Displaying Review 16 - 17 of 17 in total

• An ode to shallowism — for She's Out of My League
  Written by VierasTalo on 22.06.2010

  There are millions of films out there. In this vast spectrum of cinema, for one of them to stand out from all this gray mass, that movie certainly has to be different and unique, but it should also possess certain qualities to it. With comedies one such quality should be good comedy, and surprisingly, Jim Field Smith's She's Out of My League has just that. It isn't laugh-out-loud-funny, but it makes you chuckle sometimes with vulgar language and a few witty one-liners. If this would be the primary attempt of this film, to make people laugh, it would be an alright picture. I'd probably give it a mild thumbs up and wish Smith good luck with his next attempt in filmmaking. Comedy-wise, you can expect of this movie the same as you could from a new Judd Apatow-produced comedy, except without the working dramatic scenes.

  However, She's Out of My League does not want to make you laugh. Oh no. It tries to have a message in it. And boy, do they screw up with it. The film tells the story of an average joe named Kirk, who through a small series of random happenstances ends up dating with a big-chested blond woman named Molly. His friends constantly make remarks of how he is too ugly, insignificant and everyday for a woman who, despite apparently being a lawyer, has the IQ of a baby chimpanzee. Soon enough Kirk begins to believe in this himself, starting to apply a rating-system his friends use to value their own lives. If you've ever seen someone say that a person is, a five out of ten, or something of the like, you know the system. Certain things in your personality and looks give you higher points, and certain things take them out. A great ass and round tits guarantee you a good rating, whereas looking like the guy who plays WoW in his mom's basement gives you a rating as big as the one I gave this film. Little and meaningless things, such as personality comes in in the form of single characteristics, such as being in a band or owning a really cool car.

  I think we can all agree that the use of such a system to rate a person, even in the form of joking, is terrible, shallow, superficial and incredibly offensive towards those being rated and mostly a confirmation of how mentally disfigured those are who use it. I strongly believe this film should make a point of this. It doesn't. In the end, as you may predict, the system is thrown out the window. But the movie never discredits it in any way. It essentially says that for loose relationships, one night stands and for some, entire lives can be founded around it, rather than being wholly useless. You can call me a sentimental fool for essentially calling a film bad because I disagree with it's message, but come on. We, the human race, can not assert ourselves into this universe with the presumption that we can survive, let alone evolve, as a species if we base our very existence around the concept of superficiality and looks. She's Out of My League makes a point of this system not being good for Kirk or Molly, but being a very fitting way of life to some. This is a message that is simply inexcusable. If even some of the people in this world would live like this, we would have all died of disease long ago as the silicone-implanted Pamelas of the world would have taken over as captains of industry.

• Enter Through the Absurdity — for Exit Through the Gift Shop
  Written by VierasTalo on 27.02.2011

  In 1999, Thierry Guetta was a mild-mannered clothing store owner who had developed quite an obsession with filming everything in sight. He liked to do this in order to essentially validate his own existence. Transforming his life into film made him feel as if he existed, something he felt left out of as a child when he was not made aware of his mothers deadly illness until it took her life. That year marked a change in Thierry's life though. His cousin, under the pseudonym Invader, made and planted several 8-bit inspired mosaics made out of discarded Rubic's Cubes around town. One day Guetta joined him, and he never stopped filming again. For the last ten years, Guetta built up reputation amongst the street artists of the world. He was allowed to film them all at work because he claimed to be making a documentary.

  The truth, however, was completely different. Guetta had hundreds upon hundreds of tapes, all tucked neatly away in giant boxes inside his garage. He never intended to make a documentary. He just wanted to feel like he was alive. Hanging out with a group of individuals who the society had labeled criminals for vandalism, running across rooftops at night and putting up posters was the best way for him to feel alive. I don't believe he would've even needed the camera any more. Guetta still had one dream though. He wanted to film the elusive street artist named Banksy in action. The two met and befriended each other, and eventually Banksy left Thierry to edit the documentary he had been telling everyone would blow their minds.

  Six months later he had finished the documentary. Thierry describes his film making method to be almost like a lottery. He randomly picked out tapes from the boxes without knowing what was on them, and edited them all into an insane avant-garde epileptic seizure named Life Remote Control: The Movie. After seeing it, Banksy asked Thierry if he could get the tapes for himself so he could edit something together. Thierry agreed, and almost as a sidenote Banksy suggested Guetta should make some art of his own. And boy, he did. He sold off everything he owned in order to employ a crack team of Photoshoppers who he commanded to throw random colors and ink blots on top of known photos and art. He built massive hype around his art show, made a million dollars with unique pieces that he made spray painting prints with no purpose or artistic intentions. Then Banksy made this film, depicting everything that had happened.

  Much speculation has been presented over whether or not this movie is a "hoax." Is it fake or real? I argue it doesn't matter. Exit Through the Gift Shop is a satire, regardless of whether or not the events were set up. It defies the definitions of genre with it's very existence and I dare say we may never get another film that does it quite like this. This is why I described the basic events of the film to you. You can not point a finger at this film and call it a documentary to describe it. Labeling it as a single thing is counter-productive and false, as it is more than just one thing.

  At the same time Exit Through the Gift Shop is a very light watch and an extremely deep one. You can watch it, enjoy it, laugh at Thierry's tragic mania, but at the same time you're forced to do more thinking than any film about post-modern art I've ever seen. As the film revolves around not only Thierry Guetta, but also street art, one might expect it to explain this style of art. It does not. By doing so you're simply shown images of these wonderful pieces people have plastered and painted on the walls of our cities for years, and left without a set base to think about these pieces on.

  The film decisively intends not to explain a single thing about the art itself, which leaves you entirely on your own to think about what art is to you. It forces you to answer not just what you think art is, but it's meaning to you and especially whether or not you believe the relationship between the piece of art and it's maker has any stake in what you think of it. Even though simplistic, the art Guetta makes is viewed as fantastic by the people who visit his show, as they do not know he really doesn't know what he is doing, why he is doing it and how to do any of it. Should we condemn him for doing this, when really most of the other original and fantastic pieces of art seen previously in the film are nothing more than similar inside jokes of sort that only work in the way intended in the heads of their makers. Is Guetta's art somehow worse just because his methods of making it seem to almost acknowledge the ridicilousness of it all? There are even more questions the film raises, but these are all questions that each of us needs time to think about. The wonder of Exit Through the Gift Shop is that it is not just a hilarious character piece; it's also the most thought-provoking film I have seen all year and the wonder of it is that I don't believe there is a single grown-up out there who can't help but ask these questions when watching this movie. It forces you to ponder on your own relationship with art, and it does it in such a subtle and entertaining way that only afterwards you truly understand that you have indeed been duped into growing as a human being through these questions. What new film has come out in the recent years that have truly not only touched you but helped and almost forced you become more as a member of the human race? Exactly.