Reviews

Review: We Live in Public

Call it Woodstock crossed with Salò and The Real World

By PETER KEOUGH | September 2, 2009

3.0 Stars

Josh Harris might not have contributed as much to the Internet as Al Gore, but as Ondi Timoner's lively and chilling documentary reveals, he did embody its excesses of narcissism and puerility and its delusions of grandeur. Harris made a fortune during the dot.com bubble with his television Web site Pseudo.com.

Fancying himself the "Warhol of the Web," he invested that money in a performance-art/sociological experiment in which 100 people lived in a communal bunker with ubiquitous cameras and monitors, no privacy, an arsenal of weapons, and mass psychosis — call it Woodstock crossed with Salò and The Real World. Bored with that, he started a 24-hour video feed in which he and his wife argue and go to the bathroom.

\The virtual world of the future? At least it would be more interesting than Facebook.

Topics: Reviews , Al Gore, somerville Theatre, We Live in Public, More

Comments

Add a Comment

Today's Event Picks

[WORDS] Jhumpa Lahiri (Unaccustomed Earth) at Brown University

Plus 2 more >>

ARTICLES BY PETER KEOUGH

REVIEW: UP IN THE AIR | December 01, 2009
No director pulls off the bait-and-switch as craftily as Jason Reitman. He gets you thinking that you're watching a hip, caustic comedy subverting the status quo, but by the end, he's vindicated all the platitudes he seemed to scorn.

REVIEW: Z (1969) | December 01, 2009
John F. Kennedy wasn't the only political leader murdered in 1963. On May 22 of that year, Gregoris Lambrakis, a left-leaning, pacifist member of the Greek parliament and an aspiring presidential candidate seeking to replace the reigning right-wing government, was assaulted after a peace rally in Thessaloniki. He died five days later.

REVIEW: BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS | November 24, 2009
Nicolas Cage is at his best in Bad Lieutenant

REVIEW: THE ROAD | November 24, 2009
John Hillcoat doesn't stray from Cormac McCarthy's Road For those who found the Coen Brothers' adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men too lighthearted, John Hillcoat's relentlessly faithful version of the author's post-apocalyptic Pulitzer-winning novel might hit the spot.

INTERVIEW: NICOLAS CAGE | November 24, 2009
"When people like to label any kind of performance as over the top, I suggest that if you were to go to the Guggenheim and look at a Francis Bacon, would you call that over the top?"

See all articles by: PETER KEOUGH

Most Viewed

Most Emailed

PHOTOS: GROSS THANKSGIVING FOOD TO AVOID
Thanksgiving is a time for gorging on food and hanging out with family, but really it's mostly about the food. There are some dishes that take it too far, however, and we are here to help you steer clear of those.

GREG EPSTEIN, ATHEIST SUPERSTAR
Once an intellectual taboo, atheism has become one of the great growth industries of the third millennium.

REVIEW: CALL OF DUTY: MODERN WARFARE 2
You're standing in an elevator with men wearing bulletproof vests and wielding machine guns. "No Russian," the leader reminds you, as the doors open to reveal a line of persons waiting at the airport security gate.

THE BIG HURT: FACES REFACED
Faces refaced, Spears speared, Hook hacked

TALE OF THE TAPES
Soon after music-minded UMass-Boston management professor Pacey Foster signed on to write a Boston chapter for the most comprehensive hip-hop tome ever compiled, his mission brought him to rural Maine, where it has long been speculated that the Hub rhyme scene's Holy Grail is safely stored.

THE X FACTOR
Martha Coakley should be plenty thankful for the holiday weekend. The polls suggest that, if nothing significant changes between now and the December 8 primary, she should handily claim the Democratic nomination for US Senate.

CLASSIC ROCK?
If you're looking for meaning in the overly sanitized myth that is our national Thanksgiving celebration, a good place to start is southeastern Massachusetts, where nearly 400 years ago that band of hungry, ill-prepared religious zealots tried to colonize the middle of nowhere at the start of winter.

WHALIN' ON PALIN
Give Sarah Palin this: she isn’t driven by polls. If she wanted to improve her chances at political success, she would have used her book and promotional tour to convince America that she has substance and gravitas .

INTERVIEW: GABOUREY SIDIBE
"While reading the book, I realized that I knew this girl in so many different people. Not just girls but boys, and not just black people but white and Asian and Indian."