maybe one of the best things about it.

The Last Picture Show. i was pretty impressed with this as a time capsule film. no way i would've known it was a '71 movie if not for the credits. excellent directing (head-level shots all around) and acting from a lot of unexpected people kept me entertained. i just had a little issue with the motivation from ruth in the last scene in the kitchen. that didn't make sense to me.

Was talking about this movie last night with a street art/graf friend of mine. Apparently Mr. Brainwash just recently sold a piece (like within the last month) for $24k. Same friend recently sent his Banksy original over to London to be auctioned, and got what would be considered a very hefty annual salary for it. (btw, that canvas he had was given to him personally by Banksy-- he charged him $250 for it). That, to me, was the gist of the title of the movie-- a lot of these guys do it for the love of the art and the rush of being stealthy; Mr. Brainwash has co-opted that and is making tons of money off of it. So it's like being in the museum, seeing the real pieces on the wall, and then buying a cheap facsimile of it in the gift shop on the way out.

We talked a bit about Mr. Brainwash's "show." The thing about Banksy, and this is true... he doesn't really make money off of his art. Even the show he did in LA a few years ago, where the Jolie-Pitts bought some pieces... he wasn't at the show, he didn't organize the show, he didn't participate in the show. And who knows how much of that money he takes for himself, but a good portion of it would go to the event organizer, I'd imagine.

Also heard that Australia recently apologized to Banksy for "cleaning up" some work he did in 2003.
http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNew ... 20214.html

Watched Capitalism: A Love Story yesterday. It was OK and as a pinko commie liberal I agreed with most of it. However, even I had to admit it was bizarre how it talked about the evolution of the corporate state and went straight from Reagan to Bush and Bush the second, completely acting as if the Clinton years never happened, despite the fact that the charts with data supporting his theories showed just as much action in the Clinton years as any other time and so much deregulation taking place under Clinton as well as NAFTA. If you're gonna skewer politicos for being beholden to corporate interests, don't let ol' Bill completely off the hook, please.

And the Banksy movie in theaters this weekend and I was pissed I have not had a chance to get to it. Hope it hangs around next week as well.

But there's a part of me that feels like that's just the surface level. I don't want to spoil any of it for people who haven't seen it, but I felt like maybe there may be an added layer of commentary and deception there. Maybe not, but it's fun to entertain conspiracy theories.

btw, personally I think Shepard Fairey sucks, and that movie solidified why. Seems like a gigantor narcissist.

one of my friends loves him and even got an obey tattoo.

I laughed out loud when they first showed those posed pictures of him in the doc.

That said, what he did is sort of interesting. Can't really fault him for milking it as much as possible.

Really want to see this. Dunno if its playing in DC/Balto.

Have any of you seen:



Have it on my netflix queue. Dig Barry McGee.

Also, I just watched:



I really liked it, and it definitely should light a fire under some Christians' butts to get out there and do things. I really want to do a movie night at my church and show it. I'd like to hear what people who aren't Christians think of the movie.

Cyrus. this is one of those movies that relies a good deal on the idea that totally awkward situations are amusing. while that may be true in some instances, it certainly isn't universal. part of why some of those scenes don't work here is that they're toward the beginning before the viewer's had a chance to make a connection with the characters. then once the plot reveals, it kinda rolls through territory that the trailer sets you up for. eh, it's an interesting idea, but the execution has numerous flaws. i found the ending resolution to come about way too quickly, too.

Thrill... house?

Can't remember if I have seen this mentioned in this thread before. I watched this instantly on Netflix yesterday and found it to be really, really interesting. Kind of starts off in era of Mad Men when advertising became huge and continues into more modern campaigns like Nike, iPod, Got Milk?, etc.

we've never actually met, that i remember.

Interesting doc, I had no idea who Josh Harris was or what Pseudo was until this movie.

btw, if anyone wants to see a really intriguing doc about "street art" (or in this case, graffiti), rent "Style Wars." Not only is it an excellent documentary on street art, but also an excellent documentary on the whole inception of the hip-hop culture.

Just got done watching "Crazy Heart." Dayum. It was good, and for a change, fairly realistic in its ending. Life isn't clean and easy and doesn't always end the way you'd like it to. Contrast that with "Letters to Juliet," which I saw on Friday-- a complete Hollywood fairy tale.

I saw this and liked it. I like Objectified a bit more as it had more to do with design.

Cool, I'll check that one out

I'll have to check out Beautiful Losers which Flying Rabbit mentions above.

Finally saw "Exit Through the Gift Shop" & "The Secret in Their Eyes" last night...

"The Secret in Their Eyes" is practically a flawless film, IMO. I loved every minute of it. The soccer arena scene is absolutely incredible. The acting is subtle and excellent. Probably the best movie I'll watch all year.

"Exit Through the Gift Shop" was great as well. I didn't know much about the subject matter going in, but I just loved all the different ways to look at the idea of art from inside & outside the world of street art.

Oh, I also saw "MacGruber" over the weekend... it is what it is... mindless entertainment that actually exceeded my expectations and was quite humorous in several different places.

Rififi. Added this to the Netflix queue due to this very thread and got it sooner expected since my top three choices all had long waits. Took several attempts, and several weeks, to actually be able to sit and watch this, but once we did my wife and I both loved it. The silent heist scene, as mentioned earlier, was absolutely brilliant. Just a great noir movie. I need to see more of these.

The Fantastic Mr. Fox. One of those top Netflix picks we had to wait a little while for, I have to say it didn't entirely live up to my expectations. We really enjoyed it, and the set designs and everything were great. It was cool seeing Wes Anderson's style applied to a fully animated film, but it also just didn't work as well as it does in live action. Seeing stiffly posed characters composed rigidly in the frame is interesting and kind of fun when it's real people, but with animated characters that have stiff movements to match, it just seemed too flat and, frankly, amateurish. Stop-motion is always going to seem a little weird and stiff, but Anderson's animation director (I forget his name) clearly isn't a master of the form like Nick Park or Henry Selick. Most notably, the timing seemed off - generally rushed - in several parts. That's forgivable, but the story and the characters weren't as rich as The Royal Tenenbaums, Rushmore, or even Darjeeling. It was about on par with The Life Aquatic, I guess.

Saw this last Wednesday and really liked it. I had high expectations after seeing "A Prophet" the week before which was also up for Best Foreign Language Oscar. It lost to this. If I were voting I probably would've voted for "A Prophet" but this certainly deserves the praise it has gotten.

The dialogue moves pretty fast and I got lost a little and when they would flashback and forward. Still, solid murder mystery/love story.

saw exit through the gift shop this afternoon.
i found the first half insightful. it was fun to tag a long with the artists and watch the process.

the second half was hysterical. dude just through it all in a blender. the art world/market is mercurial. it doesn't make sense and can be empty and vile.
the art world is very different than art.

drinksys, i'm not sure what you found to be fabricated and unauthentic.

dana, why the sheperd fairy hate? most artists are narcissistic...it's how they manage to keep creating things that, to the rest of the world, seem to have little value or is considered a huge waste of time. (man, that's a bad sentence)

and i highly doubt that banksy sees little of that money. he needs quite a bit just to continue his work. elephants and cranes don't come cheap. the persona of banksy is a very ideal one. i believe a big part of that is the truth. it's the "through the success i receive from the outer world have i become one of them" paradox.

on another note: if anyone wants to read about the artists coming up in the art world i highly recommend, basquiat: a quick killing in art by phoebe hoban.

it's a well written and easy read about how he came up from being a street artist to a blue chip artist in the 80's. the chapters where he hangs out with larry gagosian (blue chip gallery owner) are criminal.

just saw Shrek Forever More with my two year old....she said, 'blah'...i wasnt as kind

Well it's just that a few of the people I saw it with and I were all kind of wondering if the whole Mr. Brainwash thing was real or if it was a very elaborate Banksy hoax. Or if the guy in the hoodie that was supposedly Banksy was really him, etc. Given Banksy's anonymity, how do we even know that he was really involved in this at all? It just seemed within the realm of possibility there could be a whole other level of prank going on in the movie. I read a review or two afterwards that seemed to make the same speculation. It's not a matter of it being "inauthentic" at all but rather being even more clever than it seemed to be on the surface.

Now I don't think that's the case anymore. There are a lot of people out there who insist that Thierry Guetta is very much real and that they've met him or even worked for him. There are supposed "interns" who claim to have gone through all those countless hours of Guetta's footage for Banksy. And of course, the artwork for that last Madonna greatest hits comp is credited to "Mr. Brainwash".

Great movie, though, either way.