The Parking Lot Movie

2010 "It's Not Just a Parking Lot. It's a Battle With Humanity."
7| 1h11m| en
Details

The Parking Lot Movie is a documentary about a singular parking lot in Charlottesville, Virginia. The film follows a select group of parking lot attendants and their strange rite of passage.

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Director

Producted By

Redhouse Productions

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Reviews

Rijndri Load of rubbish!!
Bereamic Awesome Movie
Lollivan It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.
Lachlan Coulson This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.
Mr Dead Yeah this movie was quite good fun. If you work in any service industry where people take you for granted and expect you are only there to serve them and put up with their attitude then you should watch this. It's good fun leering at a bunch of people slowly unwinding until some of them are nearly cracked up. After doing however many hours of sitting in the sun and taking sh*t off drivers all the time they basically can't let anything go. You have to admire their spirit but it's clearly doing their head in. Apart from that it likes to go on a lot about how clever they all are and what a brilliant wacky time they have. Hate to say it but the funniest bit for me was every time someone broke their barrier and you just heard that SNAP from round the corner and off they went racing to get their $35 off whatever drunk jock was trying to shag it or whatever. All a bit pleased with themselves really. Very entertaining. SNAP!
Kalle_it This documentary is just a one-hour long rant, the usual 'outcasts are better than you' cliché from indie movies.The guys working at the Parking Lot aren't really better than the preppies they dislike so much, and the tirade about rich and unpleasant daddy's boys and girls driving SUVs and making in one year the money the parking lot attendant will make in his whole life reeks of sour grapes, frustration and reversed classism.Sure, who doesn't despise arrogant jerks who live on daddy's money... but on the other hand it's not a good reason to be equally obnoxious. I can't see much difference between the annoying brats who, as the movie put it, "think they're hot *bleep* because they drive daddy's car" and the parking lot attendants who think they're hot *bleep* because they have a Ph.D. and feel they're rebelling against society.The parking lot attendants come off as pretentious, wannabe-intellectuals who try to pass off their shortcomings as a 'way of life', even as a voluntary exile from the 'outside world'. But in truth I find it hard to buy such idea... I can't help but thinking the whole thing is a self-comforting facade, a way to cope with unfulfilled expectations.At one point one of them say "you get paid to do nothing!", so it makes me wonder a bit... Are those overqualified intellectualoids working at the parking lot because it's a non-competitive job, where they're paid to sit and read or listen to music and goof around? Are they rebelling (in a pretty inane way) to capitalism or are they just a bunch of Peter Pans who refused to grow up and take responsibility, so they just live in their little world where they are Somebody and nobody questions them?To be honest I've always struggled to get the 'Slacker pride' many indie movies have celebrated over the years...As a whole, the movie is just boring and not remotely as funny as many reviews made it to be. I can't even relate to them, not because I'm a SUV-driving no-good frat-boy (which I'm not), but because if I'll ever find myself stuck in a rut like that, I would really struggle to feel so proud about it.The Parking Lot Movie is an exercise in self-importance, self-indulgence and unjustified smugness.An obnoxious manifesto of the underachievers who are proud to be underachievers (and afraid to prove themselves)Hell, if you're so smart and educated, quit that job and go earn thousands of dollars a month... So you can get back at the preppies on their own ground instead of making petty remarks while exerting your Parking Lot Attendant powers.
closesquarters Most of us have had unappreciated jobs... and so, can easily relate to the feelings of the attendants."The Parking Lot Movie" is not only a film about a parking lot, but also a metaphor to easily express the extremes of human nature towards one-another. Everyone has a dark and a good side. Funny how both faces come out in the most seemingly simplest of situations. Not only do we get to watch actual footage of these interactions, but the attendants (all well educated) explain their feelings to a fine point.It was also interesting to watch how the attendants spent their "down time," when the parking lot was slow. Games, painting slogans on the gate arm. "Idle Hands" are the parking attendant's workshop.Nicely done.
Tom This is a funny, breezy look at an odd little parking lot with an odd little crew of undergrads, grad, and grad students, all biding their time while pursuing their various interests. The lot is located near the University of Virginia and right behind a stretch of bars, which guarantees plenty of obnoxious, privileged, entitled jerks who drive $100,000 cars and are outraged at the thought of paying a couple of bucks to park them.The attendants deal with it all in a way that's quirky and funny. They're treated as the lowest of the low (some customers delight in pitching their payments on the ground; some just crash the gate) and giving out a little hostility as well.(One attendant always engages the emergency break when parking cars, ostensibly for safety but actually in hope that the driver will neglect to disengage it.)I saw this as an episode of the PBS series Independent Lens, and it looks like it was a somewhat edited version, as it ran under an hour. Still, I can't see how another 30 minutes of these proud misfits wouldn't be welcome.A good time, and a reminder that documentaries need not be too serious.

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