There is graffiti and there is street art, and you will know the difference by the end of the opening credits of the new movie at the Cable Car Cinema. Exit Through the Gift Shop is the work of British street artist Banksy who remains disguised and anonymous throughout the film; he is not however the subject of the movie. The focus is on a manic Frenchman and his unlikely career arc, throwing the dubious world of contemporary art into high relief. RISD grad Shepard Fairey is featured and quite likeable. But is the movie itself another Banksy art prank? Even The New York Times can’t/won’t nail that one down, but the movie works either way.

Ultimately, wondering whether “Exit Through the Gift Shop” is real or not may be moot. It certainly asks real questions: about the value of authenticity, financially and aesthetically; about what it means to be a superstar in a subculture built on shunning the mainstream; about how sensibly that culture judges, and monetizes, talent.

It’s a wild ride with unpredictable turns and lots of laughs (Banksy is rather droll it turns out). It was a hit at Sundance and also tonight at the Cable Car Cinema. (I really like it when audiences applaud movies, it’s so irrational.) As an added incentive, the theater is raffling off two of these cool posters every night, and I swear to God, this unequivocal “see it” was in no way influenced by the fact that I won a poster myself. (NYT review)

(Side note: The Cable Car Cinema will be closing on June 4th for remodeling and renovations. This may take about ten weeks.)

Join us as we view this 55-minute documentary portrait of the Hmong community from 1982 followed by a talk and discussion with co-director Peter O’Neil as he explains his recent work documenting his subjects over 20 years later.

The film explores the challenges of several Hmong individuals and shows some of their involvement with the local community. It documents how weddings, funerals, shamanic ceremonies, rock bands and soccer games were done during the early phase of Hmong settlement in the United States.

This is week two of a four-week series called, “Common Threads: From Vietnam to Iraq”, co-sponsored by The Office of Public Engagement of RISD and The Swearer Center of Brown University. The event is hosted by The Genesis Center. Click here to see photos from last week’s pandau exhibit at RISD. For more info contact Mike Ritz at mike@gencenter.org

Free screening and discussion, 6:30pm to 8:30 pm, Thursday, Jan. 29th, Center for Integrative Technology, 169 Weybosset Street

The first trailer for documentary filmmakers T. L. Hurley and Nick Marcoux’s Happy Endings? about the infamous and legal spa/massage/prostitution industry in Rhode Island, has been watched over 100,000 times on YouTube in the past two months, and a second trailer has just been released. The doc follows several “characters” involved with the trade; spa owners, workers, clients, even Mayor David Cicilline and Representative Joanne Giannini weigh in on the issue. From the trailers, it seems like a well made film, except for a few comically voice-altered interviews with some of the workers and proprietors. Although the film seems to exist only in the form of these two trailers for now, let’s hope it gets released in a full format sometime soon.

Happy Endings official website, YouTube trailers