24 Hours
on Craigslist (*1/2)
review by Jon
Waterman
Have you ever wondered who’s really responding to all
those crazy posts on Craigslist? Have you ever heard of Craigslist?
For the uninitiated, Craigslist.org is a website that has turned
into a relatively large text-based online community. On the
site, you can look for work, stuff to buy from other people
in your area, love or other forms of fun, a place to live,
or just people to discuss various aspects of life with. On
any given day there are hundreds of thousands of posts placed
on the site for the public to sift through. This documentary
attempts to explore the back stories behind a sampling of posts
from a single day in the life of the ever-growing Craigslist.
The movie missed the mark on several different fronts; the
key one being the approach. I think it might be more fascinating
to see someone go through a whole day doing nothing but what
he finds on craigslist. He shops, applies for jobs, meets strangers
for get together meals, looks at a place, picks up some free
junk and talks about interesting topics with random people
in his city. Instead we get a bunch of little vignettes, which
are ordered and edited together very well but lack much prolonged
interest. Why did that lady have eight strollers to sell? Oh.
Ok. Next. The movie faults by coming back to certain people
so often. The fact that the guy is a masseuse isn’t all
that intriguing. That he also dresses up in drag and has done
gay porn helps, but considering the movie is shot in San Francisco
and at least half the people that are interviewed for the movie
are gay…. If they’re point was to show us that
everyone has a story…well, I think we already knew that.
I’d rather hear about how every post has a story. Show
us a strange sampling of the wacky things that get published.
Another big problem I had was that they completely neglected
one of the best sections of the site: Rants and Raves. People
post some crazy stuff on these message boards that can be incredibly
entertaining. Even if they would have just had one of their
interview subjects read some examples of how a discussion thread
progresses, I would have been happy, and I can only imagine
it would be pretty funny. Also, I have a minor issue with the
titles. They were half way there by making them the typical
internet underlined blue. I wanted it to go one further and
actually have them give the real post’s title and time.
I couldn’t imagine it would be that hard to accomplish.
The movie isn’t all bad. It has its moments. The people
are still entertaining, even if more attention should have
been given to the broad scope and anything goes attitude of
the website postings. And it made me aware of a very interesting
phenomenon called flash mobs. If you want to know more about
it, go ahead and look for one on craigslist.org. In fact, instead
of seeing this movie, you’d be much better off spending
24 hours on craigslist yourself.
respond to jon@filmbrats.com
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