Tuesday, May 04, 2010

Bank on this dude's brainy art

http://derekgrasman.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/andy-warhol-the-world.jpg
Before I get Maya off to preschool, I've got one quick review for a movie I simply loved.  My rating - a totally rare full A"Exit Through the Gift Shop" will probably not be a huge success.  But I am very glad that it got at the very least an art-house distribution deal.  I've actually spent the last few months waiting for this movie after not being able to catch one of its screenings as a part of the Sundance Festival in January.  We'd gone to Salt Lake City for what turned out to be the last weekend of the Festival.  I asked some people we were seeing (they were recruiting my wife for a job) if they could get tix for "Exit Through The Gift Shop" and they came up empty.  It had gotten some buzz, mainly because the central character in this small documentary on street art (translation: graffiti and the culture around it) is such an enigma.  That character is Banksy.  And what he does in the course of this documentary is turn the subject 180-degrees - making it a movie about the person that was supposedly making a movie about Banksy.  It's funny, incredibly engaging, great education for someone who's at best marginally aware of the story around the art, and just vague enough to let everyone have a ton of fun debating the movie afterwards.  I haven't wanted to recommend a movie this emphatically for ages and ages.  Lots of people won't give a rip.  But if you care even a smidge about how pop art is surrounded by idiots or how trendiness gets in the way of actual taste, you're gonna love it.  Go see it.

Hope your own school bus is leaving on time today.  Rock on.

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