I saw it and thought it was so-so pretty entertaining in the context of all the slick, big budget stuff that was dominating theaters at the time (unlike today, right?) but I also worked in a video store and it only took a few weeks of hearing kids (and some adults) passionately arguing that it was real and they only claimed it was staged after the fact to get theaters to screen it etc. etc. to cure me of liking it.

Still better than Waking Life though.

A lot of my friends and co-workers at the time were hugely into the horror 'scene' and after a couple of weeks of their rabbiting on about BWP being effectively the second coming of the horror genre, I finally went to see it and was massively disappointed by what I saw.

I learned not to trust any of their film recommendations after that.

Spot-on regarding Waking Life.

Yeah, I was like 17 when it came out. It started in one indie theatre before going to all the big theatre chains which also added to the illusion, since they showed lots of documentaries and such other relatively obscure indie films. But my friend worked at that theatre, and like any other movie they received all sorts of promo material, like the hands that stuck to the walls and stuff. They also got a press release which pretty much said it was fake.

Since they didn't put up any of the displays and stuff, and didn't say anything about it being a mocumentary a lot of people did think it was real, and I probably would've too, but by the time it hit the big theatres (I think within the next week) all the displays were up and it was pretty obvious.

hey now, if it wasn't for Waking Life we might not have the Alex Jones we all know and love.

haha Alex Jones, that guy is responsible for so much of the dumbest parts of the internet.

My main memory of 'encountering' the guy is when I used to do side work for a certain large pre-facebook social network and he spammed the shit out of all the forums.

I contacted him directly and asked him nicely to knock it off, twice. I even told him which forums he could actually post it in without having his posting rights nixed.

He ignored it and got banned entirely. Wrote some massive screechy diatribe about how it was because of NewsCorp and that everyone involved was a nazi quisling and his usual sort of moderate, sane banter.

Not long after that, my more psychonaut-leaning friends were the first group who picked up on 'that thing he does' and began spamming my email and feeds with it relentlessly.

I often wonder what combination of mental illness, money-hunger and prescription/party drugs makes him the way he is.

My money's on uppers.

Oh my. That is awesome but also sounds infuriating. In my mind I'm imagining Jones spamming the hell out of Friendster.

Everyone loved this movie in 1999. Everyone hated this movie in 2000.

I enjoyed it.

WHY WOULD HE DO THAT etc etc etc

and if you want to see the current pinnacle of found footage horror movies, check out [REC], but whatever the fuck you do DO NOT see Quarantine first.

What Nominal said. It looks totally fake now, cause it was. But at the time it seemed totally real, cause we were young and stupid.