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Exit Through the Gift Shop

2010

Banksy

Documentary, Self: Thierry Guetta, Banksy

7.6

14,332

Documentary 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 with spectacular results. Billed as 'the world's first street art disaster movie' the film contains exclusive footage of Banksy, Shephard Fairey, Invader and many of the world's most infamous graffiti artists at work. No director or screenwriters are listed in "Gift ... [+]

	Author	Review
United States	Ty Burr Boston Globe	"One of the best, most karmically satisfying comedies of the year, much to the chagrin of the people who are in it."	POS
United States	Kenneth Turan Los Angeles Times	"Subversive, provocative and unexpected, Exit Through the Gift Shop delights in taking you by surprise, starting quietly but ending up in a hall of mirrors as unsettling as anything Lewis Carroll's Alice ever experienced."	POS
United States	Marjorie Baumgarten Austin Chronicle	"We can all agree that Banksy has found a new wall on which to plaster his art – that of the silver screen."	POS
United States	David Edelstein New York Magazine	"Narrated by Rhys Ifans with the dryness of a dessicated toad, Exit Through the Gift Shop is both an exhilarating testament to serendipity and an appalling testament to art-world inanit"	POS
United States	Elizabeth Weitzman New York Daily News	"Along the way, the movie documents a movement while deftly skewering a cynical media and ever-gullible public (...) Banksy's definitely found a new medium in which to create his own works of art."	POS
United States	J.R. Jones Chicago Reader	"Some have suggested that the whole story, including the emergence of Mr. Brainwash, is an elaborate hoax engineered by Banksy to satirize the commodification of art. If so, it’s a brilliant one."	POS
United States	Variety	"A raucously entertaining postmodern survey of guerrilla street art that appears to be one thing, only to fold back on itself and examine would-be filmmaker Thierry Guetta instead."	POS
United States	Carrie Rickey Philadelphia Inquirer	"A beguiling and subversively funny entertainment that considers art's worth from many angles, including that of guerrilla painters, gallerists, and seasoned collectors."	POS
United States	Noel Murray AV Club	"A documentary that doubles as a comic thriller, and it’s as entertaining as it is thought-provoking."	POS
United States	Michael Phillips Chicago Tribune	"The brilliantly untrustworthy documentary 'Exit Through the Gift Shop' reminds us that a film can start out in one direction and then change course so radically, it becomes an act of provocation unto itself."	POS
United States	The Hollywood Reporter	"Hugely entertaining documentary challenges conventional concepts of legitimate art and the creative process."	POS
	Roger Ebert	"The widespread speculation that 'Exit Through the Gift Shop' is a hoax only adds to its fascination. (...) Rating: ★★★½ (out of four)"	POS
United States	Joshua Rothkopf Time Out	"That rarest of art documentaries, one that actually leaves viewers with a better sense of the gifted versus the phony."	POS
United States	Anthony Lane The New Yorker	"'Exit Through the Gift Shop' feels dangerously close to the promotion of a cult--almost, dare one say it, of a brand".	NEU

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