The Cruise

This black-and-white low-budget documentary focuses on garrulous guide Timothy "Speed" Levitch, who talks to tourists traveling on the Gray Line's double-decker Manhattan tour buses. Getting to the core of the Big Apple, the loquacious Levitch is a font of factoids, noting the residences of such past famed figures as Henry Miller, Thomas Paine, Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, John Reed, and Edith Wharton) as he delivers diatribes, spouts quotes, and offers opinions, revealing his love-hate relationship with New York City. Shot in video with a blow-up to 35mm, The Cruise was shown at the 1998 L.A. Independent Film Festival.