Foreign Parts (2010) Online

Shot over a two-year period by directors Verena Paravel and J.P. Sniadecki, Foreign Parts is a Frederick Wiseman-style slice of life centered on a rough and tumble corner of New York City known as Willets Point. Slated repeatedly for redevelopment, Willets Point is adjacent to Citifield, the recently opened ballpark that serves as home for the New York Mets. Some of the film's most memorable moments come via stunning long distance shots of the stadium, the opulence and magnificence of which contrast startlingly with the auto shops and junkyards of Willets Point.

Are the locals envious? Not at all: in fact, they're opposed, or at best indifferent, to Mayor Bloomberg's plans for the 'hood, which they consider gifts from the Mayor to his developer buddies. The Point's tight-knit working-class community (which consists of a potpourri of transients, ex-cons, drug addicts, down and outers, immigrants, and one — count him, one — permanent resident who's lived there for 76 years) is unimpressed by the glitter of Citifield or Bloombo's promises of new apartments and amenities. Foreign Parts is an elegiac salute to the stubborn spirit of backwoods urban America, and a reminder that you can still get great deals on windshield repair if you only know where to look.

Portrays a hidden enclave of auto shops and junkyards fated for demolition in the shadow of a new baseball stadium in Queens. The film observes this vibrant community of immigrants -- where wrecks, refuse, and recycling form a thriving commerce -- as it struggles for daily survival and contests New York City's development scheme.

How to describe this movie. At first I honestly could not tell if this was a documentary or a strange independent film. This seemed like something a rogue filmmaker would come up with, not unlike Richard Linklater's "Slacker" in certain ways. But yet, it apparently is real.

I cannot say I really liked or disliked it. There was no message, no political position. It was just a look into a world that -- for better or worse -- was about to die. In many ways, that is the best way to make a documentary, without an agenda. But sometimes when you have nothing to say, your film says nothing. Is this film mute?

This has to be one of the worst films ever made. How anyone can take it seriously is beyond me. The characters are completely uninteresting, there is absolutely no storyline, the hand-held is brutal on the eyes and stomach, the editing is practically nonexistent, the sound is bad, and a film that should have been 10 minutes long max rambles on for eight times that.

I have seen far better films from freshmen in film school with a $100 budget.

I am shocked that my local festival selected this film. Every person in the theater was shifting in their seats and sighing through the whole ordeal. Don't waste your money or your time.