Home Page: The Movie

You people are telling me what you think I want to know. I want to know what is actually happening.
-- Creighton Abrams

Wednesday, March 21, 2001
Two years ago: Deepness
Three years ago: Klown Abduction

Tonight I finally saw the movie Home Page, a documentary on the personal web phenomenon by filmmaker Doug Block. I've heard about this since he was actually filming it, and I used to read his journal from time to time, but I didn't catch the finished film when it aired on HBO last year. It's an historical document now!

Hey, scotty's old page is shown onscreen in the very first minutes. I've been reading him for a long time. Doug started with the idea of showing a lot of web folks in a general survey sort of film, but he got fascinated with Justin Hall. I remember reading Justin in 1996! I clearly recall his excitement -- he was like Johnny web-seed, touring around and teaching webstuff to anyone. In this video he seems hyper and charismatic.

I knew of Julie of awaken.org because of her writing about the sheep (very widely linked to), but I didn't know about her having an affair, and her and her paramour both writing about it. Then she continued on with her husband for some time. Train wreck, anyone?

I was intrigued by Block's wife, who was baffled by the web journal thing and Block's fascination with it. You can see her puzzlement - why would anyone write such stuff and put it online?

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After the movie, I watched the first half of the second half of Little Dorrit. I love the difference in tone between the dark world of Arthur Clenham, and little Dorrit's beauty in the urban jungle. This is the type of movie that I'm glad to own, and I've watched it several times over the years.