all of the art world with barely a wave of his hand.

It all comes down to how badly you fear being caught out of the joke when the cards fall.  If you take the story at face value, then you get a documentary about how easily art can be faked.  It’s a story that explains in excruciatingly poignant detail why everyone hates having their little brother tagging around after them: it’s not that you hate him, it’s that you can’t really have fun doing what you do when you know that in the back of your mind, your little brother is going to screw everything up, and you’re going to have to cover for him as the fun ends for everyone else.  However, if you believe that the documentary is in fact a mockumentary, then you risk being the joke in yet another of Banksy’s social experiments, running circles around yourself trying to glean more meaning from art than is actually there.

Personally, I find it all slightly too much to believe—and yet I can absolutely see it all happening for real.  When you see the most uninspired, cynical, and derivative photos selling for millions upon millions in fine art auction houses, you realize that Exit really is only a fake documentary for the fact that it came out a few years too early to be true.

Maybe the joke really is on all of us.  Banksy has certainly shown no reluctance to put himself into the sights of his own jokes before, especially as he’s achieved commercial success in a medium that despises commercialism itself.  It’s an odd paradox, which might just be the brilliance of the whole thing, really.  In the film, one of the artists really lays it all out very well, when he says that “The more important [the repeated artistic motif] seems, the more people wanna know what it is, and it gains real power from perceived power.”

Despite it all, the film really does beg some major questions that any critic, art lover, or artist must at some point answer for themselves.  Can a true artist ever make a living off of his art?  Does street art really achieve its end goals, or do street artists even have a goal to begin with?  Just what is art, anyway?

I’ve never actually been a fan of Banksy’s art, if I’m being perfectly honest.  If you ask me (and since you’re reading this, I assume you do), I find street art to be in a very hard-to-define category.  I don’t really consider most of it art, in the Justice-Potter-Stewart-I-know-it-when-I-see-it sort of way.  To me, art is an interaction between the artist and the viewer.  In the same way that you can’t have a one-sided dialogue, art has to have an idea, and it has to convey that idea.  Street art wavers in most cases between True Art Is Incomprehensible and outright Propaganda, both of which I despise with all my being.  If your audience can not interpret the meaning behind your work on their own merits (and without you explicitly spelling it out for them and/or beating them over the head with it), then you have failed as an artist.  Even Banksy himself wavers across lines for me, existing as he does mainly on shock value to attempt to scare his viewers into thinking.

The Shamalayan-esque twist, however, is that Exit Through The Gift Shop might be better at delivering a message about art than even Banksy himself is.  Banksy has (or had, at least) reached a point where his name might have just been shouting out his own message, and taking a step back behind the guise of Exit might have given him just enough distance to let us all have a moment to think about art and what it can—and should—be for all of us.

Scores (out of 10)

Acting: 7

Story: n/a

Visuals: 7

Sound: 6

Enjoyment: 9

Overall Score: 8/10

The Karate Kid (2010)

Director: Harald Zwart

IMDB Page

Score: 7/10

A Great Remake Of A Classic

The Karate Kid (1984) is a classic, and for anyone like me who grew up in the 80s, it's more than just that; it's a landmark film that is part of our childhood. However, a truly honest person can admit that, yes, the original (and the sequels... *shudder*) does have its share of flaws. So how does the remake stack up? Actually, fairly well it turns out.

The '84 Kid is played by Ralph Macchio, and while he does an okay job portraying the character, he's not a great actor. In his debut star role, Jaden Smith shows considerably more acting savvy. More than that, however, the '10 character is just better written and casted. In the original, Daniel-san (Macchio) is a teenager, but played by a 21 year-old. Granted, he looks young, but at 17, you feel like he has at least some of the tools he needs to avoid being tormented, and with his antisocial behavior, it feels like two teens feuding instead of pure bullying. Dre Parker (Smith), however, is 12, played by an 11 year-old, and he is so much smaller physically than everyone else that you truly feel that he has no chance. He is totally outclassed and can't avoid the confrontation, so he fights back the only way such kids can: from a distance.

Once he learns martial arts, though, the difference really comes through. While more kids look like Daniel when they sport fight, Dre actually looks like a martial artist. His movements are more fluid and true to the respective art form. Supporting cast is hit-or-miss, though. The Kid's mother goes from a seldom-seen plot-prop to a brash, one-dimensional ham. Dre's mother (Taraji P. Henson) chews every bit of scenery she can find, and looks even more out of place than Dre does. Ali (Elisabeth Shue), the love interest in the original film gets swapped out for Meiying (Wenwen Han), a character who is much better for having her own passions and goals, and significantly less 80's hair.

In the original, the nemesis doesn't like Daniel fraternizing with his ex, but in the remake you get Dre running up against the cultural wall of her family and class, and it seems to make more sense. Trading out 84's Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita) for Mr. Han (Jackie Chan) is an upgrade, but no disrespect to Morita. While Chan has had many serious roles, he has trouble showing believable emotions (to Western audiences, at least), but he makes up for it by driving the hero with calm, Zen approaches and real, fighting skill. Mr. Han just seems cooler, somehow. Maybe it's the flaming mothballs. And while both have past tragedies, Mr. Han's reaction is more visceral and profound. Mr. Miyagi's almost feels like a footnote.

The titular Kid's displacement is given an upgrade in the remake. Instead of moving to the Valley, the small family skips an ocean and moves to China. Granted, this is a little silly (Karate isn't Kung Fu, etc., etc, blah, blah), because, you know, she's a single parent from urban Detroit and all, but it's glossed over quickly enough that you don't really pay attention. The added cultural vantage brings a LOT of additional weight to Dre's misery. The language is different, the clothing is different, and the customs are different. You can actually believe that our hero not only feels trapped by his new town, but by entire oceans as well. Most of the movie revolves around training, which most Western audiences think is boring, and most Eastern audiences think is vital. The original film feels more like a Rocky movie, which isn't a coincidence since they had the same director. The music, the actions, and the off-beat training methods are all similar. In the remake, the iconic (and very unrealistic) "wax on, wax off" scene is replaced with the equally inane, but more realistic, "jacket on, jacket off". The remake brings the feel of Chinese classics such as The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, where our hero not only goes through the torturous training regimen, but also learns the soul of martial arts. The original film seems like the training methods are just used to put fight actions into everyday chores (and get free labor!), while the remake seems more like Mr. Han really believes that kung-fu lives in every action we do. The training montages move from a jetty on the beach and a rowboat to an actual mountain-top monastery and Mr. Han's courtyard, and the scenery gives the remake a HUGE advantage.

Aaaaand, the big finale. In the original film, Daniel-san sees the Crane Kick performed, is told "If do right, no can block", and spends about half the film trying to learn it, meaning that of COURSE we'll see it in the finale, which brushes aside all the 80's silliness and makes you want to cheer. Dre's special skill comes out of nowhere and is never hinted at or shown beforehand. Both moves are equally stupid in a real fight, though at least Dre's is harder to see coming and can't be defeated by a stiff breeze.

In the end, I liked the remake better, though it was full of stupid music and had its share of awkward moments. The climax was given more situational weight, the acting was more believable, the scenery is jaw-dropping instead of just another shot of inner-suburb California, and the martial arts is given more weight and is beautiful to look at. I was disappointed that there were no hidden catch-phrase potentials in the remake, though. I would have given a lot to hear just one muffled "Give him a body bag, yeah!" from a bystander. It would have really brought the remake full circle, though it seems to give the original film enough dignity as it is.

Scores (out of 10)

Acting: 8

Story: 7

Visuals: 6

Sound: 5

Enjoyment: 9

Overall Score: 7/10