Home Page

A personal voyage of discovery by documentary-maker Doug Block through the early years of the Internet. Block is mainly fascinated by the pioneers who used their home pages to publish their work of varying literary value. A special place has been reserved for Justin Hall, whose net prose and net diary can be compared with the work of Kerouac and Ginsberg. Not all net literature is on a par with Hall, but Block convincingly lays to rest the idea that the net is only populated by juvenile trash. He seeks contact with those he regards as serious net users and studies their motives.Block films and edits other people's net products, but also keeps his own diary on the net (www.d-word.com). In this way he also tells a personal story in the film about a man facing a midlife-crisis who feels the need in his journey to home pages to restore the relationship with his own real surroundings. It was not at first the intention that he would play such a large role in the film, but the confrontation with the personal material of Hall in particular forced Block to crawl out of his shell.Block started his film dissatisfied with traditional media reporting of the Internet. All too often, the media excitedly praised the revolutionary nature of the technique or anxiously warned of its dangers.