The Cruise

For the intensely passionate tour guide Tim Levitch, each trip is a new quest for perfection. He knows the route followed by his New York double-decker bus like the back of his hand, and he always manages to come up with new and witty comments. One moment he’ll be unleashing a dizzying torrent of historical trivia, the next he’ll be firing off barbed remarks about New Yorkers or humorous asides about the architecture. Levitch is the somewhat maniacal central figure who thinks aloud and talks non-stop in this 1998 documentary. He may be an exceptionally eloquent man simply brimming with interesting ideas about people and society, but he’s also an oddball who marvels at the sexy curves of a plant, or draws a connection between the sunlight on a terracotta building and running naked through a meadow. As viewers we might not always be able to take him seriously, but his infectious observations are a welcome antidote to a city where everyone else seems to be toeing the line.