Today's first Greatest Hits piece is one of our most widely read to date. In Film: The Cruise, Katie analyzed the refreshing philosophies of the great Speed Levitch, a city tour guide.
"The majority of people in America are used to seeing big budget films, with multiple characters and intricate plotlines. A documentary about a New York City tour guide who is essentially the only person to appear on screen is a huge departure from that. However, when that tour guide is Tim Levitch, and the result is The Cruise, what you have is a rare slice of New York eccentricity that would be difficult to fabricate in Hollywood. Levitch is an intellectual and a philosopher who happens to ride around New York City on a double-decker bus, pointing out landmarks to tourists. While there’s plenty of footage of Levitch explaining the finer points of the Chrysler building, what I most identified with are his many dissertations on the beauty of architecture and the oppressive nature of Manhattan’s grid plan."