The Parking Lot Movie (now on home video)

[THE PARKING LOT MOVIE is currently available on Netflix Instant View, and will be available on DVD on March 15, 2011]

Review by Bob Ignizio

In Hollywood movies, characters always seem to have glamorous or exciting jobs. They're CEOs, secret agents, police officers, prostitutes, mobsters, rock stars, fashion models, movie stars... that sort of thing. If a parking lot attendant ever makes it into a Hollywood movie, he's there for a comic relief bit part at best. But in Meghan Eckman's documentary THE PARKING LOT MOVIE, the parking lot attendants of the world (or at least the ones at the Corner Parking Lot in Charlottesville, Virginia) finally get a chance to take center stage.

As a bit of a slacker myself, I can easily relate to the overqualified individuals who staff this particular parking lot. They're mostly grad students from the nearby college, mainly from the anthropology and philosophy departments, with a few poets and would-be rock stars thrown in for good measure. It's a perfect job for these misfits, allowing them to more or less screw around and do what they want most of the time. But it's not all just fun and games at the parking lot. There are drunk frat boys and sorority sisters to deal with, and rich people driving $50,000 cars who balk at paying a two dollar parking fee. Puke, broken gates, and drive-offs are just some of the hazards of the job. 

I can's say that THE PARKING LOT MOVIE is an important movie, but it's an entertaining one about real people with real jobs. Sure, some of the employees come across as hipster assholes a little bit, but you try working at a parking lot in a college town bar district at 2am and see if you don't start getting an attitude towards your customers. If you've ever worked any kind of low paying job where you had to deal with the public, it shouldn't be hard to relate to the "us vs. them" mentality that can take hold. With Hollywood mainly concerned with delivering big budget fantasies, and many recent American “indie” films taking place in an upper class milieu that I find just as alien as anything in a sci-fi flick, it's nice to see a movie about people I can actually relate to. 3 out of 4 stars.