New York Waiting

Take dialog twice as pathetic and predictable as real-life conversations. Add a plot vaguely reminiscent of, but infinitely less inspired than "Before Sunrise"/"After Sunset". Pimp colors and yank contrast for that coveted karaoke video clip look. Throw in random flashbacks, rendered in black and white lest we miss the fact they are flashbacks. Carefully scrap the screenplay of motivation until even the director can't seem to remember why Amy (Annie Woods) stays with her cheating schmuck of a boyfriend, and why Sid (Chris Stewart) cannot forget his lifeless spoilsport of an ex. What you get is "New York Waiting", easily this season's least inspired romantic comedy. And yes, I have seen them all. I believe this one went straight to DVD. Rightly so. It's the kind of movie that sounds like a great idea over the seventh beer and usually doesn't get made. For a reason. Spare no expense to avoid.

The cast was well-composed, consisting of talented new faces, the acting bravely filmed at close range, especially considering the (I'm sure) extremely restricted time allocated to make this film for $500,000. Some pans, cuts and single camera shots didn't work out, but the all-out intimacy of the close-ups paid off, and the acting made the movie.

And yes although the picture does have a scenario similar to Richard Linklaters, New York Waiting is not as glib. Paradoxically by providing the viewer with little biographical background on the characters Sidney, Amy and Coreen, their longing and sometimes misdirected need came sharper into focus than "Before Sunrise", and was in its nakedness more akin to Michael Schaeffer's "Fall" (1997).

Finally, an accolade for the original choices made in the soundtrack, which smoothly meshed with the film.

I saw this film at the Tribecca Film Festival. It was a great movie. None of the typical Hollywood clichés, or endings. It was thoughtful and beautifully shot. The flashback scenes in black and white were perfect. The soundtrack was phenomenal and i hope it get released as well. The acting was superb. The three leads were amazing. I especially liked the acting of Katrina Nelson! She is someone to watch out for. The director really loves NYC. The shots he used to portray the city were perfectly placed in the film. Even though the director is not from NYC, it really appears that he loves the city. I am a huge fan of movies that don't follow the typical Hollywood pattern, and this one did not follow the typical Hollywood pattern. I can't wait to see more from Hedem and the cast.

This movie is nice. I'll still save stronger words for other occasions.

I saw this movie at the Malmö Festival in Malmö Sweden. I was sitting at home, and I was getting bored, and had a look at what was happening - and I saw this film on the program. It was free, and I didn't have anything to lose (except I got wet from the South Swedish rain on my way there).

First, a positive surprise was that Joachim Hedén himself was there, and he introduced the movie with very few words, maybe he thought there were more like me - who didn't really know what they were about to see, and he wanted to keep the virginal feeling.

I was positively surprised: The movie had a simple story that was beautifully told, without Hollywood clichés, with sometimes surprising lines - "you don't say that in American romantic movies".

Some times I feel like familiar faces on the screen subtracts from the movie. The character is brand new to you - so why shouldn't the faces be? Personally I enjoy watching movies with actors I have seen nowhere before, and these have a very short track record. Any insufficiencies they may have in terms of inexperience is made up with this, IMO.

What strikes me the most about this movie though, is its very close resemblance to "Before Sunrise" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112471/) with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy: Boy meets girl for one single day. However, the basic setting for the movie is different, and it does take some different turns, maybe a little bit more complex story. But the scenes, the mood and the style of the movie are extremely similar. Nevertheless, if you like "Before Sunrise" you'll like this one.

This is a super slow badly acted (Amy) version of Before sunset, I would watch something else unless you have no choice. Watched an hour of it and then after waiting for some dialogue, decided to just call it a day and go to bed. Hopefully this will counteract the other rating which really paints this movie in a better light than what it warrants. There are some nice scenes of New York (presume it New York) but that does not make this film worthy of an hour and a half of your time. I am struggling to write 10 lines about this movie and that what is necessary for this review to qualify. I like the way that when making reference to things that have happened in the past the movie reverts to greyscale, really as if we are that stupid that we need this cue to realise, LOL