I like to think I’m a funny guy.  That being said, I’ve never once considered going on stage on open mic night.  Not only do you need to be fearless, you have to get total strangers to laugh at your jokes while they’re busy getting drunk.  Maybe this is why the movie has a character everyone refers to as “Balls”.  You gotta have balls to be a performer, figuratively for ladies, of course.  And while the amateur stand-up comedian at the center of Is This Thing On? is both funny and ballsy, the movie isn’t the story of him becoming famous.  It’s about what drove him to write his name on the call sheet to begin with.

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In the old days, people who sought out back-alley bargains knew what they were getting.  In the era of digital commerce, however, buyers only know a seller’s user name and can’t tell whether what’s for sale is legitimate or not until a package arrives.  Conversely, sellers don’t know who they’re scamming or how their victims will react to being swindled.  Cloud takes a harsh look at the perils of ecommerce in the cloud era, where new-fangled criminality hides behind anonymity and revenge is sought through on-line doxxing forums.  It’s a canny, secretive film that progressively builds towards a shocking climax.

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