list http://www.spout.com/ Recent community activity around We Live in Public on Spout Copyright 2005-9 Spout, LLC Spout RSS http://www.spout.com/images/SpoutLogoRSS.jpg http://www.spout.com/ 136 30 http://www.spout.com/films/We_Live_in_Public/397581/default.aspx Title: We Live in Public
Year: 2009
Director: Ondi Timoner
Plot: Dig! director Ondi Timoner returns to the documentary scene with this look at the dot com exploits and New York City art party escapades of Josh Harris, the man behind the legendary, million dollar millennium party "Quiet." The party, which took place at an abandoned loft manufacturing building on Lower Broadway, featured over 90 Japanese hotel style pods where artists lived, played, worked, and partied. With numerous mini-disco bars throughout and streaming cameras tucked in ever corner, it was the ultimate multi-media bash. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
Times Tagged: 3
Number of Lists: 2
Number of blog posts: 8
Number of discussion threads: 2
SpoutRating: 3
]]>Wed, 26 Aug 2009 18:01:24 GMTWe Live in Public2009Ondi TimonerDig! director Ondi Timoner returns to the documentary scene with this look at the dot com exploits and New York City art party escapades of Josh Harris, the man behind the legendary, million dollar millennium party "Quiet." The party, which took place at an abandoned loft manufacturing building on Lower Broadway, featured over 90 Japanese hotel style pods where artists lived, played, worked, and partied. With numerous mini-disco bars throughout and streaming cameras tucked in ever corner, it was the ultimate multi-media bash. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide3Slightly Tagged (1-5)2823http://www.spout.com/ProductImages/s397581.jpghttp://www.spout.com/films/We_Live_in_Public/397581/default.aspxFilm http://www.spout.com/blogs/karina/archive/2009/8/26/43721.aspx Post By: Karina
Post To: Karina on SpoutBlog
Post Date: 8/26/2009 2:01:24 PM
Body: “I was the smartest kid in town, and the reporters knew it,” brags Josh Harris in We Live in Public, Ondi Timoner’s documentary on the rise and fall of the Internet’s first (and still its most charismatic) video mogul. It’s a telling statement, in that it points to both Harris’ 1990s raison d’etre, and also his Achilles heel: it’s not what you do that matters, it’s that people are watching you do it. Timoner’s portrait of the prescient (and quite possibly crazy) web pioneer will be a must see for anyone interested in internet fame and the phenomenon of casual over-sharing, even if her storytelling tactics are surprisingly stale. A quick-cut pileup of stock footage, video captured by Timoner over a decade on Harris’ trail, and footage recorded during his surveillance projects, Public outlines Harris’ troubled childhood and tricky relationship with his alcoholic mom before clicking into its comfort zone with Harris’ founding of Pseudo.com. Pseudo, launched in 1993, morphed from a Prodigy chat service into an internet TV network, complete with themed channels and on-air personalities. The company –– and Harris –– became best known for throwing wild parties, which by the late 90s had formed the core of the Silicon Alley social scene. For a brief, heady moment in time, celebrities mingled with nerds, and nerds became celebrities — just because, as Silicon Alley Reporter & Weblogs Inc founder Jason Calacanis puts it, “you knew how to set up a modem.” Riding high on hype (and an $80 million “on paper” net worth), in 1999 Harris launched a massive art project called “Quiet,” where he invited dozens of artists to live with him in a bunker complete with firing range and communal showers, with each bed outfitted with a camera and a TV screen. Life was filmed constantly, residents were subject to the interrogation of a CIA operative, and no one was allowed to leave. When the FBI broke into the bunker and made everyone evacuate (they thought it was a cult, and as one member says on screen, “We were quacking and walking like a duck”), Harris and his girlfriend Tanya moved into a loft outfitted with motion control cameras in every room, broadcasting their relationship 24 hours a day to an audience of eager chatters. This project, called “We Live in Public,” fell apart when the relationship cracked under the pressure of surveillance. By this point, Harris’ sanity was slipping away as fast as his fortune, and in late 2001, the entrepreuer disappeared to an apple farm upstate. Harris is a great anti-hero, and the film more than convinces that we haven’t even begun to grapple with the ramifications of our “always on” internet personas. But for all of its fascinations, the frantic pace is frustrating. Timoner’s montages move so quickly that you can’t begin to connect to or contemplate the bulk of her images. This technique is effective in conveying what it felt like to be in the middle of the whirlwind, but it blocks any beyond-superficial understanding of what that whirlwind meant. (The exception to this rule is the section of the film using footage from “We Live in Public” to talk about Josh and Tanya’s break-up; Timoner gives this material time and space to breathe, which only draws attention to the airlessness of the rest of the piece.) Timoner also relies a little too heavily on pop music for commentary. It’s one thing to set a montage of “Quiet” footage to Le Tigre, to remind us what 1999 felt like; it’s another to ask LCD Soundsystem’s “New York I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down” to bring the poignancy to a 9/11 montage. The song might have been a fresher choice had it not been used not long ago (and to greater ironic effect) on an episode of Gossip Girl, but it still would have been a lazy, literal way to inject feeling. But Public ultimately overcomes its grating stylistic flourishes. Most striking is the footage of “Quiet,” which looks like a mash-up of The Real World and Abu Ghraib. In the late 90s, Harris anticipated not just our country’s use of quasi-fascist interrogation, but the fascination with documenting it and sharing that document on social platforms. Every Harris project seen in the film includes a chat room. He figured out the core truth behind social media years before the rest of us: the news, the art, the event itself is nothing unless you enable people to talk about it. This review first appeared during the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. We Live In Public opens in New York this week. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth
]]>Wed, 26 Aug 2009 18:01:24 GMTKarinaKarina on SpoutBlog8/26/2009 2:01:24 PM“I was the smartest kid in town, and the reporters knew it,” brags Josh Harris in We Live in Public, Ondi Timoner’s documentary on the rise and fall of the Internet’s first (and still its most charismatic) video mogul. It’s a telling statement, in that it points to both Harris’ 1990s raison d’etre, and also his Achilles heel: it’s not what you do that matters, it’s that people are watching you do it. Timoner’s portrait of the prescient (and quite possibly crazy) web pioneer will be a must see for anyone interested in internet fame and the phenomenon of casual over-sharing, even if her storytelling tactics are surprisingly stale. A quick-cut pileup of stock footage, video captured by Timoner over a decade on Harris’ trail, and footage recorded during his surveillance projects, Public outlines Harris’ troubled childhood and tricky relationship with his alcoholic mom before clicking into its comfort zone with Harris’ founding of Pseudo.com. Pseudo, launched in 1993, morphed from a Prodigy chat service into an internet TV network, complete with themed channels and on-air personalities. The company –– and Harris –– became best known for throwing wild parties, which by the late 90s had formed the core of the Silicon Alley social scene. For a brief, heady moment in time, celebrities mingled with nerds, and nerds became celebrities — just because, as Silicon Alley Reporter & Weblogs Inc founder Jason Calacanis puts it, “you knew how to set up a modem.” Riding high on hype (and an $80 million “on paper” net worth), in 1999 Harris launched a massive art project called “Quiet,” where he invited dozens of artists to live with him in a bunker complete with firing range and communal showers, with each bed outfitted with a camera and a TV screen. Life was filmed constantly, residents were subject to the interrogation of a CIA operative, and no one was allowed to leave. When the FBI broke into the bunker and made everyone evacuate (they thought it was a cult, and as one member says on screen, “We were quacking and walking like a duck”), Harris and his girlfriend Tanya moved into a loft outfitted with motion control cameras in every room, broadcasting their relationship 24 hours a day to an audience of eager chatters. This project, called “We Live in Public,” fell apart when the relationship cracked under the pressure of surveillance. By this point, Harris’ sanity was slipping away as fast as his fortune, and in late 2001, the entrepreuer disappeared to an apple farm upstate. Harris is a great anti-hero, and the film more than convinces that we haven’t even begun to grapple with the ramifications of our “always on” internet personas. But for all of its fascinations, the frantic pace is frustrating. Timoner’s montages move so quickly that you can’t begin to connect to or contemplate the bulk of her images. This technique is effective in conveying what it felt like to be in the middle of the whirlwind, but it blocks any beyond-superficial understanding of what that whirlwind meant. (The exception to this rule is the section of the film using footage from “We Live in Public” to talk about Josh and Tanya’s break-up; Timoner gives this material time and space to breathe, which only draws attention to the airlessness of the rest of the piece.) Timoner also relies a little too heavily on pop music for commentary. It’s one thing to set a montage of “Quiet” footage to Le Tigre, to remind us what 1999 felt like; it’s another to ask LCD Soundsystem’s “New York I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down” to bring the poignancy to a 9/11 montage. The song might have been a fresher choice had it not been used not long ago (and to greater ironic effect) on an episode of Gossip Girl, but it still would have been a lazy, literal way to inject feeling. But Public ultimately overcomes its grating stylistic flourishes. Most striking is the footage of “Quiet,” which looks like a mash-up of The Real World and Abu Ghraib. In the late 90s, Harris anticipated not just our country’s use of quasi-fascist interrogation, but the fascination with documenting it and sharing that document on social platforms. Every Harris project seen in the film includes a chat room. He figured out the core truth behind social media years before the rest of us: the news, the art, the event itself is nothing unless you enable people to talk about it. This review first appeared during the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. We Live In Public opens in New York this week. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2009/8/26/43720.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 8/26/2009 2:01:14 PM
Body: “I was the smartest kid in town, and the reporters knew it,” brags Josh Harris in We Live in Public, Ondi Timoner’s documentary on the rise and fall of the Internet’s first (and still its most charismatic) video mogul. It’s a telling statement, in that it points to both Harris’ 1990s raison d’etre, and also his Achilles heel: it’s not what you do that matters, it’s that people are watching you do it. Timoner’s portrait of the prescient (and quite possibly crazy) web pioneer will be a must see for anyone interested in internet fame and the phenomenon of casual over-sharing, even if her storytelling tactics are surprisingly stale. A quick-cut pileup of stock footage, video captured by Timoner over a decade on Harris’ trail, and footage recorded during his surveillance projects, Public outlines Harris’ troubled childhood and tricky relationship with his alcoholic mom before clicking into its comfort zone with Harris’ founding of Pseudo.com. Pseudo, launched in 1993, morphed from a Prodigy chat service into an internet TV network, complete with themed channels and on-air personalities. The company –– and Harris –– became best known for throwing wild parties, which by the late 90s had formed the core of the Silicon Alley social scene. For a brief, heady moment in time, celebrities mingled with nerds, and nerds became celebrities — just because, as Silicon Alley Reporter & Weblogs Inc founder Jason Calacanis puts it, “you knew how to set up a modem.” Riding high on hype (and an $80 million “on paper” net worth), in 1999 Harris launched a massive art project called “Quiet,” where he invited dozens of artists to live with him in a bunker complete with firing range and communal showers, with each bed outfitted with a camera and a TV screen. Life was filmed constantly, residents were subject to the interrogation of a CIA operative, and no one was allowed to leave. When the FBI broke into the bunker and made everyone evacuate (they thought it was a cult, and as one member says on screen, “We were quacking and walking like a duck”), Harris and his girlfriend Tanya moved into a loft outfitted with motion control cameras in every room, broadcasting their relationship 24 hours a day to an audience of eager chatters. This project, called “We Live in Public,” fell apart when the relationship cracked under the pressure of surveillance. By this point, Harris’ sanity was slipping away as fast as his fortune, and in late 2001, the entrepreuer disappeared to an apple farm upstate. Harris is a great anti-hero, and the film more than convinces that we haven’t even begun to grapple with the ramifications of our “always on” internet personas. But for all of its fascinations, the frantic pace is frustrating. Timoner’s montages move so quickly that you can’t begin to connect to or contemplate the bulk of her images. This technique is effective in conveying what it felt like to be in the middle of the whirlwind, but it blocks any beyond-superficial understanding of what that whirlwind meant. (The exception to this rule is the section of the film using footage from “We Live in Public” to talk about Josh and Tanya’s break-up; Timoner gives this material time and space to breathe, which only draws attention to the airlessness of the rest of the piece.) Timoner also relies a little too heavily on pop music for commentary. It’s one thing to set a montage of “Quiet” footage to Le Tigre, to remind us what 1999 felt like; it’s another to ask LCD Soundsystem’s “New York I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down” to bring the poignancy to a 9/11 montage. The song might have been a fresher choice had it not been used not long ago (and to greater ironic effect) on an episode of Gossip Girl, but it still would have been a lazy, literal way to inject feeling. But Public ultimately overcomes its grating stylistic flourishes. Most striking is the footage of “Quiet,” which looks like a mash-up of The Real World and Abu Ghraib. In the late 90s, Harris anticipated not just our country’s use of quasi-fascist interrogation, but the fascination with documenting it and sharing that document on social platforms. Every Harris project seen in the film includes a chat room. He figured out the core truth behind social media years before the rest of us: the news, the art, the event itself is nothing unless you enable people to talk about it. This review first appeared during the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. We Live In Public opens in New York this week. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Wed, 26 Aug 2009 18:01:14 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com8/26/2009 2:01:14 PM“I was the smartest kid in town, and the reporters knew it,” brags Josh Harris in We Live in Public, Ondi Timoner’s documentary on the rise and fall of the Internet’s first (and still its most charismatic) video mogul. It’s a telling statement, in that it points to both Harris’ 1990s raison d’etre, and also his Achilles heel: it’s not what you do that matters, it’s that people are watching you do it. Timoner’s portrait of the prescient (and quite possibly crazy) web pioneer will be a must see for anyone interested in internet fame and the phenomenon of casual over-sharing, even if her storytelling tactics are surprisingly stale. A quick-cut pileup of stock footage, video captured by Timoner over a decade on Harris’ trail, and footage recorded during his surveillance projects, Public outlines Harris’ troubled childhood and tricky relationship with his alcoholic mom before clicking into its comfort zone with Harris’ founding of Pseudo.com. Pseudo, launched in 1993, morphed from a Prodigy chat service into an internet TV network, complete with themed channels and on-air personalities. The company –– and Harris –– became best known for throwing wild parties, which by the late 90s had formed the core of the Silicon Alley social scene. For a brief, heady moment in time, celebrities mingled with nerds, and nerds became celebrities — just because, as Silicon Alley Reporter & Weblogs Inc founder Jason Calacanis puts it, “you knew how to set up a modem.” Riding high on hype (and an $80 million “on paper” net worth), in 1999 Harris launched a massive art project called “Quiet,” where he invited dozens of artists to live with him in a bunker complete with firing range and communal showers, with each bed outfitted with a camera and a TV screen. Life was filmed constantly, residents were subject to the interrogation of a CIA operative, and no one was allowed to leave. When the FBI broke into the bunker and made everyone evacuate (they thought it was a cult, and as one member says on screen, “We were quacking and walking like a duck”), Harris and his girlfriend Tanya moved into a loft outfitted with motion control cameras in every room, broadcasting their relationship 24 hours a day to an audience of eager chatters. This project, called “We Live in Public,” fell apart when the relationship cracked under the pressure of surveillance. By this point, Harris’ sanity was slipping away as fast as his fortune, and in late 2001, the entrepreuer disappeared to an apple farm upstate. Harris is a great anti-hero, and the film more than convinces that we haven’t even begun to grapple with the ramifications of our “always on” internet personas. But for all of its fascinations, the frantic pace is frustrating. Timoner’s montages move so quickly that you can’t begin to connect to or contemplate the bulk of her images. This technique is effective in conveying what it felt like to be in the middle of the whirlwind, but it blocks any beyond-superficial understanding of what that whirlwind meant. (The exception to this rule is the section of the film using footage from “We Live in Public” to talk about Josh and Tanya’s break-up; Timoner gives this material time and space to breathe, which only draws attention to the airlessness of the rest of the piece.) Timoner also relies a little too heavily on pop music for commentary. It’s one thing to set a montage of “Quiet” footage to Le Tigre, to remind us what 1999 felt like; it’s another to ask LCD Soundsystem’s “New York I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down” to bring the poignancy to a 9/11 montage. The song might have been a fresher choice had it not been used not long ago (and to greater ironic effect) on an episode of Gossip Girl, but it still would have been a lazy, literal way to inject feeling. But Public ultimately overcomes its grating stylistic flourishes. Most striking is the footage of “Quiet,” which looks like a mash-up of The Real World and Abu Ghraib. In the late 90s, Harris anticipated not just our country’s use of quasi-fascist interrogation, but the fascination with documenting it and sharing that document on social platforms. Every Harris project seen in the film includes a chat room. He figured out the core truth behind social media years before the rest of us: the news, the art, the event itself is nothing unless you enable people to talk about it. This review first appeared during the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. We Live In Public opens in New York this week. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/risselada/archive/2009/5/8/42205.aspx Post By: Risselada
Post To: Risselada Blog
Post Date: 5/8/2009 12:29:08 PM
Body: First Person The format of the First Person series is what Errol Morris does best: finding unusual people, sitting them down in front of a camera, positioning the camera in the right way, and getting them to talk about what makes them so interesting. And then finding the right B-roll footage to splice in at the right times. Morris's invention of a camera device which he calls the "Interrotron" allows the subjects to see Morris's face as they look into the camera to make it feel more personal. As a viewer you really feel like the person is talking to you. We do see a few themes running through Morris's selection of people to interview. There are a few people involved with serial killers or murder cases. A couple lawyers with specific types of clients. A couple people who supposedly have brilliant minds but take some unexpected paths in life. I feel like Morris was a bit prescient in his choices as well. The episode "Harvesting Me" features Josh Harris who has recently been the subject of a full length documentary called We Live in Public. And it's almost impossible for me to not believe that whoever came up with the idea for the recent standardized indie flick Sunshine Cleaning didn't steal the idea directly from the First Person episode "You're Soaking In It". And I think I also read that my favorite Errol Morris film Fog of War started when Morris originally was trying to get Robert McNamara for an episode of First Person and realized this guy had enough to say to fill a full length film and win Morris an Oscar. And now it appears that Morris's next film project is actually a narrative film about cryonics, a subject that was explored in the First Person episode "I Dismember Mama" featuring Saul Kent the inventor of cryonics. There were a few episodes that were a bit less engaging than the best, but still seventeen episodes just wasn't enough. Rating: 9/10
]]>Fri, 08 May 2009 16:29:08 GMTRisseladaRisselada Blog5/8/2009 12:29:08 PMFirst Person The format of the First Person series is what Errol Morris does best: finding unusual people, sitting them down in front of a camera, positioning the camera in the right way, and getting them to talk about what makes them so interesting. And then finding the right B-roll footage to splice in at the right times. Morris's invention of a camera device which he calls the "Interrotron" allows the subjects to see Morris's face as they look into the camera to make it feel more personal. As a viewer you really feel like the person is talking to you. We do see a few themes running through Morris's selection of people to interview. There are a few people involved with serial killers or murder cases. A couple lawyers with specific types of clients. A couple people who supposedly have brilliant minds but take some unexpected paths in life. I feel like Morris was a bit prescient in his choices as well. The episode "Harvesting Me" features Josh Harris who has recently been the subject of a full length documentary called We Live in Public. And it's almost impossible for me to not believe that whoever came up with the idea for the recent standardized indie flick Sunshine Cleaning didn't steal the idea directly from the First Person episode "You're Soaking In It". And I think I also read that my favorite Errol Morris film Fog of War started when Morris originally was trying to get Robert McNamara for an episode of First Person and realized this guy had enough to say to fill a full length film and win Morris an Oscar. And now it appears that Morris's next film project is actually a narrative film about cryonics, a subject that was explored in the First Person episode "I Dismember Mama" featuring Saul Kent the inventor of cryonics. There were a few episodes that were a bit less engaging than the best, but still seventeen episodes just wasn't enough. Rating: 9/10 http://www.spout.com/blogs/angelo2angela/archive/2009/3/26/41273.aspx Post By: angelo2angela
Post To: angelo2angela Blog
Post Date: 3/26/2009 1:59:50 PM
Body: I was duly impressed; it is not often you see a classic film of the Genre and this was. This film had exceptional direction and casting with stunning special effects including the horrific air crash that created an emotional bond between the audience and the occupants of the aircraft. The story built slowly with the number sequences at first ignored and then opening up a terrifying picture. It had a strong story line paced and structured for perfection. The film plants a strong message that life is fragile and precious and that humanity could disappear within seconds. The final moments reveal the end of the old and the beginning of the new. Do not miss it. (10 out of 10) robsnewsitemcomments.com
]]>Thu, 26 Mar 2009 17:59:50 GMTangelo2angelaangelo2angela Blog3/26/2009 1:59:50 PMI was duly impressed; it is not often you see a classic film of the Genre and this was. This film had exceptional direction and casting with stunning special effects including the horrific air crash that created an emotional bond between the audience and the occupants of the aircraft. The story built slowly with the number sequences at first ignored and then opening up a terrifying picture. It had a strong story line paced and structured for perfection. The film plants a strong message that life is fragile and precious and that humanity could disappear within seconds. The final moments reveal the end of the old and the beginning of the new. Do not miss it. (10 out of 10) robsnewsitemcomments.com http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2009/3/6/40857.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 3/6/2009 10:00:46 AM
Body: The economy may be failing, but Hollywood’s hype machine has been working overtime. It’s latest manufactured frenzy has finally reached a crescendo: Watchmen hits theaters today. Does it live up to the hype? Does it live up to the graphic novel? Does it live up to its own three hour run time? In searching for answers to these questions, the FilmCouchers meet in a epic battle on the precipice of the Apocalypse, or you could say, we disagree. Karina checks in with an update on the True/False Film Festival. The little Missouri fest is quickly becoming one of the places to see top-notch documentaries. We discuss Love on Delivery, October Country, and We Live In Public. (Subscribe to FilmCouch–Spout’s weekly movie podcast–in the iTunes store or to our RSS feed and an episode will download each Friday) 0:00 - Intro 3:57 - Watchmen 25:30 - True/False filmcouch-111 Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Fri, 06 Mar 2009 15:00:46 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com3/6/2009 10:00:46 AM The economy may be failing, but Hollywood’s hype machine has been working overtime. It’s latest manufactured frenzy has finally reached a crescendo: Watchmen hits theaters today. Does it live up to the hype? Does it live up to the graphic novel? Does it live up to its own three hour run time? In searching for answers to these questions, the FilmCouchers meet in a epic battle on the precipice of the Apocalypse, or you could say, we disagree. Karina checks in with an update on the True/False Film Festival. The little Missouri fest is quickly becoming one of the places to see top-notch documentaries. We discuss Love on Delivery, October Country, and We Live In Public. (Subscribe to FilmCouch–Spout’s weekly movie podcast–in the iTunes store or to our RSS feed and an episode will download each Friday) 0:00 - Intro 3:57 - Watchmen 25:30 - True/False filmcouch-111 Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/karina/archive/2009/2/27/40732.aspx Post By: Karina
Post To: Karina on SpoutBlog
Post Date: 2/27/2009 6:02:35 PM
Body: MoMA and the Film Society of Lincoln Center have released the schedule for New Directors/New Films, and as in the past, it’s heavy on films that recently played Sundance, including award winners (Push, We Live in Public, The Cove and The Maid). I’m looking forward to catching Amreeka (the ND/NF opening night film), Stay the Same Never Change and Unmade Beds, all of which I missed in Park City, as well as Bob Byington’s Harmony and Me, a world premiere starring Justin Rice. indieWIRE has the full lineup. ND/NF starts March 25. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth
]]>Fri, 27 Feb 2009 23:02:35 GMTKarinaKarina on SpoutBlog2/27/2009 6:02:35 PMMoMA and the Film Society of Lincoln Center have released the schedule for New Directors/New Films, and as in the past, it’s heavy on films that recently played Sundance, including award winners (Push, We Live in Public, The Cove and The Maid). I’m looking forward to catching Amreeka (the ND/NF opening night film), Stay the Same Never Change and Unmade Beds, all of which I missed in Park City, as well as Bob Byington’s Harmony and Me, a world premiere starring Justin Rice. indieWIRE has the full lineup. ND/NF starts March 25. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth http://www.spout.com/groups/Community_Recommendations/Re_Sundance_Documentaries/643/40032/1/ShowPost.aspx Post By: rjsprague
Post To: Community Recommendations
Post Date: 1/28/2009 3:37:45 PM
Body: [quote user="mercurial"] Tyson Never was into boxing and frankly any mention of the guy creeps me out, but it might be interesting to hear some of the wacky stuff he has to talk about. Art & Copy I'm thinking it's gonna be like Mad Men, but less sex. The September Issue Again, like The Devil Wears Prada, but less sex. We Live In Public Crazy rich people are always interesting to watch. When You're Strange Love The Doors and Tom DiCillo so I'm hoping this will be good. [/quote] Interesting choices. I also was fascinated by the Tyson doc. I was equally interested in When You're Strange and It Might Get Loud, but not enough to put them above my other selections. There is something about the whole environmental doc that seems to get me. I guess I feel that it is somehow related to some kind of apocryphal literature I've read, or something.
]]>Wed, 28 Jan 2009 20:37:45 GMTrjspragueCommunity Recommendations1/28/2009 3:37:45 PM[quote user="mercurial"] Tyson Never was into boxing and frankly any mention of the guy creeps me out, but it might be interesting to hear some of the wacky stuff he has to talk about. Art & Copy I'm thinking it's gonna be like Mad Men, but less sex. The September Issue Again, like The Devil Wears Prada, but less sex. We Live In Public Crazy rich people are always interesting to watch. When You're Strange Love The Doors and Tom DiCillo so I'm hoping this will be good. [/quote] Interesting choices. I also was fascinated by the Tyson doc. I was equally interested in When You're Strange and It Might Get Loud, but not enough to put them above my other selections. There is something about the whole environmental doc that seems to get me. I guess I feel that it is somehow related to some kind of apocryphal literature I've read, or something. http://www.spout.com/groups/Community_Recommendations/Re_Sundance_Documentaries/643/39934/1/ShowPost.aspx Post By: mercurial
Post To: Community Recommendations
Post Date: 1/26/2009 7:01:54 PM
Body: Tyson Never was into boxing and frankly any mention of the guy creeps me out, but it might be interesting to hear some of the wacky stuff he has to talk about. Art & Copy I'm thinking it's gonna be like Mad Men, but less sex. The September Issue Again, like The Devil Wears Prada, but less sex. We Live In Public Crazy rich people are always interesting to watch. When You're Strange Love The Doors and Tom DiCillo so I'm hoping this will be good.
]]>Tue, 27 Jan 2009 00:01:54 GMTmercurialCommunity Recommendations1/26/2009 7:01:54 PMTyson Never was into boxing and frankly any mention of the guy creeps me out, but it might be interesting to hear some of the wacky stuff he has to talk about. Art & Copy I'm thinking it's gonna be like Mad Men, but less sex. The September Issue Again, like The Devil Wears Prada, but less sex. We Live In Public Crazy rich people are always interesting to watch. When You're Strange Love The Doors and Tom DiCillo so I'm hoping this will be good. http://www.spout.com/blogs/karina/archive/2009/1/24/39868.aspx Post By: Karina
Post To: Karina on SpoutBlog
Post Date: 1/24/2009 4:01:08 PM
Body: “I was the smartest kid in town, and the reporters knew it,” brags Josh Harris in We Live in Public, Ondi Timoner’s documentary on the rise and fall of the Internet’s first (and still its most charismatic) video mogul. It’s a telling statement, in that it points to both Harris’ 1990s raison d’etre, and also his achilles heel: it’s not what you do that matters, it’s that people are watching you do it. Timoner’s portrait of the prescient (and quite possibly crazy) web pioneer will be a must see for anyone interested in internet fame and the phenomenon of casual over-sharing, even if her storytelling tactics are surprisingly stale. A quick-cut pileup of stock footage, video captured by Timoner over a decade on Harris’ trail, and footage recorded during his surveillance projects, Public outlines Harris’ troubled childhood and tricky relationship with his alcoholic mom before clicking into its comfort zone with Harris’ founding of Pseudo.com. Pseudo, launched in 1993, morphed from a Prodigy chat service into an internet TV network, complete with themed channels and on-air personalities. The company –– and Harris –– became best known for throwing wild parties, which by the late 90s had formed the core of the Silicon Alley social scene. For a brief, heady moment in time, celebrities mingled with nerds, and nerds became celebrities — just because, as Silicon Alley Reporter & Weblogs Inc founder Jason Calacanis puts it, “you knew how to set up a modem.” Riding high on hype (and an $80 million “on paper” net worth), in 1999 Harris launched a massive art project called “Quiet,” where he invited dozens of artists to live with him in a bunker complete with firing range and communal showers, with each bed outfitted with a camera and a TV screen. Life was filmed constantly, residents were subject to the interrogation of a CIA operative, and no one was allowed to leave. When the FBI broke into the bunker and made everyone evacuate (they thought it was a cult, and as one member says on screen, “We were quacking and walking like a duck”), Harris and his girlfriend Tanya moved into a loft outfitted with motion control cameras in every room, broadcasting their relationship 24 hours a day to an audience of eager chatters. This project, called “We Live in Public,” fell apart when the relationship cracked under the pressure of surveillance. By this point, Harris’ sanity was slipping away as fast as his fortune, and in late 2001, the entrepreuer disappeared to an apple farm upstate. Harris is a great anti-hero, and the film more than convinces that we haven’t even begun to grapple with the ramifications of our “always on” internet personas. But for all of its fascinations, the frantic pace is frustrating. Timoner’s montages move so quickly that you can’t begin to connect to or contemplate the bulk of her images. This technique is effective in conveying what it felt like to be in the middle of the whirlwind, but it blocks any beyond-superficial understanding of what that whirlwind meant. (The exception to this rule is the section of the film using footage from “We Live in Public” to talk about Josh and Tanya’s break-up; Timoner gives this material time and space to breathe, which only draws attention to the airlessness of the rest of the piece.) Timoner also relies a little too heavily on pop music for commentary. It’s one thing to set a montage of “Quiet” footage to Le Tigre, to remind us what 1999 felt like; it’s another to ask LCD Soundsystem’s  “New York I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down” to bring the poignancy to a 9/11 montage. The song might have been a fresher choice had it not been used not long ago (and to greater ironic effect) on an episode of Gossip Girl, but it still would have been a lazy, literal way to inject feeling. But Public ultimately overcomes its grating stylistic flourishes. Most striking is the footage of “Quiet,” which looks like a mash-up of The Real World and Abu Ghraib. In the late 90s, Harris anticipated not just our country’s use of quasi-fascist interrogation, but the fascination with documenting it and sharing that document on social platforms. Every Harris project seen in the film includes a chat room. He figured out the core truth behind social media years before the rest of us: the news, the art, the event itself is nothing unless you enable people to talk about it. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth
]]>Sat, 24 Jan 2009 21:01:08 GMTKarinaKarina on SpoutBlog1/24/2009 4:01:08 PM“I was the smartest kid in town, and the reporters knew it,” brags Josh Harris in We Live in Public, Ondi Timoner’s documentary on the rise and fall of the Internet’s first (and still its most charismatic) video mogul. It’s a telling statement, in that it points to both Harris’ 1990s raison d’etre, and also his achilles heel: it’s not what you do that matters, it’s that people are watching you do it. Timoner’s portrait of the prescient (and quite possibly crazy) web pioneer will be a must see for anyone interested in internet fame and the phenomenon of casual over-sharing, even if her storytelling tactics are surprisingly stale. A quick-cut pileup of stock footage, video captured by Timoner over a decade on Harris’ trail, and footage recorded during his surveillance projects, Public outlines Harris’ troubled childhood and tricky relationship with his alcoholic mom before clicking into its comfort zone with Harris’ founding of Pseudo.com. Pseudo, launched in 1993, morphed from a Prodigy chat service into an internet TV network, complete with themed channels and on-air personalities. The company –– and Harris –– became best known for throwing wild parties, which by the late 90s had formed the core of the Silicon Alley social scene. For a brief, heady moment in time, celebrities mingled with nerds, and nerds became celebrities — just because, as Silicon Alley Reporter & Weblogs Inc founder Jason Calacanis puts it, “you knew how to set up a modem.” Riding high on hype (and an $80 million “on paper” net worth), in 1999 Harris launched a massive art project called “Quiet,” where he invited dozens of artists to live with him in a bunker complete with firing range and communal showers, with each bed outfitted with a camera and a TV screen. Life was filmed constantly, residents were subject to the interrogation of a CIA operative, and no one was allowed to leave. When the FBI broke into the bunker and made everyone evacuate (they thought it was a cult, and as one member says on screen, “We were quacking and walking like a duck”), Harris and his girlfriend Tanya moved into a loft outfitted with motion control cameras in every room, broadcasting their relationship 24 hours a day to an audience of eager chatters. This project, called “We Live in Public,” fell apart when the relationship cracked under the pressure of surveillance. By this point, Harris’ sanity was slipping away as fast as his fortune, and in late 2001, the entrepreuer disappeared to an apple farm upstate. Harris is a great anti-hero, and the film more than convinces that we haven’t even begun to grapple with the ramifications of our “always on” internet personas. But for all of its fascinations, the frantic pace is frustrating. Timoner’s montages move so quickly that you can’t begin to connect to or contemplate the bulk of her images. This technique is effective in conveying what it felt like to be in the middle of the whirlwind, but it blocks any beyond-superficial understanding of what that whirlwind meant. (The exception to this rule is the section of the film using footage from “We Live in Public” to talk about Josh and Tanya’s break-up; Timoner gives this material time and space to breathe, which only draws attention to the airlessness of the rest of the piece.) Timoner also relies a little too heavily on pop music for commentary. It’s one thing to set a montage of “Quiet” footage to Le Tigre, to remind us what 1999 felt like; it’s another to ask LCD Soundsystem’s  “New York I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down” to bring the poignancy to a 9/11 montage. The song might have been a fresher choice had it not been used not long ago (and to greater ironic effect) on an episode of Gossip Girl, but it still would have been a lazy, literal way to inject feeling. But Public ultimately overcomes its grating stylistic flourishes. Most striking is the footage of “Quiet,” which looks like a mash-up of The Real World and Abu Ghraib. In the late 90s, Harris anticipated not just our country’s use of quasi-fascist interrogation, but the fascination with documenting it and sharing that document on social platforms. Every Harris project seen in the film includes a chat room. He figured out the core truth behind social media years before the rest of us: the news, the art, the event itself is nothing unless you enable people to talk about it. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2009/1/24/39867.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 1/24/2009 4:00:53 PM
Body: “I was the smartest kid in town, and the reporters knew it,” brags Josh Harris in We Live in Public, Ondi Timoner’s documentary on the rise and fall of the Internet’s first (and still its most charismatic) video mogul. It’s a telling statement, in that it points to both Harris’ 1990s raison d’etre, and also his achilles heel: it’s not what you do that matters, it’s that people are watching you do it. Timoner’s portrait of the prescient (and quite possibly crazy) web pioneer will be a must see for anyone interested in internet fame and the phenomenon of casual over-sharing, even if her storytelling tactics are surprisingly stale. A quick-cut pileup of stock footage, video captured by Timoner over a decade on Harris’ trail, and footage recorded during his surveillance projects, Public outlines Harris’ troubled childhood and tricky relationship with his alcoholic mom before clicking into its comfort zone with Harris’ founding of Pseudo.com. Pseudo, launched in 1993, morphed from a Prodigy chat service into an internet TV network, complete with themed channels and on-air personalities. The company –– and Harris –– became best known for throwing wild parties, which by the late 90s had formed the core of the Silicon Alley social scene. For a brief, heady moment in time, celebrities mingled with nerds, and nerds became celebrities — just because, as Silicon Alley Reporter & Weblogs Inc founder Jason Calacanis puts it, “you knew how to set up a modem.” Riding high on hype (and an $80 million “on paper” net worth), in 1999 Harris launched a massive art project called “Quiet,” where he invited dozens of artists to live with him in a bunker complete with firing range and communal showers, with each bed outfitted with a camera and a TV screen. Life was filmed constantly, residents were subject to the interrogation of a CIA operative, and no one was allowed to leave. When the FBI broke into the bunker and made everyone evacuate (they thought it was a cult, and as one member says on screen, “We were quacking and walking like a duck”), Harris and his girlfriend Tanya moved into a loft outfitted with motion control cameras in every room, broadcasting their relationship 24 hours a day to an audience of eager chatters. This project, called “We Live in Public,” fell apart when the relationship cracked under the pressure of surveillance. By this point, Harris’ sanity was slipping away as fast as his fortune, and in late 2001, the entrepreuer disappeared to an apple farm upstate. Harris is a great anti-hero, and the film more than convinces that we haven’t even begun to grapple with the ramifications of our “always on” internet personas. But for all of its fascinations, the frantic pace is frustrating. Timoner’s montages move so quickly that you can’t begin to connect to or contemplate the bulk of her images. This technique is effective in conveying what it felt like to be in the middle of the whirlwind, but it blocks any beyond-superficial understanding of what that whirlwind meant. (The exception to this rule is the section of the film using footage from “We Live in Public” to talk about Josh and Tanya’s break-up; Timoner gives this material time and space to breathe, which only draws attention to the airlessness of the rest of the piece.) Timoner also relies a little too heavily on pop music for commentary. It’s one thing to set a montage of “Quiet” footage to Le Tigre, to remind us what 1999 felt like; it’s another to ask LCD Soundsystem’s  “New York I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down” to bring the poignancy to a 9/11 montage. The song might have been a fresher choice had it not been used not long ago (and to greater ironic effect) on an episode of Gossip Girl, but it still would have been a lazy, literal way to inject feeling. But Public ultimately overcomes its grating stylistic flourishes. Most striking is the footage of “Quiet,” which looks like a mash-up of The Real World and Abu Ghraib. In the late 90s, Harris anticipated not just our country’s use of quasi-fascist interrogation, but the fascination with documenting it and sharing that document on social platforms. Every Harris project seen in the film includes a chat room. He figured out the core truth behind social media years before the rest of us: the news, the art, the event itself is nothing unless you enable people to talk about it. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Sat, 24 Jan 2009 21:00:53 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com1/24/2009 4:00:53 PM“I was the smartest kid in town, and the reporters knew it,” brags Josh Harris in We Live in Public, Ondi Timoner’s documentary on the rise and fall of the Internet’s first (and still its most charismatic) video mogul. It’s a telling statement, in that it points to both Harris’ 1990s raison d’etre, and also his achilles heel: it’s not what you do that matters, it’s that people are watching you do it. Timoner’s portrait of the prescient (and quite possibly crazy) web pioneer will be a must see for anyone interested in internet fame and the phenomenon of casual over-sharing, even if her storytelling tactics are surprisingly stale. A quick-cut pileup of stock footage, video captured by Timoner over a decade on Harris’ trail, and footage recorded during his surveillance projects, Public outlines Harris’ troubled childhood and tricky relationship with his alcoholic mom before clicking into its comfort zone with Harris’ founding of Pseudo.com. Pseudo, launched in 1993, morphed from a Prodigy chat service into an internet TV network, complete with themed channels and on-air personalities. The company –– and Harris –– became best known for throwing wild parties, which by the late 90s had formed the core of the Silicon Alley social scene. For a brief, heady moment in time, celebrities mingled with nerds, and nerds became celebrities — just because, as Silicon Alley Reporter & Weblogs Inc founder Jason Calacanis puts it, “you knew how to set up a modem.” Riding high on hype (and an $80 million “on paper” net worth), in 1999 Harris launched a massive art project called “Quiet,” where he invited dozens of artists to live with him in a bunker complete with firing range and communal showers, with each bed outfitted with a camera and a TV screen. Life was filmed constantly, residents were subject to the interrogation of a CIA operative, and no one was allowed to leave. When the FBI broke into the bunker and made everyone evacuate (they thought it was a cult, and as one member says on screen, “We were quacking and walking like a duck”), Harris and his girlfriend Tanya moved into a loft outfitted with motion control cameras in every room, broadcasting their relationship 24 hours a day to an audience of eager chatters. This project, called “We Live in Public,” fell apart when the relationship cracked under the pressure of surveillance. By this point, Harris’ sanity was slipping away as fast as his fortune, and in late 2001, the entrepreuer disappeared to an apple farm upstate. Harris is a great anti-hero, and the film more than convinces that we haven’t even begun to grapple with the ramifications of our “always on” internet personas. But for all of its fascinations, the frantic pace is frustrating. Timoner’s montages move so quickly that you can’t begin to connect to or contemplate the bulk of her images. This technique is effective in conveying what it felt like to be in the middle of the whirlwind, but it blocks any beyond-superficial understanding of what that whirlwind meant. (The exception to this rule is the section of the film using footage from “We Live in Public” to talk about Josh and Tanya’s break-up; Timoner gives this material time and space to breathe, which only draws attention to the airlessness of the rest of the piece.) Timoner also relies a little too heavily on pop music for commentary. It’s one thing to set a montage of “Quiet” footage to Le Tigre, to remind us what 1999 felt like; it’s another to ask LCD Soundsystem’s  “New York I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down” to bring the poignancy to a 9/11 montage. The song might have been a fresher choice had it not been used not long ago (and to greater ironic effect) on an episode of Gossip Girl, but it still would have been a lazy, literal way to inject feeling. But Public ultimately overcomes its grating stylistic flourishes. Most striking is the footage of “Quiet,” which looks like a mash-up of The Real World and Abu Ghraib. In the late 90s, Harris anticipated not just our country’s use of quasi-fascist interrogation, but the fascination with documenting it and sharing that document on social platforms. Every Harris project seen in the film includes a chat room. He figured out the core truth behind social media years before the rest of us: the news, the art, the event itself is nothing unless you enable people to talk about it. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/Sundance/MemberTagFilms.aspxSundance
Number of films tagged: 154

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]]>Sat, 31 Jan 2009 20:57:41 GMT15424161Tag http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/sundance-2009/MemberTagFilms.aspxsundance-2009
Number of films tagged: 117

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Number of times used: 117

]]>Mon, 29 Dec 2008 18:32:37 GMT1171117Tag http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/the-sundance-film-festival/MemberTagFilms.aspxthe-sundance-film-festival
Number of films tagged: 117

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Number of times used: 117

]]>Mon, 29 Dec 2008 18:32:37 GMT1171117Tag