Covering some of the same cyber-territory as 2009's Second Skin (VL-9/09), this transfixing vérité documentary—developed in affiliation with Oprah Winfrey's cable network—examines the wonders and pitfalls of dwelling with one foot in an online universe and the other in the real world, focusing particularly on how the boundaries blur in Second Life, a virtual-reality game launched by San Francisco's Linden Lab in 2003. The worldwide participants (roughly a million active users) interact in a 3-D landscape, with their own customized avatars engaged in virtual world-building—featuring growing businesses, artistic pursuits, families, love affairs, even terrorism. Three cases of SL “residents” are highlighted. Tisa, a sickly woman living with her parents in Detroit, is a chic entrepreneur in fashion and real-estate “in game” who's found a way to make her sessions pay off in reality. The married Amie, of New York, and Steven, of Canada, commit “virtual adultery,” and dare to meet in person to see if their passionate connection is genuine. Another relationship is threatened when a young man lives an SL existence as an adolescent schoolgirl, to the dismay of his fiancée. Even filmmaker Jason Spingarn-Koff appears in avatar form to interview the other simulated protagonists. A 56-minute abridgement is also available, which omits (in addition to soft-core CGI sex and nudity) Tisa's narrative with its bizarre twist of her business falling victim to virtual crime—a sidebar that's worth a documentary all its own. Highly recommended. Aud: C, P. (C. Cassady)
Life 2.0
(2010) 99 min. DVD: $95: high schools & public libraries; $295: colleges & universities. Ro*co Films Educational. PPR. Volume 26, Issue 6
Life 2.0
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