24 Hours on Craigslist: the movie

[mandy]

Movie reviews of the new documentary film "24 hours on Craigslist"

24 Hours on Craigslist is an exercise in documentary more compelling in concept than results. Filmmaker Michael Ferris Gibson's minions split into eight separate teams spread throughout San Francisco on a typical Bay Area day in 2003 (though slightly foggy, the place still looks wondrous; bet Cleveland's grim skies were tombstone-gray and sleeting at the time). They lensed various individuals tied together by the digital web that is Craigslist.org, the popular, free, anonymous, classified-ad service founded by Craig Newmark in 1995.

Yes, Virginia, there actually is a Craig. His free online ads and announcements in every conceivable category, for hire, sale/trade, vice and fun, are putting serious hurt into paid newspaper ads, a substantial source of income for the Fourth Estate. Craigslist has made some commentators sound the death knell for much of the print journalism world. But the focus here is on the patrons, as cinema verité cameras hop from one ad-placer to another, letting them speak about their cyber-enhanced preoccupations.

full article: http://www.freetimes.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=3343

24 Hours on Craigslist is, of course, a documentary about the Craigslist phenomenon, shot here in the San Francisco Bay Area, ground zero for Craigslist and its home base. As expected, director Michael Gibson trolls through a day's worth of posts and interviews the people behind them. There are couples looking for bondage slaves, a sad woman seeking a roommate to replace her deceased friend, a diabetic cat support group, a gay porn star, a heavy metal chef, and on and on. Pretty much the kind of stories you hear in San Francisco every day when you live here.

But 24 Hours on Craigslist is a little more than this: It is Craigslist itself. Every facet of its production seems to have been funded or sourced through a Craigslist ad, from equipment to music for the film. And that is kind of the movie's problem...

full article: http://filmcritic.com/misc/emporium.nsf/...enDocument

[jezebel]

[valleygirl]

I have no interest in seeing it.