Standing by Yourself (2002)
- Directed by
- Josh Koury
- Genre
- documentary film
- Country
- United States
- Runtime
- 1h 05m
- Rating
- 8.0 of 10 from 1 voters
- Elsewhere
- IMDb
The catalogue in 3D
The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.
How it feels
A filmmaker's brother and his best friend are restless teenagers in a small New York town. They pass time with pranks and minor rebellion until one friend's escalating trouble with the law tears their friendship apart.
intimaterawmelancholicunsettlingreflectivegrittypoignantslow-burn
What happens
Standing by Yourself is a 2002 documentary that marked the directing debut of filmmaker Josh Koury. Set in Clinton, New York, a suburb of Utica, the film follows Koury's maladjusted teenage younger brother and his rambunctious best friend Josh, who share social and economic frustrations of living in a small town. They express their pent-up energy and anger through pranks, loitering and mild acts of rebellion, but their friendship is ruptured when Josh's behavior spirals out of control and he gets in trouble with the law. By the film's end, the once-inseparable friends barely know each other as they move into different social spheres. Koury began Standing By Yourself as a 20-minute senior project at Pratt Institute. The film was expanded to 57 minutes for presentation at the 2002 Slamdance Film Festival, where it was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize. The total budget for the finished film was reportedly U.S.$1,000 Standing By Yourself had its theatrical debut in New York in May 2002, where it received strong reviews for its harsh glimpse of alienated and seemingly self-destructive youth. Dave Kehr of the New York Times praised it as "quietly devastating" while Scott Foundas of Variety stated that Koury's work "has its finger on something particularly potent" and Donald J. Levit of ReelTalk Reviews stated "Koury's unsparing art mirrors life, and one must shudder for the future." Standing By Yourself played on the festival circuit in 2002, but did not have additional theatrical engagements. To date, the film has not been released on DVD. Koury went on to co-found the Brooklyn Underground Film Festival, and returned to filmmaking in 2008 with the documentary We Are Wizards. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)
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Shirkers (2018)- More like this film, on a shelf you can walk up to.It's the lit case on the top shelf.