jai-38 The late and truly great Spalding Gray wrote and performed a number of brilliant monologues made into films by significant directors but none really better than "...Cambodia". Jonathan Demme and his cinematographer John Bailey ("Silverado"), as well as composer/"new wave" artist Laurie Anderson, perfectly complement Gray's vision of the here and there, the then and now, as well as history and movie-reality as he talks beautifully and insightfully and with deathly funny vision for over eighty minutes. It's a history lesson, a making-of-"The Killing Fields" and a perfectly bizarre philosophical treatise all at once. Roger Ebert once opined that "My Dinner With Andre" made a good counter-point double feature with "2001". I agree. Then watch Gray's "...Cambodia" after, maybe, "Star Wars"; great movies are wonderful things and come in many shapes and sizes.

mirok First let me tell you -- Spalding Gray was a man who could mesmerize, as his numerous one-man shows are evidence of. This is a "short movie" -- only about 90 minutes instead of a full 2 hours -- but it's positively compelling and makes you wonder why you didn't hear about it, why it didn't get that much publicity in your neck of the woods, etc. until you were lucky enough to stumble across it.One thing I adore finding are movies that can be paired up as a double feature. An example would be Ed Wood's last film, Plan 9 from Outer Space, together with Tim Burton's homage work, Ed Wood. Watch them together and it's just great. I would also recommend watching The Killing Fields, in which Gray plays a minor role (as the U. S. Consul in Phnom Penh) and this movie, in which he talks about the making of said movie.Remember that this is a topical movie because it was made in 1987. By that time the infamous "killing fields" were gone and Pol Pot's regime had been driven out of Cambodia by rebels supported by the Vietnamese. However, the Heng Samrin regime was far from democratic and for some strange reason the UN continued to recognize the Khmer Rouge regime -- the one led by Pol Pot -- as the legitimate government of Cambodia in one of history's craziest throws of the cosmic dice. It was not until the early 1990s that peace and democracy finally came to that troubled country.For quite some years this movie was available only on VHS. I wondered when it would ever come out on DVD. Finally it's available on DVD so I say there's no excuse not to go out and get it.

KGB-Greece-Patras This thing is easily characterized as one-of-a-kind film, or at least I didn't ever see a film that even gets close to its context, techniques or style. Basicaly it's a raving, very funny monologue, but then again, much more than this! In 85 mins. it manages to talk about so many matters both serious and funny without making you be bored with it, at least if you 're a serious person, hehe :)Of course these all are objective, but I loved it!

smragan It doesn't get much lower-budget than this: A guy sitting at a desk on a stage with a notebook, a pointer, and a map of Cambodia on the wall behind him. And for an hour-and-a-half, he keeps you absolutely mesmerized, by doing little more than talking. The special lighting, cinematography, musical effects, and odd film inserts that Demme's production brings to Gray's monologue (which, like so many of the films I truly love, was performed on a stage before it was brought to the screen) work ever-so-slightly to enhance the performance at certain points, but by and large this is just Spalding Gray, a wonderful story-teller, doing his thing. In terms of bang for your production buck, Swimming to Cambodia has to be right up there with The Blair Witch Project. A great film.