The response I had to “Casino Jack and the United States of Money” is akin to when I, or really anyone, watches a book-to-film adaptation, especially of a very popular book, like one of the entries from the Harry Potter or Twilight series, a film made knowing that most of the fan base will be showing up to opening night. Depending on whether or not you’ve read the book your response to the movie will differ. If you have, you are able to fill in the blanks and connect all the plot lines and character motives that they had to cut out in order to make a 600+ page book into a two and a half hour movie. If you have not, then you can feel lost as you gaze into the plot holes, and as the movie progresses, the ability to track becomes much more difficult with an unfamiliar story line. Also if you fall into this second category, the inability to suspend disbelief is often accentuated because you will not feel as close to the characters as those who have poured over ever jot and tittle of the writer and it will therefore be up to the director to explain why you need to care about this person, about their story and about this film. If you leave the film and don’t care about what happened and what happens next, the director had not done his job. Watching “Casino Jack,” a documentary about Jack Abramoff, fraudster and lobbyist, I felt like I had not read the book and, furthermore, the director did not do his job.

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[/caption] Banksy is a British graffiti street artist. His art is known throughout the world, however his identity is, even now, a complete mystery. The art he creates is often satirical; often taking jabs at government and popular culture. One of his pictures, “Naked Man” is a painting of a naked man hanging outside a window while inside a wife is shown in a state of undress and her husband is searching around for her lover. This picture was painted on the side of a sexual health clinic. That’s his style. There is a specific stenciling technique that he incorporates which is sometimes accompanied with graffiti writing; sometimes rats are shown; they are most times holding signs, balloons or paintbrushes. He has held various exhibitions, mostly in England but one titled, “Barley Legal” was held in Los Angeles. It created controversy due to an art piece containing a live elephant painted from head to toe in children’s finger paint to become the literal “elephant in the room”. As can be discerned by his many efforts to keep his identity a secret and because he instead prefers to let his art speak for itself, Banksy is clearly not in it for the fame. This movie is not about him. Not really.

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