Waste of time

Too much of everything

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

The Parking Lot Movie (2010) *** (out of 4)Bizarre but entertaining documentary taking a look at a parking lot in Charlottesville, Virginia where we see the man who owns it and the men who run it. We get to hear their various stories but mainly we see what they do at their job, which is usually nothing as they sit around trying to keep themselves entertained while waiting for someone to cheat them. This is a pretty strange documentary but director Meghan Eckman spent three years on this project and it's certainly original to say the very least. I must admit that I didn't find too many of the personal stories very interesting. Perhaps had more time been devoted to the actual characters then this would have improved things but even at 70-minutes the film does seem a bit too long so perhaps not adding any extra scenes was good. What kept me entertained was some of the things that I was curious about. Every time I leave a parking garage I usually wonder about how much money they're taking in and about the person who might own it. It was fascinating hearing from the owner who talks about how he got in the business and how he hires people to look after the lot. Another interesting aspect was hearing the workers talk about how boring it was and we get to see some of the activities to keep them entertained. However, the best stuff deals with some of the rude customers and how the employees deal with them. Even better are the scenes dealing with people trying to get away without paying.

The underlying point that this feature-length documentary really drives home seems to be that, so long as your boss and coworkers are really cool, just about any gig can be your dream job. I kept hoping we'd see more of the attendants' interactions with angry, rude or ignorant customers, just to observe the new and interesting ways the staff would find to insult them, but the non-confrontational moments were entertaining enough to pick up the slack. A fun look at an interesting group of geeky, identifiable characters who care more about the liberties granted to their lifestyle than about getting rich with a high-stress job.

I admire gatherings of misfits, especially those who know they are nothing more than nerds, geeks, slackers, slobs, and loving brothers of such a strange and lonely tree house. The Parking Lot Movie appeals to the D+D player, the skater, the self titled hermit who holds some small sway over the flood of money, cars, and assholes which roll incessantly over us all small people. These parking lot attendants hold sway over those otherwise removed and privileged SUV driving douche bags in a delicious and terrible manner. Fine, who needs further fuel to fan the flames of their disdain for the sorority chick, the frat boy, or the soccer mom? No one, but you can't help but love these fantastically over educated, smarmy snidely lords of the lot. It makes you want to lose any drive, and sidle in with a group of smack talking punks of your own. You know you know them, or knew them, and you want to be a part of their lordship. It is as endearing as anything I've seen in the past year, and they don't pretend anything at all. It's just a fracking parking lot, yet they rule, and they all love it. Fun doc to watch.

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.