The Grouchy Editor

Is Exit Through the Gift Shop an elaborate hoax?  Is this “documentary” about street artists good enough to warrant excited speculation about its authenticity among the nation’s film critics?

The answer to the first question is … probably not.  The answer to the second question is … probably not.  For those who have not heard the movie’s backstory, it goes something like this:  Earlier this decade, a French immigrant to L.A. named Thierry Guetta turned his obsession with photographing everything into a more-specialized activity:  filming street artists at work.  Guetta was introduced to the mysterious “Banksy,” a British legend in the world of illegal street art.  In a neat twist, Banksy became the filmmaker and Guetta the artist, resulting in an art-world frenzy for Guetta’s work and this acclaimed documentary for Banksy.

At one point, street artist Shepard Fairey (who is not a fabrication) wonders aloud whether Guetta’s artistic pretensions are simply a con.  The enigmatic Banksy questions Guetta’s mental health.  And since the film’s release, the nation’s film critics are questioning their own grasp of reality — is this film a prank?  Did events really transpire the way we are led to believe in Exit Through the Gift Shop?

The movie is amusing — that’s all.  I did not leave the theater pondering any Big Questions:  What is art?  Is it in the eye of the beholder?  Has art become too commercialized?  No, I left the theater pondering the merits of the movie itself, which to me was mildly entertaining.  No more, no less.        Grade:  B

Director:  Banksy  Featuring:  Thierry Guetta, Banksy, Shepard Fairey, Rhys Ifans (narrator)  Release:  2010

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If there were any justice in the world, we’d all be learning a hot new catchphrase that would join movie chestnuts like “I’ll be back,” and “Make my day.”  And that catchphrase would be … “Close your eyes, kids!”

That line is senseless to the uninitiated, but I’m guessing it’s instantly recognizable to anyone who’s seen The Good, the Bad, the Weird, a Western joyride out of South Korea.  Yes, I said South Korea.  Director Ji-woon Kim’s film is a love letter to the Spaghetti Western that is both respectful and delightfully silly.

The story is about a whole bunch of bad guys trying to lay their hands on a treasure map in 1930s Manchuria. That’s pretty much all you need to know about the plot.  Here is what else you should know:  The movie is inventively shot, gorgeous to look at, and blessed with great performances.  “The Bad” (Byung-hun Lee) is a vain mercenary who struts about like Prince with bloodlust; “The Good” (Woo-sung Jung) is Korea’s answer to Clint Eastwood, and he’s featured in not one but two breathtaking action sequences that manage to reinvigorate that tired Western staple, the shoot-‘em-up; “The Weird” (Kang-ho Song) is on hand primarily for comic relief — and to utter the immortal “close your eyes” line.

Although the film is a bit on the long side (130 minutes), The Good, the Bad, the Weird is a screwball Western for people who think they burned out on Westerns a long time ago.      Grade:  B+

       The Good

The Bad      

       The Weird

Director:  Ji-woon Kim  Cast:  Kang-ho Song, Byung-hun Lee, Woo-sung Jung  Release:  2010

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Daybreakers is a vampire movie with a social conscience.  It’s a horror film that doesn’t settle for violence and gore; it also wants to make you think.  And that’s what’s wrong with the blasted thing.

As the movie unfolded and began to bombard me with allusions to 1) class warfare, 2) immigration, 3) vegetarianism, 4) capitalism, 5) conservation, and  6) the kitchen sink, I could picture the directors (two brothers again; what is it with all these sibling directors — do studio heads now demand them?) planning their DVD commentary.  No simple discussion of wooden stakes and garlic for the Spierig brothers.  Nope, they would discuss social issues!  That’s an admirable goal for a movie with just one hitch — a vampire film first and foremost needs to be scary.  If you get that part right, then you can discuss serious stuff on the DVD. 

(Confession:  I haven’t seen the DVD.  Perhaps there isn’t any commentary, but you get my point.)

I also kept thinking of another vampire movie I recently watched, called 30 Days of Night.  That film worked because it had a very simple plot.  A horde of scary-looking bloodsuckers descends on an Alaskan village and does battle with the townspeople.  That’s pretty much it.  Danny Huston plays a truly terrifying vampire, and not once as I watched him was I reminded of conservation.  Or immigration.

I’d go into the plot details of this film, but if you’ve seen I Am Legend, you pretty much get the idea.  A terrible virus or plague or something mutates most humans into blah, blah, blah.  Daybreakers, by trying to make big statements, is instead a pretentious little bore.          Grade:  C-

Directors:  Michael Spierig, Peter Spierig  Cast:  Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe, Michael Dorman, Claudia Karvan, Sam Neill  Release:  2010 

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Sometimes I wonder why England, Japan, Sweden, and other victimized countries haven’t united to file some sort of class-action lawsuit against Hollywood.  Tinseltown has an annoying habit of taking perfectly good foreign movies, stuffing them into the blender of American culture — adding car chases and rock music — and then spitting out unrecognizable glop it calls “remakes.”

Next up on the hit list is poor Sweden, which will see not one but two of its recent successes – The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and Let the Right One In – regurgitated by Hollywood.

Edge of Darkness, the Mel Gibson thriller newly out on DVD, is not a bad remake. It’s just incredibly mundane.  I haven’t seen the BBC Television series that the film is based on, but critical reviews of the time (1985) acclaim it as excellent drama.  The Gibson version has the same director (Martin Campbell) as the original series, so I guess this downgrade isn’t entirely America’s fault.

But a lot of people don’t give a hoot about old British miniseries.  They just want Mel to get mad, get armed, and get payback, all of which he does as a Boston detective out to avenge the murder of his daughter, who was out to expose criminal collusion between a nasty corporation and the government.  As if to remind us that another country once did this story much better, there is one sparkling performance in the new film – it’s the role of CIA agent Jedburgh, played by Ray Winstone who is, naturally, British.       Grade:  C

Director:  Martin Campbell  Cast:  Mel Gibson, Ray Winstone, Danny Huston, Bojana Novakovic, Shawn Roberts, David Aaron Baker  Release:  2010

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The genius of Wes Craven’s original A Nightmare on Elm Street was its ability to seamlessly transition between dreams and reality.  Was Susie awake, or was she dreaming and about to encounter the psychopathic Freddy Krueger?  This kind of cinematic sleight of hand was ideal for Hollywood; who better to create nightmares than the “Dream Factory”?

A Nightmare on Elm Street, current edition, gets some of this stuff right with its darkly surrealistic sets, but not often enough.  Instead, Samuel Bayer’s remake relies on two tired, tired horror-movie clichés:  the sudden, deafening roar/bang/shout/scream on the soundtrack, and/or someone abruptly popping up out of a dark corner of the screen.

I used to work with a fellow who would jump through the ceiling if you snuck up behind him and did one little thing – softly clear your throat.  I suspect that it would not have startled him if someone were to instead sneak up and shout BOO!  The mild throat-clearing told his subconscious two things:  Someone is right behind me, and he or she might have been standing there for a long time.  Very unsettling.  The makers of movies like Nightmare would do well to learn that subtlety can be much more terrifying than, say, a screeching cat.

Still, if you are 15 years old and have not seen a gazillion horror flicks, like I have, this Nightmare does what it promises to do:  provide cheap thrills.  Nothing more, nothing less.  I have noticed one trend in recent horror movies.  Back in the good old days (1970s-’90s), it wasn’t really a horror film unless there was at least one gratuitous nude scene.  Nightmare does have a bathtub scene, yet there is no actual nudity.  I don’t understand this.  If your film is already a “guilty pleasure,” why hold back?       Grade:  C

Director:  Samuel Bayer  Cast:  Jackie Earle Haley, Kyle Gallner, Rooney Mara, Katie Cassidy, Thomas Dekker, Kellan Lutz, Lia D. Mortensen  Release:  2010

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How important are a good story and likable stars to a motion picture?  Let me recount my experience at a screening of The Secret in Their Eyes, this year’s foreign-language Best Picture winner.

About ten minutes into the movie, the theater’s sound system broke down.  It was fixed, but five minutes later the soundtrack again malfunctioned, this time blaring Muzak at us over the theater speakers.  The problem was eventually resolved.  An audience member’s cell phone began ringing.  And ringing.  And ringing.  Later, someone else’s cell began chiming.  The third time this happened, there was a near-riot as other patrons ran out of patience, demanding the offender “shut it off!” 

When you factor in the inherent demands placed on an audience by an Argentinean, subtitled movie with a complex plot, it’s a wonder we didn’t all march out in a huff, demanding refunds.  Or at the very least attempt to lynch the cell-phone owners. 

That didn’t happen, which I believe is a testament to Secret stars Soledad Villamil and Ricardo Darin, a first-rate supporting cast, and a multilayered plot with great romance and a better-than-average mystery.  There are two puzzles in director Juan Jose Campanella’s story:  Will the characters played by Villamil and Darin at long last  — 25 years after first meeting — become a couple?  And who brutally raped and murdered a young bride in 1974?

Villamil and Darin, as justice department colleagues drawn into the crime investigation, bring such believability and maturity to their roles that, mercifully, I forgot all about those damn ringing cell phones.       Grade:  B+

Director:  Juan Jose Campanella  Cast:  Ricardo Darin, Soledad Villamil, Guillermo Francella, Javier Godino, Pablo Rago, Carla Quevedo  Release:  2009

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