On_Line

In New York, John Roth (Josh Hamilton) and Lawrence "Moe" Curley (Harold Perrineau) are friends, roommates and partners in a pornographic adult site called Intercon-X, where the fantasies of costumers may be satisfied, being necessary only a computer and a credit card. John is very lonely and has difficulties to deal with real people, and Moe is a "walking penis", only interested in having sex with women. John peeps Angel (Liz Owens) and the delicious Jordan Nash (Vanessa Ferlito), and one day he makes contact with Jordan and they date. Meanwhile, the depressed owner of a thematic bar, Moira Ingalls (Isabell Gillies), meets Moe and she falls in love for him, stops using pills and leaves her suicidal chartroom, keeping only touch with the twenty years old gay virtual friend Ed Simone (Eric Millegan), who is also lonely and likes Al Fleming (John Fleck) from Intercon-X. The reaction of each person outside virtual world meeting the other one is very different, but in the end, there is a message of hope.

"On_Line" is a very original and updated romance and I liked a lot. The creative screenplay is about a very modern theme that is explored in "Thomas est Amoureux" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0262826/usercomments-13) in a different approach, taking place in a near future. But in "On-Line", the story about lonely people that have difficulties to establish a relationship with real people is much more believable. In the present days, it is amazing the quantity of personal information transmitted through Internet and the number of persons we only know virtually. In IMDb, for example, I have contact with many persons, few of them are my friends in real world, but most of them I know just through the site and probably I will never have the chance to meet them. But IMDb is a site about movies, and not problematic as Intercon-X or the suicidal chat room. The cast is great and is difficult to highlight one individual performance, although I liked a lot the acting of Isabell Gillies in the role of the sweet and hurt Moira Ingalls; the direction is excellent, with a great work of edition. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "A Vida On_Line" ("The On_Line Life")

I saw this film almost by chance. I barely knew what it was about, and I had no expectations. It took no more than five minutes for the film to bring me in with full curiosity. My interest was for both the story and the choices the director made in executing the script.

On the outside, `On_Line' is about two friends who run a web site that connects people for video chatting. For the most part, the conversations are in the same vein as `phone sex.' A small cast of characters make up the web of people who interact both online and offline. Essentially, they are all looking for the same thing, love and happiness. `On_Line' explores the difficulties of this endeavor with both humor and tension, which are well timed throughout he story and well played out by excellent performances from the actors. In the exploration of today's difficulties for finding someone to hold, `On_line' analyzes our expectations by comparing what we want on the surface to what we need inside. The film dives into the concept of satisfaction or lack of it, as a result of expectation. We want something, and when it is presented to us, we are not happy because deeply, we need something else.

Aside from the humorous stories that are intertwined throughout the film, the director takes us to another online video chat connection. Here we meet a character that explores the possibility of being alone forever. He is battling a decision that may be his last. The director looks into the extreme dark side of loneliness, but keeps us laughing so we don't regress into depression.

Why is it that when we live in a big city with millions of people, we find it so difficult to find someone to hold hands with? Furthermore, with the online world, in which we live, you can almost try before you buy, and yet it seems this has only made our task to find happiness more difficult.

I strongly suggest watching this film. You may find yourself in it. Perhaps you will learn something about yourself. At the very least you will laugh out loud.

Most films of this kind call strictly for a kind of voyeuristic response on the part of the viewer. This one rises well above that level because of its message and its unique manner of execution. It displays an interdimensional technical structure that works well, especially within the context of internet effects on ordinary human behavior.

In other words, it takes what might ordinarily pass as borderline pornographic scenarios and makes them the vehicle rather than the main focus of interest in showing how people respond to that novel kind of intercommunication. Skillfully moving from the computer screen to real life situations and back again, the film overcomes weaknesses in plot and credibility to succeed in creating an overall sense of purpose.

Not that the story or acting are uniformly deficient. Indeed, there are a few fine performances of difficult material here, as well as production values that rise well above those of most independent films. This is one of those films that require some serious reflection on the part of the viewer in order to get past preconceptions or prejudices.

Everyone can and should see it a little differently.

This film, which won the jury prize at Cinequest (the San Jose, CA film festival) for best narrative feature, is nominally about two roommates who start an Internet sex site. But happily the film is about more than that. It is also about real life interactions, and about the confusing lines of public vs. private on the Internet.

The director was there to answer questions when I saw this on 3/3/2002, and the story behind the film was also pretty interesting. Most of the online interactions really did happen in real-time, although often over local network connections between people in nearby rooms rather than over the Internet. In one case people who were supposedly in different states were actually in rooms on adjacent floors of a dilapidated building, and they had to take care to make sure that the one on the upper floor didn't cause dust to rain down on the other person. The film was shot in 18 days on digital video, and the director said that the film will likely get distributed.

Check out the hot, sexy, and decidely-not-for-primetime ON_LINE. Josh Hamilton (The House of Yes, Kicking & Screaming) and Harold Perrineau (Oz, and Link from The Matrix: Reloaded and The Matrix: Revolutions) topline this ensemble of intersecting love triangles shot thru New York City's internet dating and cybersex community.

The first REAL look at virtual communities, webcam voyeurs, and what it's like to live life in our new net culture.

But most importantly, this film is super-sexy and sports a super-hot young cast of actors who we'll be seeing for years to come.

Worth seeing for the Josh Hamilton/Vanessa Ferlito scene in the middle alone. ***** Check it out!