Haunting the Web Since 1999
“‘Mass Effect is a tremendous property ripe for translation to the big screen,’ said Thomas Tull, Chairman and CEO of Legendary Pictures. ‘Mass Effect is a prime example of the kind of source material we at Legendary like to develop; it has depth, compelling characters and an engaging back story.’” In probably inevitable news, Mass Effect is coming to the big screen, with a script by Mark Protosevich (I am Legend, Thor.) Eh, I’d be happier just to see an earlier release of Mass Effect III.
Ostensibly a documentary about the world of street art in the post-graffiti era, as well as the found story of an artist of dubious talent’s meteoric rise to stardom, Exit Through the Gift Shop, as the name implies, is also a complicated and funny disquisition about the overlapping and almost impossible-to-disentangle spheres of art, commerce, money, and popular taste. Given’s Banksy’s statement on the second day of his 2007 Sotheby’s auction — “I can’t believe you morons actually buy this s**t” — there seems a very solid chance that Gift Shop is a well-crafted put-on. (Is he ‘aving a laff?) Whether he is or he isn’t, Exit is a pretty fun ride, and it definitely gives you an urge to get out there and create something.
Narrated throughout by Rhys Ifans, our story begins with one Thierry Guetta, a French shopowner and family man living in Los Angeles. Thierry, it seems, is one of those possibly-genius, more-likely-just-plain-crazy strange birds that tend to gravitate toward the City of Angels. His particular inflection of weirdness: He starts carrying around a video camera with him everywhere he goes — work, home, the bathroom, the streets, you name it. He doesn’t watch any of the tapes, mind you — he just records them. Having lost his mother at a young age, Thierry is now obsessed with capturing ever single iota of his existence on film, so no moment is ever again lost…like… tears…in rain.
As you can imagine, this constant filming drives everyone around Thierry to the point of distraction. But his hobby gains focus when, on a trip to Paris, he discovers his cousin is the one-and-only Invader, a street artist filling Paris and the world over with Space Invader mosaics. His interest piqued, Thierry soon plunges head-first into this hidden world of expressive ne’er-do-wells and hit-and-run artistry, thanks to a connection made through his cousin: the now-famous Shepherd Fairey. (As an aside, Fairey hails from Charleston, SC, not-so-far down the road from where I grew up, and I and a goodly part of my high-school class spent most of 1992 and 1993 festooning the Palmetto State with his Andre the Giant stickers.)
And so Thierry becomes the video chronicler of an underground movement (or the video recorder, at least — the tapes just pile up in boxes at his house.) But his menagerie of street artists is missing the prize catch: Banksy, the wily, witty British stencil artist known for elaborate stunts like painting up both sides of the West Bank Wall. Having a secret identity and all, Banksy is a hard man to track down, but the obsessive Thierry is not one to be deterred. So, when Banksy comes to town to do some work (and put on a show), Fairey makes an introduction. Indeed, Thierry even manages to gain the reclusive artist’s trust after helping put a Gitmo detainee in Disneyland, and the rest is history.
Ah, but our story is not over yet. Y’see, Banksy finds out about all the tapes, and asks to see Thierry’s movie. Thierry…isn’t so good at making movies. So, while Banksy culls through hours and hours of raw material, he suggests Thierry go have some fun, maybe make some art somewhere. This poses a new challenge for our OCD hero, and Thierry — now remonikered Mr. Brainwash (MBW) — takes it on his inimitable fashion. The result: A ginormous art show in LA entitled “Life is Beautiful”, teeming over with crappy, lowest-common-denominator pop-art that is half-Warhol, half-Banksy, and pretty much all sloppy and derivative. And, as sure as spring follows winter, people love it, Mr. Brainwash is everyone’s favorite new flavor, and Madonna commissions him for an album cover. Wow, this being a street artist thing is easy!
Or is it? It’s an open question whether Mr. Brainwash is another elaborate Banksy hoax, and if I had to bet on it, I’m thinking — despite Shepard Fairey’s protestations — the fix is in. (We never actually see him create anything, and, while I don’t think he himself is Banksy, there’s a reason Thierry looks so much like Tony Clifton.)
But, in the end, as one of Banksy’s co-conspirators says in Gift Shop, who’s the joke on? Mr. Brainwash is now a millionaire, and a lot of people spent a lot of money on his mostly uninspired and pedestrian works. But, you know, they seem to like them…so what does that tell us about what constitutes good art in the first place? Banksy never breaks character or show his cards here — He just lets the story play out and lets you think what you want. And say what you will about Banksy and his possible protege, they earned my $10 with this merry, subversive eff-you to the art world, the Sotheby’s crowd and any would-be arbiters of artistic taste. If it is a grift, and I think it probably is, Exit Through the Gift Shop is nonetheless an open-ended and very enjoyable one.
“The Force is with you, young Skywalker…but you are not a Jedi yet.” Today marks the 30th anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back, pretty easily my most formative film, and one of the main reasons I still love going to the movies every weekend. (Two of my earliest very-vivid memories are seeing the Empire costumes on display at Harrods before the opening — who is this Boba Fett character? — and later going to see Empire near Piccadilly Circus, with a big Vader billboard overhead.)
The quote above is from my 1997 review of the Special Edition re-release, and what I said then stands. For thirty years now as of today, I’ve been aspiring to be a Jedi, Zen-master, and/or scoundrel, in the stuck-up, half-witted, scruffy-looking nerfherder sense. Eh, one out of three ain’t bad.
Sorry Coolio…After some consideration, director Paul Greengrass opts not to take a Fantastic ride with James Cameron. (Suffice to say, the pedigree of the script — Shane Salerno of Armageddon — is not great.) Instead of Fantastic Voyage, the new rumors are Greengrass is thinking of heading for a remake of Treasure Island instead, although that too seems like a weird fit for him.
For that matter, I can’t figure out the point of making this sort of Robin Hood in the first place. On its face, what we have here is one part superhero origin-story, a la Batman Begins and Casino Royale, and three-parts “the real story behind the legend,” like Troy and King Arthur. To which I say yet again, why not go Liberty Valance with it and just print the Legend? Sure, when it comes to actual, honest-to-goodness events like The Alamo, I prefer the historical approach. But this is Robin Hood — wHy sO sEriOUs? Do we really need all these grim, earnestly realistic, edutainmenty muckrakes through the fiction and folklore of the past? Who enjoys them?
In its favor, Robin Hood doesn’t feel as notably bereft of its legend-y elements as Troy-without-Gods and King Arthur-without-wizards did. Still, the movie is so committed to its Serious Purpose of telling-the-untold-story that, even with occasional flashes of Chaucerian ribaldry — like Von Sydow happily noting his rare “tumescent glow” and Little John (Kevin Durand) insisting he’s “proportionate” — the tale feels mostly robbed of its usual vagabond charm. Simply put, these Men are not Merry. As such, this iteration of Robin Hood ends up feeling a lot like Ridley Scott’s last well-intentioned-but-plodding historical-siege epic with high production values, a cast of hundreds, and no pulse: Kingdom of Heaven. (FWIW, I’ve never seen the much-hyped director’s cut of Kingdom — I saw the deeply boring “Two Towers-knockoff” theatrical version.)
To be fair, the tendency of Robin Hood to read 21st-century mores back into medieval Christendom works better than the exact same failing did in Kingdom. (For one, Robin Hood always was a wealth-redistributor and subverter of authority, albeit not a teabagger. For another, Robin’s nemesis King John really did sign and renounce the Magna Carta. As for Maid Marian turning into Eowyn…well, Joan of Arc‘s only a few centuries down the road, I guess.) But otherwise, Kingdom and Robin Hood are pretty much two peas in a pod — Both are well-made, well-meaning, historically-minded bores.
Given the general lack of inspiration here, one has to wonder what happened to Nottingham, the Robin Hood film Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe said they were making, where the famous tale would be told from the Sheriff of Nottingham’s point-of-view (and where Crowe would be playing both Robin and the Sheriff.) Not only does that sound like a more intriguing project, but, let’s face it, Crowe is more of a Sheriff-of-Nottingham kinda guy. As it is, he’s too grim and lumbering to bring much magic to this Sherwood Forest (and, yes, his accent is all over the place.) Yes, Crowe can be a very good actor at times, but he’s just miscast here. (Fwiw, the Sheriff is now a foppish, throwaway character in this telling, played for laughs by the most recent Mr. Darcy, Matthew MacFadyen.)
Still, others fare better. As Marian, Cate Blanchett handles some really clunky writing with her accustomed grace. Mark Strong, late of Sherlock Holmes and Kick-Ass, adds yet another rogue to his gallery as French-loving mini-boss Sir Godfrey and, while his motivations don’t make much sense, he’s still a presence onscreen. I thought Oscar Isaac (who with Strong is a Ridley Scott veteran from the under-appreciated Body of Lies) was particularly solid as the spoiled but not entirely clueless King John.
And, along with the aforementioned Max Von Sydow, the venerable Dame Eileen Atkins is on hand as Eleanor of Aquitaine to give Robin Hood a further touch of class. (In the debit column, Mark Addy is actually fine as Friar Tuck, but, every time he showed up, he made me wish I was watching Red Riding instead. And, for whatever reason, I just can’t take William Hurt seriously anymore. He’s hammier than Walken to me.)
Still, the acting here can’t deflect attention away from the fact that Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood is misconceived in fundamental ways. To take another example, the movie begins and ends with two large battle setpieces. First, a French castle is besieged by Robin and the army of King Richard the Lionheart (the seemingly ubiquitous Danny Huston — hey, he does gravitas for cheap!) on the way back from the Crusades. And, in the final reel, Robin and varied English forces try to repel a French invasion in a big and rather nonsensical beach battle. (Question: Why have Robin — an archer — lead a cavalry charge right into the thick of the battle, particularly when the English were already busy decimating the Gauls from the high ground with arrows? Ah, yes, for movie purposes.)
Sure, both of these battles are well-shot and well-executed, as one would come to expect from the director of Gladiator and Black Hawk Down. But why are they even part of this story? When did the tale of Robin Hood ever involve large-scale warmaking, or, for that matter, the 13th century version of Saving Private Ryan? Here’s the thread: Bandit steals from rich, gives to poor, makes merry, meets Marian. Rinse, repeat. That’s all you gotta do, people. The story of Robin Hood has endured for centuries now — You don’t have to improve on it or muckrake it to death. Just tell the darned thing well.
“‘Robert Duvall is one of the greats, no question – and he can ride a horse!’ laughed Gilliam. ‘And Ewan has gotten better over the years. He was wonderful in The Ghost. There’s a lot of colours to Ewan that he’s not been showing recently and it’s time for him to show them again. He’s got a great sense of humour and he’s a wonderful actor. He’s wonderfully boyish and can be charming – when he flashes a smile, everybody melts. He wields it like a nuclear bomb!“
While currently busy with The Damnation of Faust for the English National Opera, Terry Gilliam reveals he has a cast ready for his second attempt at The Man Who Killed Don Quixote: Robert Duvall and Ewan MacGregor, in the Jean Rochefort (Quixote) and Johnny Depp roles respectively. Shooting begins this September.
“You get to monkey-swinging and things like that and you can blame it on the writer and you can blame it on Steven [Spielberg, who directed]. But the actor’s job is to make it come alive and make it work, and I couldn’t do it. So that’s my fault. Simple.“
While on press tour for Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps, Shia LaBoeuf offers a public mea culpa for the misfire that was Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. “I feel like I dropped the ball on the legacy that people loved and cherished…We [Harrison Ford and LaBeouf] had major discussions. He wasn’t happy with it either.”
“The festival was over and the boys were all planning for a fall.Part of the problem is Casino Jack is a maddeningly mercurial sort — and unlike the recently-released Ney, the soon to trial DeLay, chastened aide Neil Volz, and others, he and “Gimme Five” kickback co-conspirator Michael Scanlon choose not to go on the record here. So, right away, there is a cipher at the center of this ostensibly biographical story. And even more problematic for the film’s narrative and structure: Casino Jack had his fingers in a lot of pies, and if there was any way to game the political system somehow to make money, he was on the case. In short, this is one long, twisted, and convoluted story.
And thus, Gibney is left with the ungainly task of trying to explain how Abramoff turned Northern Marianas sweatshops into a bribe farm for GOP congressmen, and how his shady, playing-both-sides kickback operation gamed Native American casinos. Not to mention how his phantom think-tank on the Delaware coast was in fact a money-laundering outfit. Or how the seemingly Mob-connected takeover of a fleet of Suncruz casino ships — and the murder of its former owner — went down. And, amidst all this, how Abramoff managed to move up the GOP food chain by throwing his money around, and was depressingly successful at it. This is all not even withstanding weird tangents like Red Scorpion. So, while Gibney does an admirable job explaining the details of these various operations, he has to jump through so many hoops to get it all down that the Big Picture often gets lost.
I’m probably being a little too hard on this doc, if only because I went in with very high expectations. I was hoping Casino Jack would be more of a concise and devastating prosecutorial brief about the plague of unfettered money in politics, but it’s more broad and meandering than that. (And, to be fair, whenever you take a subject this broad, there will be some meandering — See also Why We Fight.) Still, as I said, even if the high-level connections aren’t quite nailed down, Gibney does a good job of nailing the specifics of each particular grift — the sweatshops and casinos and whatnot. And, coming across with the nerdy charm of a more buttoned-down, politically-minded version of R.E.M.’s Mike Mills, author and ex-Republican Thomas Frank (The Wrecking Crew, What’s the Matter with Kansas) is an appealing interviewee throughout, and he enlivens the discussion considerably.
Speaking of Frank’s ex-GOP years: If you already knew the contours of this Abramoff story (and I suspect most of the people who bother to see this film will), perhaps the most interesting part of Casino Jack is the first half-hour, which chronicles the old College Republican days of friends Abramoff, Grover Norquist, and Ralph Reed. And from Reed’s penchant for outlandish stunts at campus protests, to Norquist’s unabashed admiration for Leninist tactics, to Abramoff et al’s abortive attempt to engage the Third World in their free-market fundie ways, it’s seem as if the young Reagan Right of the ’80s were mainly just a cracked-funhouse-mirror version of the ’60’s New Left they so despise. (This is also in keeping with what you might expect from books like Rick Perlstein’s Before the Storm, about the ’64 Goldwater campaign.)
Still, as we move into the present day and these young conservatives fan out into the political system, Casino Jack and the United States of Money unfortunately gets its overarching message muddled. Is this movie about the former (Abramoff) or the latter (the U.S.M.)? Is Casino Jack a uniquely well-connected criminal mastermind, or, worse, the clearest expression of a political system overwhelmed by cold, hard cash? It’s true the answer to this question may just be “yes,” but the documentary can’t seem to decide at times if it wants to skewer Abramoff (and, by extension, his “unindicted co-conspirators”) or catch bigger game — the whole rotten system — and as a result, both sorta end up writhing off the hook.
At one point, Casino Jack gets caught up recounting the exceptionally douchey e-mail traffic between Abramoff and Scanlon, which is fun and all. (The best laugh in the movie is when the beach bum lifeguard running their Delaware front operation turns out to be savvier than these two would-be Masters of the Universe: “Uh, you’ve been putting this all in e-mails?”) But, even as we delve into these sordid details, the scarier implications of the Abramoff story feel shortchanged — that not only does this pay-to-play stuff seem business as usual for the Dubya White House and DeLay ring, but worse, that this monied corruption festering at the heart of our republic is both legal and even institutionalized.
And so, when the Citizens United fiasco comes up at the end, it unfortunately feels like a bit of a non-sequitur, rather than the sad culmination of the story we’ve been told for two hours. Casino Jack and the United States of Money is an able attempt at muckraking, but, to my mind, it fails to capture the true horror unfolding here: Jack Abramoff may be languishing in prison right now, and for many, many good reasons. But the mess of a system he thrived in is still right here with us — and if anything, after Citizens United, it might soon be getting worse.
In the trailer bin, aspiring Senator Matt Damon thumbs his nose at Fate — as represented by Organization Men John Slattery and Terence Stamp — by wooing ballerina Emily Blunt in the new trailer for George Nolfi’s The Adjustment Bureau, based on a short-story by Phillip K. Dick and also starring Anthony Mackie, Shohreh Aghdashloo, and Michael Kelly. (This is not to be confused with Information Adjustments, although they do share the same sartorial sense.) Hmmm…maybe. I just hope it’s more A Scanner Darkly than The Time-Traveler’s Wife.
