Urbanized

With smutty infographs and high-rise money shots, Urbanized slips the panties down on modern city living. This documentary has no sexy Grand Designs narrator, however, as director Gary Hustwit lets carrot-jeaned architects and city-dwelling shmoes narrate. We hear from the guys that turned New York's derelict High Line rail track into a grass-filled footpath. Residents of a Santiago housing project talk about their self-assemble homes. And Bogota's mayor takes pride in pissing off car owners with his bus and bike lanes. All these stories reveal (cue a Kevin McCloud smug summary) how we both shape our cityscapes and are shaped by them. Urbanized offers plenty of eye-candy too. With camera pans of Mumbai's impossible slums, bird's-eye views of the lavish Brasilia, and art-shots of Detroit's inner-city gardens, Hustwit fancies the aesthetics of the city more than the theories behind it. By peeping at both, however, Urbanized's 90 minutes feels overcrowded. A TV two parter would've been more flush. [Alastair McCloud]