CITY OF SIN (2001), a 23-minute impressionistic portrait of New York City - not as it is, but as it was - when the Deuce was truly alive and not some fucking tourist trap. It begins with raw 1987 footage of 42nd Street, between 7th and 8th Avenue, during its grindhouse heyday, including long-shuttered theatres like The Harem and 'classic' fare like WET PANTY RAID. Then DiPaolo intercuts a 2001 stroll down that same strip of real estate, now populated by ugly chain restaurants and Disney advertising. It then expands into a dizzying montage of the homeless sleeping on the streets, XXX neon signs, peep show marquees, graffiti-covered subway cars, and whores brazenly hawking their flesh. Bobby Previte's score is appropriately edgy, and any New Yorker who pines for the good old days will relish this short, nostalgic vision.
City of Sin
Reviews