Two documentaries on two very different artists: Cutie and the Boxer follows a temperamental Japanese painter (who literally boxes paint onto canvasses) and the complicated love story with his animator wife. “Ricky Jay: Deceptive Practice” follows the famed magician, card shark, historian of magicians, and student of con games and artists Ricky Jay, but even though Jay’s expertise borders on the shady, he’s never anything but the most disciplined of operators.
Cutie and the Boxer…A nice, pleasant film that won’t exactly blow up your world with new revelations the way any documentary about an artist should. Scenes of domestic bliss between “Cutie” and the “Boxer” eventually stall out the pacing of the film, and that’s a problem for a movie that is barely 80 minutes long. The best moments come courtesy of Cutie’s excellent, soulful drawings of their anything-but-fairytale romance. Grade: C+
Deceptive Practice…Ricky Jay might be a fascinating smooth operator (he’s played con artists in a lot of movies, and you’ll recognize his legendarily scruffy face—-he looks like a slab of roast beef—-if you look him up), but this doc doesn’t prove it. As Jay keeps rambling about very specific magician history that only a few people will find interesting, you begin to see a lonely, socially awkward kid who really, really liked magic growing up more than a hustler who can teach us some tricks of the trade. Worth watching for those already initiated and interested in Jay. Grade: C+
All in all, neither of these films probe deep enough to the type of art these two examples practice or why someone would be naturally drawn to slamming paint onto a canvas or be a gifted illusionist. I needed a bit more of the twinkle that artists carry in their eyes to spill into these docs…