This film was watched and reviewed the same weekend, and I even put them on the same page, as Trading Places. I saw some sort of tie in at the time, but now realize that they are very different. First of all, Urbania has far less, if any, comedic components. In fact, many might say it is a very dark movie. This movie resonants with me, however, in the very real struggles of the human spirit that are going on throught out.
Dan Futterman plays the main character of Charlie in this 2000 movie set in the "under belly" of New York City night life. It does not take long to realize that Charlie is very upset about something but it takes almost the full lenght of the movie to determine what. The brooding and "urban legendt" quality of this film is charactered by the continued repetition of a key phrase "Hear any good stories lately? I've got one and this one really happened. I swear." And "good" or not, there are several of these stories, starting with a woman microwaving her dog, a man who woke up finding that he had lost a kidney.
Charlie is on a quest, and his reaction to actually achieving it is a very moving story in and of itself. The characters you meet along the way throught this labyrinth are very diverse people, including gay men to gay bashers and everything in between it seems. For what it is worth, I was sobbing at the end. The movie has very very dark moments, even dangereous ones full of anger and even hatred but underneath is a love that has ended too soon in a very bad way, and Charlie's attempts to cope with the finality of such an ending. It is also true that my own relationship ended in a rather final way almost exactly a year ago, and the tears could be a part of my healing process. Altough there were some major differences with my situation falling on the "natural causes" end of the spectrum, the quality of it being unchangable, and too soon is shared.
Hope to hear your reactions if you are familar with either movie...and if not perhaps you will go out and find a copy of the video and watch it. You might find it a educational experience as well as an emotionally satisfying one.