Bayflicks.net

Jessica Feast’s culture-clash documentary runs just over an hour, but it packs a lot of humanity into that time. When American expatriate Wally Potts opened his White Trash Fast Food bar and restaurant in formerly Communist East Berlin, it became a big hit–mostly with other refugees from Bush’s America. But to unrepentant Communist Horst Woitalla, living upstairs, it was one more indignity in a life going downhill since the Berlin Wall fell. Feast (who worked at the restaurant when she shot the film) gives both sides a fair shake. Potts and his employees and clientèle are fun and charismatic people, but Woitalla has a point: No one wants an open-all-night loud music club in their apartment building.  Besides, no matter how we feel about Communism, and no matter how we react when Woitalla admits he feels nothing for those who died trying to escape, we can’t help but feel sorry for someone who lost his job and his security when the government that had always taken care of him collapsed overnight.