The Natural History of Parking Lots (1990)

User Rating:

7.0/10   

Director:

Everett Lewis

Writer:

Everett Lewis (writer)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

When a high school senior, Chris, gets in trouble with the West L.A. police for joy riding in stolen cars...

Plot Keywords:

Bathtub Scene | Shower Scene | Brother Brother Relationship | Gay Interest | Independent Film

Awards:

3 wins & 2 nominations

Cast

Charlie Bean	...	Chris
B. Wyatt	...	Lance
Eli Guralnick	...	Mrs. Porter
Roy Heidicker	...	Neo-Nazi
Sara	...	Kelly
Charles Taylor	...	Sam
Mark Williams	...	P.O
Dean Cleverdon	...	Cop
Robert Hudson	...	Mr. Foss
David Kinder	...	Detective
Richard Stretz	...	Mr. Stretz
Edie Zavala	...	Walter
Dennis Archambault	...	Judge
Douglass Coleman	...	Blood
Mike Huskey	...	Ivory

Runtime:

89 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Sound Mix:

Mono

Company:

Little Deer Productions

Soundtrack:

Los Angeles

Post Bruce Weber Rebel without a Cause?

Clearly influenced by `Rebel without a Cause', this is the story of a Chris who gets in trouble with the police. His absentee dad hires Lance, Chris's older gunrunning brother to `Baby-sit' at the rate of $2000 per week. Chris soon develops feelings for Lance and begins to clean up his act. These feelings are not entirely brotherly and Chris gets very jealous when he catches Lance in the bathtub with girlfriend Kelly.

In some ways this is a typical film school project with all the common errors, overexposed black and white `not-at-all steady' cam work, and under-miked dialogue (no ADR work) and overblown music. Characters have dialogue that is in no way motivated or in character with their personae. E.g. Toward the end when the money obsessed father is discussing his financial dealings with his son, his dialogue is definitely not finance savvy. Also there are obvious continuity errors. The police make Chris strip. Next scene he's still at the police station wearing different clothes than what he was arrested in (definitely NOT police issue)

The two main actors are attractive and the boys are constantly changing clothes, taking baths or showers and going skinny-dipping. I'm beginning to believe that the first lesson in any film class is `when the plot is thin show a little skin'.

Because of the obvious flaws, particularly the long stretches of unintelligible dialogue; I'm rating this movie lower than I normally would. It's a shame. I think that there was a good story here, I'm just not sure the film was able to tell it.