A Disappointing Continuation

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

The jacket might have said "Josh Pais has made an extended home movie that focuses on Josh, his mom and dad, Josh, his wife, his son, Josh, some folks in the neighborhood, and Josh. If you enjoy the format of home movies - family values, family scenes, weepy sentimentality, minimal editing, zany characters, unfocused interviews and a self-important voice-over - this movie is a must-see."But the jacket said that this was a documentary about 7th Street near Alphabet City NYC .... "Sundance" .... "riveting" .... "compelling". etc.There's an NYC street guy in it. Many if not most NYC street characters have a good story. This guy has an amazing story really. But Josh just plows through so that the editing and camera-work leave you feeling "Uh, and?"There's a showdown with a dangerous drug dealer. We hear about it through a self-interview right after the event happened. This should have been chilling, frightening, intense. Instead it was flat and boring.Many NYC neighborhoods have incredible stories. This could have been one. It isn't. It's just a lot about Josh and his family and friends. The only thing missing is a scene of his son with a birthday cake and frosting smeared around.Josh played one of the turtles in "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles." That's probably a good fit for him.

I feel so blessed to have been watching the Sundance channel when this powerful, yet delicate film began. Josh Pais took us to his home on 7th street in New York, where his heart lives. Where he grew up. Where his love for the ever evolving society of that street just grew stronger throughout the years, even as the street and it's residents faced destruction from the drug peddlers and all that follows them. I'm not good at telling the story, but Josh's love for humanity and tradition embraces all of his friends on 7th street, and those of us fortunate enough to see his graceful film. Dignity. That is what he gave to the faces and voices of the people he filmed who he spoke with, ate with, quietly sat with, laughed and cried with, who lived there on 7th street, in apartments, or in brown boxes in the alley. It made no difference, they all became the family of 7th street, NYC, USA. Where he and his wife are raising their son. The colors of emotion and reality that this film travels will exhaust you, and energize you. Maybe even humanize you more...it did me.

Although Josh Pais has done a masterful job of telling his personal view of 7th Street, he has missed including an important influence on East 7th Street from the late '80s to the present, notably Graffiti East 7th Baptist Ministry which has been a strong influence on the block between Avenues B and C for 25 years. Started in a rundown storefront near the corner of Avenue B, it has recently renovated the old synagogue in the center of the block and under the direction on Rev. Taylor Field has served the spiritual needs of the community as well as raised the awareness of diversity and brotherhood. At any rate, bravo for a beautiful portrait of a unique street--as far as it went.

I saw this on the Sundance channel and was incredibly impressed. This is a documentary of both Josh Pais's life, and the life of 7th Street, in Manhattan's Lower East Side. He interweaves his own life story with the history of 7th Street. Pais interviews old friends from 7th Street, and even if you don't know them, you grow to care deeply about them. Deeply. I was moved to tears by the end of the documentary. It was fascinating to watch the history of 7th street unfold before you -- what I call pre-Giuliani to post Giuliani. It went from being a Jewish enclave, to a hippie artist's mecca, to a dangerous drug area, to a Yuppie paradise whose rents are forcing all the old-timers out. It was so interesting to watch this in 2003, to watch people discussing the dangerous drug dealers in 1995, knowing what the people in '95 could have no way of knowing -- those dealers would soon be history. The people obviously think that the drug situation is eternal -- they have no idea what is right around the corner. The people represent all ethnic groups -- Jewish, Puerto Rican, black, Native American, white -- because that's what 7th Street was all about. Diversity. I am so glad Pais made this documentary. I spent a lot of time on the LES during my adolescence, and I actually knew and remembered some of the people he interviewed. I wish this were available on DVD. I would buy it immediately.