An artist’s dream is that work he/she leaves behind will outlast their lifetime — that he/she will make a permanent mark on the annals of human history. Ultimately, the result is much more important than the person behind it, but in many cases, the artist becomes larger than the art itself, obscuring their legacy and leaving them forgotten, lost in a wind of ego and fame.

Ondi Timoner’s documentary, We Live In Public, is, ostensibly, about Josh Harris, the tragic and misunderstood dot-com multi-millionaire with an uncanny eye for the future. His ideas about technology, the flow of information, and the basic human need for exposure made him millions of dollars at the dawn of the World Wide Web. But his underlying psychosis, his fame-whorish attitude, and his penchant for throwing millions of dollars at his eccentric “artistic projects” led to his bankruptcy at the end of the ‘90s.

His largest and most successful artistic endeavor was the titular project – Quiet: We Live In Public, in which more than 100 of New York’s bohemia were picked to live in a bunker-style capsule hotel where the rights of privacy did not exist. Josh Harris plays the deity figure, providing everything: free food, bathing areas, a church, uniforms, and much more. At first, the people involved are excited to be there, living in an artist’s utopia and relishing the ability to enter into their neighbors’ private worlds with the touch of a remote. But as things go on, as Mr. Harris starts to add grueling psychological torture to the experiment, and as the inhabitants fight for every shred of dignity and privacy they believe they deserve, things break down quickly and the commune is ultimately dissolved by the police.

Ms. Timoner experienced this astounding experiment firsthand as a resident of Quiet, and was right to document what ended up being one of the most eerily foreshadowing ideas ever crafted during the dotcom era. With the rise of reality television and the advent of YouTube, we all live in an extended version of Quiet, only now the relinquishing of our privacy is not forced upon us, but rather, we readily give it away in exchange for so-called fame (granted, the destruction of Quiet may have been more of a result from Mr. Harris’s fascist tactics and torture than anything having to do with round-the-clock exposure).

And that is where the message is somewhat muddled. Josh Harris’ own eccentricities are his own undoing, and the movie makes great effort to point that out. It is his boredom with his own creations that causes him to sabotage his projects, sometimes deliberately. After the end of Quiet, Mr. Harris’ next endeavor was the first proto-YouTube channel, in which he and his girlfriend lived together in an apartment televised 24/7. No fascist overtones, no space church — just living happily and being broadcasted over the internet with a chatroom for interactions. Rather than being revelatory, though, this project ends up being a depressing window into a man who is transparent in most of his actions… a man who has great ideas on paper, but cannot overcome his own shortcomings to actually execute anything worthwhile.

Review by Allen Huang.

About a year ago, I was working for a start-up in an old building in Seattle’s SoDo District. It was complete with rickity floorboards and unusual decorations crafted from salvaged parts. The overwhelming scent could’ve been described as “dusty.” The upstairs housed uniquely-decorated office spaces, and the downstairs had a large, spacious room with no functional use. It was being fitted to house a club and a bar (and has since been successfully deemed Club Motor).

Imagine our curiosity and surprise, then, when it was announced to us that a film crew would be shooting a feature-length movie in our building. We had no idea what to expect, but peering into a set revealed a strange-looking set with a lot of toilet seats and a pyramid of toilets stacked almost entirely to the ceiling. What kind of film could this possibly be?!! The film crew soon revealed that the film would be something like a surreal comedy, and that it was titled, “The Immaculate Conception Of Little Dizzle.” I wrote down the name of the film, but had completely forgotten about it until this year, when I attended a press screening of it, completely randomly. The connection didn’t dawn on me until more than halfway through the film, when the toilet pyramid appeared and I was able to put two and two together. It was a miraculous moment.

Well, if surrealism, toilet pyramids, and a playful title aren’t enough to spark your interest, “Little Dizzle” may not be your ideal kind of film. Nonetheless, let me expound.

“Little Dizzle” is a comedic tale about the adventures of four after-hours office building janitors who unknowingly become the test subjects for a self-heating cookie, that warms itself when being consumed. The characters are easily lovable, and include an individual blindingly confused about his religious faith, an artist temporarily working as a janitor, an extremely impulsive couple, and a cross-dressing employer. Much to their dismay, the trial cookies have unanticipated and otherworldly side-effects that slowly emerge. While the film starts off fairly normal, as a straight-forward comedy with clever dialogue, it soon plunges into a surreal adventure. And here, the forte of director David Russo truly shines, in his ability to set a playful mood from the very beginning that makes the sudden shift into the implausible to be surprising, but not at all disconnected.

“Little Dizzle” is a clever film which culminates into a comedy unlike any I have ever seen, which is a remarkable in this day and age. Despite the aforementioned prevalence of toilets, this film’s brand of toilet humor is intelligent, and it allows the film to stand out as a gem in the budding local film industry.

www.littledizzlefilm.com

School Days With A Pig is a film that begins initially with a delightfully cute premise yet veers into the territory of issues such as morality and death. Teacher Mr. Hoshi, played by Satoshi Tsumabuki, introduces to his class of sixth graders a young pig, and then asks them if they would be interested in raising the pig for their school term and then eating it afterwards. The children emphatically agree, living only in the present and considering little about the potential end result.

The director, Tetsu Maeda, weaves the audience through the lives of the children, who take care of the pig from when it is still a piglet to when it is larger than they are. Slight scuffles with faculty and parents emerge, but the tone of the movie is light-hearted for the most part, showing the children’s day-to-day hardships and joys in taking care of a pig.

While movies about food and humanity’s impact on the food system are being made at an increasing rate, School Days With A Pig never comes even remotely close to preachy. In fact, the film actually strays so far away from preachy that despite Mr. Hoshi’s attempt to craft a project that will make his children think critically about the food they eat, his reasoning is never truly clear, and stops short of a vague desire to “want the kids to learn.” One gets the sense that Mr. Hoshi never truly anticipated the potential results himself, and he firmly sits on middle ground in an area of indecision, at least with regards to the fate of the pig.

The film remains strong while staying in positive territory, but sadly, the weakest part of the film actually lies in its most serious and crucial part: the class discussion on what to do with the pig after their school term has ended. Despite agreeing initially to eating the pig after the project, the students become attached, and disagree on the fate of the pig. They begin to discuss critically “adult” issues of life, death, adoption, faith, and friendship. This particular part of the film gives viewers a chance look into the thoughts that children — and maybe even adults — might have in such an emotional scenario, where logic sometimes takes a back seat. And although this part is absolutely vital to the film, it becomes long-winded and poorly argued, and simply makes the film seem much longer than it needs to be.

School Days With A Pig is rather successful in highlighting a hard-to-believe premise, but just a little editing could have made it a nearly perfect, considerate tale.

Confusions Of An Unmarried Couple is a film about a couple, Dan and Lisa, who separate after Dan catches Lisa having a lesbian encounter. He leaves without another word to her and returns months after the incident to finally speak with her about what had happened.

Shot partly like a documentary and partly like a home video, the film seems like a fairly realistic take on a couple who simply can’t communicate with one another all that well. It’s low-budget and lacking in scenery, with most of the film taking place in either Lisa’s house or Dan’s house, which makes the importance of good dialogue the key to this film’s sustaining itself. And it does, because although backgrounds don’t really change and new faces are never really introduced, Confusions still manages to be interesting. For the most part, the film’s dialogue is believable, although it has slight moments of awkwardness. The awkwardness, however, is due in part to the acting and less with the writing. While the acting of Dan, played by screenwriter Brett M. Butler, is believable, the acting of Lisa, played by Naomi M. Johnson, leaves much to be desired. She looks as though she’s constantly waiting for a cue before every line she gives, and her acting is, sad to say, probably the weakest part of the film overall.

Confusions Of An Unmarried Couple is a good attempt at a low-budget movie centered nearly entirely around human interaction, and for those who can enjoy a movie simply based on interesting character studies, Confusions succeeds.

www.myspace.com/confusionsunmarriedcouple

Barstool Cowboy begins with a man donning a cowboy hat, drinking a beer, sighing, and smoking a cigarette. He stares into the camera for a good few minutes while interchanging between all of those activities before he starts speaking. And from that initial scene on, one can immediately conclude that Barstool Cowboy will either be quite excellent or quite atrocious — and nothing in between.

The initial scene is shot like a documentary, and it starts to look like Barstool Cowboy is a documentary. The main character painstakingly recalls a tale of heartbreak and vows to spend three months on a barstool, drinking away his pain. From there, new characters are introduced with awkwardly-placed music — the unfitting likes of which I have not seen in any movie.

While the film is interesting enough to watch because of its sheer ridiculousness, it is unrealistic and painfully shallow. Two complete strangers — one young art student and one drunken cowboy twice her age — meet outside a bar one day. He invites her over to his motel and she actually agrees to go. The two start to spend day and night together, with sleepovers, drunkenness, and pot-smoking galore. There’s no need for names here, as they are the only two characters in the entire movie, and there’s no need for any real plot development, either.

Barstool Cowboy suffers from the syndrome of a lot of independent movies, with poor writing and amateur everything. Perhaps the next if attempt will be better, but you have the chance to pass on this movie, pass.

www.barstoolcowboymovie.com

Prepare to be very jealous and very disgusted by the idea that this camera and this film are not yours.

Head on over to photographer Vincent Laforet’s website at www.vincentlaforet.com and view what he claims is the first short film shot with the Canon EOS 5d MKII. The film is terribly weak on plot and reads more like a fashion advertisement than a film, but decent on music and fantastic on visuals (the primary reason to watch it).

Good enough. Cue drooling.