As one who has spent a couple of dozen years making TV shows, I found the film unwatchably bad. The days of walking a self-conscious person down the street while her neighbors look on a little uncomfortably, or walking into someone's apartment and getting him to finger some of his personal possessions and calling that a documentary are long over. (OK....uh...tell us about...uh..that!) Wim Wenders clearly phoned it in. It was worse than amateur film-making. Any good tv director would have covered the big concert in Amsterdam better. Even Ry Cooder, whose idea the movie was, is put in such a bad light that the over-prominence of him and his son during the performance scenes make you want to rub them out. I was watching with my wife, who has also put some time in as a television producer, and, in spite of all our hopes for a great, sensitive music movie, after 50 minutes, we had to turn the damn thing off.

James.

PS -- You will note that the Academy, where at least some of the members know good film-making when they see it, pointedly did NOT give "Buena Vista" the documentary award. Justice for a change.