Thursday, January 6, 2011

Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010)



The story of how an eccentric French shop keeper and amateur film maker attempted to locate and befriend Banksy, only to have the artist turn the camera back on its owner. The film contains footage of Banksy, Shephard Fairey, Invader and many of the world's most infamous graffiti artists at work.

This is one of the most entertaining documentaries that I have watched. It starts out following a french film maker as he enters the world of street art as it slowly starts to explode. He travels around filming various artists, until finally he meets the legendary Banksy. Reluctant at first, Banksy finally allows him to film him while he works.

This movie takes you deep into the street art world, something that has become immensely popular and that is around much more than you even notice. Banksy pushes the limits with his work and sends a message with each piece of work that he does.

The best part about this movie is that it is not only a documentary about street art, but it also shows the making of a monster. Someone who went from a nobody to a wealthy artist over night, but riding the backs of other people to get there.

This movie was cool enough just with the artists work to go see it, add in an interesting plot and you have a very cool documentary that most people will enjoy.


When to Watch Rating: Indie Film Mood


Coming Soon to DVD

Invasion of the Bee Girls (1973)


A powerful cosmic force is turning Earth women into queen bees who kill men by wearing them out sexually. 

This puts the Bee in B-Movie. I think this movie was just an excuse for the director the film girls topless, but none the less he got a movie made.  Strange deaths start to happen in a small town, populated mostly by scientists. A government agent is sent to find out what is happening. Only men are dying, and from sexual exhaustion.

We soon find out that a group of women, who I guess are actually bees sorta, are having sex with the men and killing them, and then turning their wives/girlfriends into bees. I suppose to take over the world.

The movie looks awful, the film was very underexposed so scenes are very dark which makes it tough to see whats going on when half the movie takes place at night. Other than that nothing really sticks out as being terrible, the script of course is very laughable, which is a good thing. Apparently the original writer of the movie Nicholas Meyer, who is writing the next Martin Scorsese movie, sold the script and then it was changed alot to be a very campy movie, so much so he tried to get his name taken off of it. Who knows, maybe if they would have made it his way it could be a classic movie.

As I said earlier, it seems like just a way for the director to film girls naked, especially the scene where they show the transformation into a bee.  Its what you expect when it comes to these type of movies, it will make you laugh, but it is disappointing about how the movie looks.


When to Watch Rating: B-Movie Mania

Available on DVD and on Netflix