At The Movies

SERENA DONADONI

Special to The Jewish News

New York City tour guide
Timothy "Speed" Levitch
guides the audience
through "The Cruise."

T

hose who hate tourists, of
course, hate themselves, and
dislike their own curiosity
and their own ability to
wander," said Timothy "Speed"
Levitch, New York City tour guide,
man in perpetual motion, and the sub-
ject of director Bennett Miller's fasci-
nating documentary The Cruise, open-
ing today at the Landmark Maple Art
Theatre.
Playwright, raconteur, philosopher,
and repository of arcane knowledge,
Levitch is a tour guide extraordinaire,
regaling the passengers of double-deck-
er Gray Line buses with a highly per-
sonalized arsenal of information about
Manhattan.
While the bus
makes its rounds
to the usual
tourist destina-
tions, Levitch
conducts a stream
of consciousness
presentation that
mixes architectur-
al history, an
Director Bennett
encyclopedic
Miller
hopes that
knowledge of
viewers
get `!some
New York's
perspective
on their
famous residents,
own lives."
a puckish sense of

"The Cruise" takes its audience
on a wild ride.

humor and an unabashed love for the
quixotic city.
As Miller, 32, and Levitch, 28.
spoke via telephone from St. Louis,
they were happily caught up in the
whirlwind of a publicity tour, and anx-
ious to talk about a film — an experi-
ence — they both view as charmed.
With The Cruise, Miller aimed to
capture Levitch's mercurial spirit, to
create a "portrait" instead of a "biogra-
phy." This meant forgoing the kind of
background information, as well as the
usual voiceover narration, found in tra-

Woody Allen's "Celebrity"

ALAN ABRAMS

Special to the Jewish News

C

elebrity, Woody Allen's latest
directorial effort, opens with
a shot of a skywriter form-
ing the letters of the word
"HELP" high above Manhattan's tow-
ering skyline as the ominous strains of
Beethoven's Fifth swell from the
soundtrack.
Two hours later, the film ends with
that same scene. But what is in
between adds up to arguably Allen's
best film of the decade.
Although Allen doesn't appear in
Celebrity, Kenneth Branagh does a

11/20
1998

90 Detroit Jewish News

superb Allen-ish turn that will have
you blinking at the final credits as
you realize that, yes, that was the
acclaimed British Shakespearean actor
and director. Branagh is nothing short
of phenomenal. As is Judy Davis.
Branagh is Lee Simon, a writer of
magazine celebrity profiles who tries
to ingratiate himself with everyone
he interviews to advance his chances
of peddling a movie script. Imagine
that! Davis is Robin, his former wife
who finds a new career, a new life
and happiness with Joe Mantegna,
but continues to cross paths with
her ex.
Melanie Griffith and Leonardo

ditional documentaries.
"The film focuses on the kind of
information that you receive from an
individual in the way he expresses him-
self in the moment," explained Miller,
"from his body language to the words
he uses to what just naturally, random-
ly happens in his life."
As he rhapsodizes in The Cruise about
the terra cotta facade of a Manhattan
sky scraper, or rants at the injustices and
slights (real and perceived) inflicted on
him, it might be tempting to dismiss
Levitch as a mere eccentric.

Miller saw more. "For me, Timothy
represents bigger issues," he said.
"There are aspects to him that I identi-
fy with and find relevant and meaning-
ful on a personal level."
Residing in Manhattan without a
fixed address, "Speed" Levitch (a
high school nickname that's still
quite appropriate) views existence in
terms of his philosophy of the
"cruise": that the only constancy in
life is motion and flux, and that each
moment should be taken to its
utmost potential.
"In everything we do, there is an
expression of the infinite," Levitch
explained.
"I think there's a lot of Judaism in
my understanding of the cruise," he
continued, "just the pure love I have of
being mobile. So much of the cruise is
understanding perspective, and how
important perspective is to enjoying
this life. Isn't the Diaspora an ongoing
understanding of this?
"I live in an ongoing astonishment,"
he added, "so it makes it difficult for
me to be dogmatic. My fixation on
perspective leads me to the sensation
that if there's one thing I really oppose
in this life, it's just being enslaved to a
singular point of view."
Therefore, Levitch defines the "anti-
cruise" as anything that represents
rigidity and stagnation, whether insti-
tutionalized or self-imposed. The latter

on the surface, but in the
DiCaprio play
-5
(. long run, bittersweet, as
two of the
Branagh and the audience
celebrities
Is-
eventually discover.
Branagh tries to
Shot in glorious black and
22.
interest in his
white — Allen's first non- .
screenplay.
color film in six years — the
When
huge cast is studded with
Branagh isn't
memorable portrayals, even
attempting to
from those in cameo roles.
sell his screen-
Remember in pre-
play under the
Internet
times how everyone
strangest of cir-
gathered around the water
cumstances, he's Kenneth Branagh and
cooler to talk about Meg
trying to bed an
Winona Ryder in Woody
Ryan's famous "orgasm"
assortment of
Allen's "Celebrity."
scene in When Harry Met
beautiful
Sally? There's an equally classic scene
women, including Griffith, Winona
in Celebrity, which I predict will be
Ryder, Famke Janssen and Charlize
posted
on e-mails and Web sites
Theron.
everywhere. There's no way I can tell
The results are often hysterical

o

.