Under the Radar DVD of the Week: 'The Sidelong Glances of a Pigeon Kicker'
This week, the oddest DVD to appear on release lists is:
“The Sidelong Glances of a Pigeon Kicker”
A movie that strives to present itself as a long-lost hipster gem from 1970, the preciously titled “Sidelong Glances of a Pigeon Kicker” (due out on DVD Tuesday for the first time) is really just a pretentious hodgepodge of cultural clichés in service of one snotty, self-indulgent central character.
The character at the core of this orphaned film is a disaffected Princeton grad named Jonathan (the late Jordan Christopher of “Angel, Angel, Down We Go”), who shuns the corporate rat race and opts for a life of partying and eking out a living as a New York City cab driver (to “show the world the back of my neck”). This dedicated curmudgeon vents his daily frustrations by kicking pigeons in the park.
The story, such as it is, is drawn from a “Catcher in the Rye”-style novel by David Boyer and plays out as a typical, meandering, navel-gazing “arrested adolescent” tale (and a pale imitation of the vastly superior “The Graduate,” which was released three years earlier).
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