Rating: 
Summary: The actors had no prior acting experience:Realism 100%
Review: A very best film by Giannaris that explores an ethic Greex-x(can) minority in Athens. The film win many awards and it is perceived one of the best experimentak films of 1999. A powerful, raw film about a group of outcast teenagers living in Menidi, a predominately Greek-Russian suburb near Athens, Greece. I saw that film in LA and I was suprised. This is want I really like. It has the elements of action, love, crime and mixed traditions. 100% u have to watch!
Rating:
Summary: The actors had no prior acting experience:Realism 100%
Review: A very best film by Giannaris that explores an ethic Greex-x(can) minority in Athens. The film win many awards and it is perceived one of the best experimentak films of 1999. A powerful, raw film about a group of outcast teenagers living in Menidi, a predominately Greek-Russian suburb near Athens, Greece. I saw that film in LA and I was suprised. This is want I really like. It has the elements of action, love, crime and mixed traditions. 100% u have to watch!
Rating: 
Summary: Well... this flick put me "On the Edge"
Review: For all GLBT lovers of film: be warned! This film is not what one would suspect! "Picture This!" did a bit of injustice to this film with press releases and other descriptions... (I regret that, because all of the other DVD's I have purchased from this company were *excellent* and got 4 or 5 stars upon review). That said: This film will not give anyone of Gay persuasion any comfort... in fact.. it will be most repulsive. The "previews" that suggest any gay alliances between friends are, to be blunt, betrayed... save for a single character, whose fate I will not disclose. The main character of the film IS a hustler, but he hustles women from Russia. AND... he has a downright nasty attitude toward anything "gay". (To a friend he states his opinion regarding gay sex... once or twice is OK but after that, you are a "faggot"). This, coupled with an absolutely horrible remark by another character (pimp of women) about how Russia deals with "gays" (by slitting their faces at the corners of their mouths and beating them up (plus stuff I will not mention here) until "by their screams, their smiles eventually go from ear to ear") was a true repulsion! But I have to admit: The film is raw and "does not seek a morality" (as a review on the DVD case stated).... though I certainly willNOT GO AS FAR as to say that it is the "Greek Version of "My Own Private Idaho")... (I honestly don't even want to pick the brains behind THAT review). The cast is gorgeous (if one is looking for eye-candy) but the plot just rambles... and the editing leaves much to be desired! (Particularly the last two minutes of the film were a nonsensical jumble with a series of short 10-15 second scenes with a black out between each)... It almost seemed that the director had too much on his mind and had to sum up all that was said (and unsaid) in the first 70 min. of this film in a series of shots that tried to conclude things in a rush... not that any film needs a definate conclusion, but this film just ended as if the producers and director ran out of film! There were some moments I could relate to, but they were few and far between the confusion of thought in this film. And I will admit that the actors were all believable in their characters, though it seemed necessary for almost every character in this production to be as vague as possible, save for a few. The best moments of this film dealt with subjects that were sub-plots of the way this film was represented in press releases... the death of a friend by drug overdose, the yearnings of two characters to be loved by their "patrons"... some pithy moments, to be sure, but not enough to carry the whole film! Also.. I found the comments made by some characters to be somewhat out of the times.... but I may be totally wrong on this issue... but be prepared for Anti-Russian, Anti-American, and other comments that may just perturb you (Example: Chernobyl: "The Americans sent a nuclear bomb there") Of course... the comment was made by a teenage male, probably largely ignorant of world events.. but one has to wonder what the director of this film was up to! Being as objective as I can be: If you wish to purchase this film because you are going to get a great film about Male hustling... then look elsewhere! (Try Viktor Grodeki's MANDRAGORA... so much more indightful and passionate!) It wasn't a terrible fim... but it wasn't what I expected based on the reviews of critics and press by "Picture This!". So I give it a "3".
Rating: 
Summary: Greek Salad with Russian Dressing
Review: Gather a cast of 8 or 10 fairly good looking people who speak Greek and (poor) Russian put them in front of a camera...Don't even try to solicit a decent acting performance out of any of them but give them each some unrelated dialogue to speak...add a bunch of drug scenes, some greek instrumental and house rock music, add some kick boxing scenes and some "flashback effect" scenes of a bunch of kids in a field...
Then cut up everything you film...toss it up in the air... and splice it together randomly...
You would probably get a better film than this!
Rating:
Summary: so good... I am amazed!
Review: It is one of the best films I ever saw. Good cinematography, excellent photography, lyrical music, fantastic actors and another side of Athenian life that you don't know it. Well worth it to see. Collectors Item 100%.
Rating: 
Summary: An alternative viewpoint...
Review: OK, so this movie tackles some important issues, and not on the glossy streets of LA, Sydney or London - but on the grimey streets of Athina. Still, this movie is lacking in a lot of things. It appears that they have settled for any guy who was capable of speaking Russian and Greek who had a good body and was willing to play a 'queer'. (I might add here his Russian was awful - though I know not of his proficiency in Greek) His acting scenes were horrid! - especially when Sasha had to talk to camera in his 'interviews!' Even so the film had a great concept, some (I mean some) great camera work, but the movie never takes hold, and just never kicks off the ground. A good attempt by the director, but they should have had a few more goes before releasing internationally. As always, best to get it yourself and make up your own mind. However if you are after light-hearted time (it never claims to be), after a perve, or after an extremely memorable experience: go do the dishes instead. On the other hand: if you want to just 'watch a movie' well hey why not? :)
Rating:
Summary: A truly riveting film
Review: OK, yes, the packaging is deceiving. I guess they decided the film wouldn't sell on it's own merits. Too bad they didn't trust what the film makers and actors created. That said, I found it truly a riveting film. But you do need to put aside any American gay political correctness or it could be upsetting, as an earlier reviewer aptly noted. But the incidents noted by that reviewer are not in-your-face or gratuitous. They fit the story and situation. It doesn't have the polish of what passes for filmmaking in the US. But it's edgy roughness is what makes it engaging. I tend to judge a film by whether I give a damn about the characters and what they're going through. This film delivered on that score. I also expect it to stand up to repeated viewing.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing, Interactive and really Wild..................Enjoy!
Review: The film takes an unsparing look at the lives of a gang of Pontian immigrants from the former USSR, returned, after centuries, to their motherland, Greece. 17-year-old Sasha, sharp, streetwise and ambitious, is the leader of the gang. They roam Athens, hang out in clubs, hit brothels and cruise the city streets making a living from petty crime and from selling their bodies in Omonia Square, not so much human traffic as human cattle. Adolescents hungry for adventure, they dare to challenge the great city that sprawls seductively at their feet. Using all the means at their disposal, they stop at nothing. It centres on Sacha (Stathis Papadopoulos), an ethnic Greek from the Black Sea area whose forbears were ethnically cleansed by Stalin and who returned to Greece from Kazakhstan in 1990 following the collapse of the Soviet Union, speaking a Greek-Russian hybrid. He and his contemporaries get by with casual jobs, turning tricks with older Greek men, doing drugs - and Sacha gets involved in the exploitation business, buying a "share" in a desperate Russian prostitute, with whom he falls in love. Set against the parched, unforgiving landscape of suburban Athens, Giannaris's film is humid and clamorous, dramatising the incidental human aspect of these huge historical forces, while showing how weirdly ignorant of history his characters are. Sacha and his friends at one point argue about what happened in Chernobyl and agree it was where America dropped the atom bomb. There is something a little naive and redundant about the movie, with more than a few urban youth cliches - but there are interesting moments as well, particularly Sacha's surreal dreams, both of his own childhood and of his future traditional Greek wedding, enacted in a strange, silent cornfield.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing, Interactive and really Wild..................Enjoy!
Review: This is not a film about "gay life" as it has been fashioned in the United States, nor is it about gay "political correctness," nor was it intended as a love letter to the U.S., Russia, etc. If you can deal with those facts it's a damned good film. The film is about the world of men prostituting themselves to women and men. It is not about what American gays have sanitized and romanticized as "hustling." It's a tough film about a tough life, and the cultural background and values are not South Beach and Palm Springs. The film techniques and the milieu that is portrayed have more in common with the post-WW II films of the French and Italians. Yes, there is "eye candy," in "Apo tin Akri tis Polis" but there ain't nuthin sweet about this film, so if you're looking for a soft warm fuzzy flick on selling [sex] with hints of soft core porn here and there go elsewhere. However, if you can stretch beyond the parochial limits of "American" and "gay" you may enjoy this film despite the fact that it's not a walk in the spring rain.
Rating:
Summary: Great film - but certainly not about the American "gay life"
Review: This is not a film about "gay life" as it has been fashioned in the United States, nor is it about gay "political correctness," nor was it intended as a love letter to the U.S., Russia, etc. If you can deal with those facts it's a damned good film. The film is about the world of men prostituting themselves to women and men. It is not about what American gays have sanitized and romanticized as "hustling." It's a tough film about a tough life, and the cultural background and values are not South Beach and Palm Springs. The film techniques and the milieu that is portrayed have more in common with the post-WW II films of the French and Italians. Yes, there is "eye candy," in "Apo tin Akri tis Polis" but there ain't nuthin sweet about this film, so if you're looking for a soft warm fuzzy flick on selling [sex] with hints of soft core porn here and there go elsewhere. However, if you can stretch beyond the parochial limits of "American" and "gay" you may enjoy this film despite the fact that it's not a walk in the spring rain.
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