Exit Through The Gift Shop, Grade A

Director: Banksy

Awards? none I know of--but it is still early in its life --YES is nominated for an Academy Award

cast: Banksy; Shepard Fairey; Thierry Guetta; Rhys Ifans; Space Invader; Jay Leno; Joshua Levine

sez says: What is art? Can the market place taint art? Is "Street Art / aka Graffitti" as valid of an art form as the "fine art" that hangs in a museum?  Who decides?  Does the market place determine the 'true value' of art?  All of this and ever so much more is tossed up for us to look at in this wonderful documentary.  It features a Frenchman who starts off with a video camera capturing every thing around him, obsessively recording life as he encounters it.  He eventually gets some focus and starts recording 'Street Artists" in action.  He watches them as they get public attention and begin selling their work for BIG $$  -- then he decides to make some art himself--or to hire people to produce images he wants made --and he has an 'opening' that is a gigantic event--hyped to the hilt--- and he becomes rich.  This makes the 'old school' street artists very uncomfortable---and we get to watch.  

mjc says:  What is art--is it cash or consciousness.

Emergency Mine Rescue, NOVA, (Grade B)

Directors: Kate Dart, Nick Evans, Tom Stubberfield

Topic: Rescue of 33 Chilean Miners 2010

This documentary begins in September 2010, following the August collapse of a deep spiral copper and gold mine in Chile in which 33 miners were trapped.  The Chilean government had announced it would takes months to rescue these men--and it promised to do everything possible toward that end.   The film chronicles the fate of the miners, and explains the multitude of challenges faced by both the miners and those working around the clock to bring them safely to the surface.  Via interviews with engineers, NASA experts, medical personnel, and key figures from the companies that provided drills and crucial rescue equipment, the film gives a detailed and scientific account of the events as they unfolded.  Even knowing the outcome in advance --the story manages to build some tension as you see the stress the participants suffer. It is a story of people doing what appears to be impossible and succeeding.  Uplifting stuff. 

DOGS: Decoded NOVA (Geade B)

Director: Dan Child

 TOPIC: DOGS

 "Dogs Decoded" says it is is going to tell us about "the science" that creates the bond between humans and dogs. Evidently dogs are now being taken seriously as a subject to study--and there is some pretty interesting information/ideas that are coming out of that.  An example is the genetics research that illuminate the origin of dogs. More interesting to me is the research that suggests that dogs have an ability to read and respond to human emotions. and that some humans, in turn, respond to dogs with the same hormone responsible for bonding mothers to their babies. Also, Dogs and wolves--while both canine--are NOT the same in their response to humans--no matter how hard humans try and create that bond.  Fun stuff...not sure it all qualifies as science.. but people in universities have begun to look at the relationship between humans and animals --and I am glad to see that trend.

The Vikings, NOVA 2000 (Grade C+)

sez says:  Vikings have long been portrayed as horned-helmeted barbarians. Well their helmets didn't have horns and their major accomplishment was that they were master boat builders.   This"Nova" episode shows the Vikings to have been civilized and sophisticated people. Startling new research indicates that the 8th century Norsemen were, in fact, also shrewd merchants, accomplished artisans and superbly creative. They traveled extensively and colonized large sections of eastern Europe, all the way to Constantinople.They also populated the British Isles, Northern France, Iceland and Greenland--and made their way into the Mediterranean.   Part of the time they were raiding, even more of the time they were trading--and regularly they settled and melted into the local population--often dominating.  You come away from this thinking they played a much bigger role in the history and peopling of Europe than is generally taught.  Interesting stuff. Fairly well presented--but no where near brilliant.

The True Meaning of Pictures: Shelby Lee Adams' Appalachia, 2002 (Grade B)

Director" Jennifer Baichwal
Topic Photography - manipulation of images

sez says: this explores some heavy philosophical terrain. Shelby Lee Adams, a photographer, who grew up in Appalachia, takes photos of people in the far-back hollers of Kentucky -- and presents those photos to the world via galley showings and books. He says he is just presenting these people to the world, as they are, and he is not exploiting them in any way. The film talks to many of the people who have had their pictures in his books,  and only a few have any problem at all with the pictures or with him.  But the pictures do, undeniably, perpetrate stereotypes about inbred simpletons who are immersed in poverty and misery.  The people in the photos are more complex than the pictures--and the pictures are sometimes rather shocking.  Did the photographer intentionally make the pictures shocking to sell the photos?  Are the photos art, or documentary materials?   Critics point out that he posed the pictures--and in so doing he makes them something other than documents--one man called them "Shelby Lee Adam's Picture Poems" -- and had no problem with them as 'visual poems' but stood firm against their being accepted as documentary photos. There are a lot of voices in this...and questions about morality, ethics, cultural elitism, what is art and more..are churning around the discussions. It is well done. (Grade B)   

Art & Copy, 2009 (Grade B+)

Director: Doug Pray
Producer:
Topic: Advertising

featuring Lee Chow; Cliff Freeman; Jeff Goodby; David Kennedy; George Lois; Charlie Moss; Hal Riney; Phyllis K Robinson; Ed Rollins; Rich Silverstein; Mary Wells; Dan Wieden.and others

this documentary explores the world of advertising and features a host of interviews with some of the biggest names in the business. Meet the talented minds who created tag lines forever embedded in the American psyche, including "Just Do It," "Where's the Beef?" and "Got Milk?" Hal Riney, Ed Rollins and many others share their insights. Used for fun and entertainment--in the name of selling stuff--and for insidious ends--like manipulating emotions and lying to get a candidate elected, the power of images and the right mix of just a few words can turn heads and shape our world.  This is really worth seeing.

The Spy Factory, 2009 (Grade D)

Producer Scott Willis & James Bamford
Topic: NSA / National Security Agency

this program  claims to exposes the NSA, an "ultra-secret intelligence agency" and its role in the failure to stop the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent eavesdropping program that listens in without warrant on millions of American citizens.  The program is alarmist, wanting you to hold your breath to hear what you already know --- that is, you know it if you pay attention to the news.  Yes the NSA operates in the shadows, and it may well be doing things that are 'unconstitutional' and we ought to be aware that it exists. So if you didn't know any of this, well then, this docu-drama will tell you these things.  But what it doesn't talk about is do we need this organization..and if so, how do we have an organization that can do what it does and also not have it cross lines pertaining to civil liberties.  This documentary both criticizes the agency for not being invasive enough (stop 9/11) and for being too invasive. So which is it you want?  We could use a serious discussion about this topic--but it is not available in this documentary.