Banksy Does New York

2014 - 4.5/5

I've been a fan of Banksy's work for a while now, and I remember being excited to watch Exit Through the Gift Shop when it first came out (in theatres).

Strictly Banksy related stuff:
So cool that he took up residence in NY for 1 month and added a piece everyday. Obviously this was pre-planned far in advanced and with the help of several people.

I think the message Banksy ends up sending in his art is just incredible. He ties his art into past and present events.

People steal his art and try to sell it, some people trying to charge money for it, some people try to preserve it. It was interesting to see how people went crazy and followed it.

It was so cool to see how the size difference between his pieces - some were small, others were on a much larger scale. Just fascinating.

When it comes to the actual movie:
I did not like how some of the scenes weren't edited out (the art gallery guy talking about House of Cards); not necessary and really stupid to add into this. And a few other parts that just did not belong. There were some people that were being interviewed that I thought should have had more screen time than other ones.

These are my favourite pieces:

The Hateful 8

2015 - 3/5

Going into this movie, having watched the trailer, I wasn’t 100% clear what the movie was about. Obviously John Ruth (Kurt Russell) was transporting his prisoner, Daisy Domergue to a town in order to collect his bounty. When they run into some weather issues and need to stay at a cabin with some other guys, that’s where this movie is a big on the vague side. The trailer doesn’t exactly give away what’s going to happen after.

So this movie is split into 6 Chapters. You blast through the first 3 in the first 30 minutes of the movie, but my goodness, it was the longest 30 minutes of my life (please note, I was using the words “blast through” VERY loosely. Pretty much every scene was sooo long winded. Not knowing how many chapters this movie had going in, and also knowing that this movie was 2hrs40mins long, I was expecting 25 chapters. After the 4th chapter ended I was scared to look at the time because I thought every chapter was going to be 10ish minutes, but feel like an hour. But when we get to the “The Final Chapter”, the 3 last chapters seemed to fly by. It was chapter 4 that things started to pick up.

This movie was incredibly dialogue heavy; and I was fine with that because I’m used to Tarantino movies and I know what to expect. It’s all build up to what will come. With that being said though, I can’t say that I was hooked on every word that was being said. Although I’m a huge fan of Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and Inglorious Bastards, I think that Django Unchained had the best dialogue.

As for the acting, well, Tarantino brings out the best in everyone. I had no idea that Channing Tatum was in this, and I’m not going to lie, but I’m glad it wasn’t for that long. That’s not to say he didn’t do a good job, and I can see that he wants to branch out from his typical romantic and now comedy rolls – but was he the best pick possible? Tarantino has repeat actors in his movies and it always works: Samuel L. Jackson and Tim Roth – stellar choices! I’ve never been a huge fan of Kurt Russell, but again, he is on point with everything.

Tarantino has a way of adding music to scenes that actually add to what you’re watching. And most of the time you don’t even realize that you’re feeling the way you feel because of the score that was added to the scene.

All in all, this movie started off a bit on the slow side with good dialogue. The plot wasn’t the most exciting thing ever, but it was worth the watch.