New Reviews: A Nightmare on Elm Street & Exit Through the Gift Shop

Dreamlite

Normally, I try to stay away from remakes as often as I can. I know that material can only be minded so many times. However, I can admit that some remakes can indeed equal or even be superior to their original films. To be fair, I was never expecting this film to exceed its predecessor in any way, but I did remain hopeful for a somewhat inventive re-imagining that could be a showcase for some great imagery and an interesting performance from a very talented actor. I was hoping for all of that. What I got was a film that hardly delivered on a single thing it attempted to promise me.

After eight films in his ubiquitous franchise, the steely-fingered Freddy Kruger gets a slick reboot from the same studio that provided the same treatment to Friday the 13th and Texas Chainsaw Massacre. You all should know the story by now: a group of attractive young people are getting hunted down by the disfigured gentleman with the metal claws, played by an inspired bit of casting by Jackie Earle Haley. This time around, Kruger gets more of a backstory and indulges in more "jump scares", but the basic premise of the first film remains the same.

I'll say at least this for the film: it's not the victim of sloppy filmmaking. In fact, there are often times when director Samuel Bayer, making his directorial debut, actually manages to create some nice imagery within the dream sequences and shows a great start at working with vivid visual storytelling. However, he, along with writers Wesley Strick and Eric Heisserer, soon let the film drown in a sea of overused jump scares and a plot that loses steam way too early. About halfway through, you realize the scares no longer have meaning, and despite the pretty images, the film actually becomes quite tiresome and boring.

Cluttering the cast, with the exception of Haley, are many unknowns that don't do much other than to fill the spaces. I don't want to paint the picture this young cast is untalented. In fact, there are often times when I was impressed by the glimpses of a better movie they were offering. Rooney Mara has the Nancy role here, and she does manage to provoke a fair amount of emotional weight for the film, while one her male friends Jesse (Thomas Dekker) also gives some credibility for the attempt at horror. Unfortunately, a lot of these characters are poorly sketched out and are just meant for window dressing.

Then there's Haley. I don't think I need to make the argument that Haley would seem to be a great replacement for Robert Englund. But the sad truth of it is that any actor could have played this role. Freddy is constantly treated like an afterthought, and the film never gives him the opportunity to showcase his true menace and even wit. No, this film is not funny at all, and in the end Haley becomes a completely wasted actor here; instead of turning in his own uniquely entertaining spin on an iconic character, Haley is reduced to standing in the shadows delivering ready made, prepackaged one-liners, which is perhaps the greatest insult the film bestows.

I suppose this goes without saying, but this is truly an unnecessary remake. It's too bad audiences that go for today's horror films can't have the patience for what they did in the past. Wes Craven perhaps didn't make a film as sleek or as "scary" as this one, but with a fraction of a budget, he was able to make something vastly more entertaining that managed to blend equally its horror and humor with a frighteningly mysterious antagonist. This one is just slick looking garbage making a promise from its filmmaker that better works might be in store for the future. Let's just hope that won't be another broken promise.

C

The Banksy Job

I'm constantly fascinated by the current booming interest in documentaries. What I find most interesting about them, in particular, is finding out which side of the story they fall on. We tend to take for granted the notion that documentaries are totally subjective works of art, when nothing can be further from the truth. Every film has an agenda, and just because you may go in with not script or trained cast, it still means that you're working on getting a message out there. That puzzle is what is most fascinating about Exit Through the Gift Shop, a film that keeps you guessing in the most entertaining way possible, which also manages to attach some interesting questions concerning the perception of art.

This is a film that takes on many journeys, as evident even by the first few images that show a wide variety of street artist that range from the articulate to the remedial. At first, this seems like a film dealing with the exploits of Thierry Guetta, a crazed Frenchman living in LA whose obsessiveness with filming everything in his life (which is a good excuse for a constantly recording camera) leads him to stumble into the secret underground world of street artists. He meets some big names, but the most famous of them is the mysterious Banksy, who is also billed as the director of the film. Thierry climbs deeper and deeper into Banksy's life that he eventually becomes a street artist himself (Mr. Brainwash) and abandons the documentary he was never really making in the first place.

Because Banksy is such a reclusive and well-hidden figure, there have been some calls to question the film's authenticity. There are several points where the film keeps you guessing what is real and what is fabricated, but the truthful answer is that it doesn't matter, and the guessing game is part of the fun. Whether this is all factual, all fabricated, or somewhere in between, there's plenty of insightful moments. Thierry, as the happy-go-lucky protagonist, always delights as a somewhat inept guide into a world that many people just discovered. His exploits carry humor and excitement, and his exploits with Banksy also shows us a very human side to this masterful artist (yes, I come down on the side that he's an artist), and it gives a lot of credibility to the piece.

But that entertaining side, done very well, is not the only great element this film offers. What is put forth is a great social commentary about how art is perceived in the world. By the time Thierry becomes his alter ego and puts on a grand and ambitious art show, there is certainly a sense that he is more a success in advertising than in product. Yet, even when Banksy gives him an ironic endorsement, most of the masses still flock to his gallery and pour loads of money into his artwork that doesn't show much effort. There's an interesting message here about the "purity" of art and how such art is perceived by the general public that latches onto all things hip and alternative. For a world that I just discovered, that is an interesting avenue to take.

Before this film, I had no idea who most of these people were, and I hardly knew anything about Banksy. After seeing the film, I feel like a have a bit more insight on him, but not much. But that's okay, because this film isn't trying to be about one man. The ambitions feel so much more than that, and we get a very well put together film that is highly entertaining, informative and provocative. This is a perfect example of what power a documentary can have, and is also the reason why I declare this the best film I've seen so far this year.

A