As WE LIVE IN PUBLIC tours around the world, we are racking up tons of great press and blog attention. Big kisses to the Windy City and Canada for all of the recent love, and we are excited by the media response in the UK that is just starting to roll in as we gear up to play the London Film Festival…
National Public Radio / WBEZ
Eight Forty-Eight Reviews We Live in Public
“Maybe it was the money, maybe it was the attention… but things started going odd with Josh Harris… Ondi Timoner’s documentary focuses on a man through whom we can see the profound socio-cultural transformation wrought by technology in the last several decades.”
The Globe and Mail
Vancouver Int’l FIlm Festival 2009 Reviews
“[Josh Harris'] personal social skills are negligible, but his vision of society has been spot on.”
Chicago Sun-Times: Review by Roger Ebert
“This is a remarkable film about a strange and prophetic man. [FOUR STARS]”
Chicago Reader
“[Timoner] uses her access to create a frightening portrait of a man whose technological genius fails to compensate for his gaping emotional deficits… CRITIC’S CHOICE”
Chicago Tribune
“Here’s a cautionary tale for the virtual campfire… Timoner’s film offers a ton of surface flash and a hard-driving editing rhythm… provocative.”
Canada.com
“…a provocative and compelling examination of dot-com millionaire Harris and his cutting-edge art projects that attempted to plumb the profound differences between our understanding of private and public space.”
The Review List
“Provocative doc about ‘the greatest Internet pioneer you’ve never heard of’… Ondi Timoner has followed him for 15 years, in good times and bad, and returned with a portrait of a genius/eccentric/screwball who left it all to grow apples. For Harris, the brave new world is behind him. Four stars.”
Stop Smiling
“Documentarian Ondi Timoner stormed Sundance in 2004 with Dig!, her chronicle of rockers The Dandy Warhols and the Brian Jonestown Massacre. It won her the Grand Jury Prize — a feat she repeated in 2009 with We Live in Public, her take on privacy in the Internet age, as told through the lens of Web entrepreneur and artist Josh Harris.”
The Times (UK)
“The documentary maker Ondi Timoner specialises in portraits of charismatic, dynamic and dangerously deluded characters…”
EFilmCritic
VIFF ’09 Interview with Ondi Timoner
“Timoner: Since our premiere at Sundance this year, we have had such a passionate response to the film; spawning debates that last for hours. People write and say they cant sleep or have been up for days. I say the film could be billed as a horror movie…”
Three Cheers for Darkened Years! Film Articles by Witney Seibold
“We Live in Public” is fascinating, raw, amusing, and… fascinating to look at.”
prePoSTeRoUS
After the film ended, Director Ondi Timoner addressed the audience and asked the following question, “are we losing our individuality and creativity through the internet?”… Don’t worry, I’m not going to drop off the grid or anything, but thanks to the thoughts provoked by this movie, I am going to try to do more things that none of you will see.
MovieSet Dailies
“Josh Harris’ path through the 90’s — from .com millionaire to web-casting visionary to financial refugee, hiding in Ethiopia from US creditors — is painted across Ondi Timoner’s film with great candor and remarkable fairness for Harris, who left a wake of alienated and estranged relationships when he left the map at the end of his fall…. Provocative.”
Gen X Reflects
“Mind-boggling… Run to this movie!”
Electric Sheep
“Ondi Timoner’s excellent documentary We Live in Public offers a fascinating insight into the way that living virtually through technology can affect our physical lives and our personal identities.”
Daily Freep
“Harris was a myopic visionary, a man who saw the future more vividly than his own life.”
Curtis Andersen Super Blog!
“Following [Josh Harris'] life and those who were affected by it and his projects, is shockingly self affronting and made both Rene and I re-examine just why we interacted with social media the way we do.”
And these two recent reviews made our last press round-up but deserve another shout-out!
Vancouver Sun
VIFF Reviews include the stunning documentary, We Live In Public
“(Critic’s Pick) Watching the social network short-circuit and the entire fabric of civility shred before your eyes can be very compelling, and Timoner doesn’t miss a syncopated beat in this detailed study of public personality, and the self denied… Timoner captures the blurry line between who we really are, and what we pretend to be.”
Wired
Smart We Live in Public Probes Web Genius’ Hubris
“Disturbing… [Timoner] captures the de-evolution of optimistic arty types into semi-deranged test subjects… Imminently watchable.”