Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Not even bad in a good way

Highly Overrated But Still Good

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

I think this documentary is great. Removing the presence of the filmmaker is what sets this movie apart and allows such honesty to spill out of these kids. Well edited, well paced and entertaining; each story has an arc; while still capturing the essence of the kids. And the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. I saw this at Sundance in 2001 and then again on DVD in 2006 and I remember most of it like it was. But I think a sequence was missing involving an Armenian girl who was fighting with her mom. I remember her escaping outside from a fight her mom and crying to the camera. Its a very vivid memory, but perhaps I saw this in another movie?

Ten camcorders were passed out among the student body of an East L.A. high school. After recording their "lives", the students passed the cameras on not unlike a chain letter...hence, the title. Of the results, 16 vignettes were edited revealing attitudes, opinions, and behaviors with diversity of ethnicity and subject. This documentary collection of amateur videography offers some poignant moments, some humor, some very frank sex talk, typical prom night, graduation and more. Want to know what's on the minds of kids today? Check it out.

...this one just isn't worth the cost of a movie ticket. What these filmmakers have done cannot properly be called filmmaking; rather, they just chose sixteen students of some diversity (though not quite as much diversity as the reviews have suggested) and set them loose. The results are, to be brutally frank, far more often boring, self-indulgent, overwrought and off-puttingly grainy than truly insightful.There are, of course, moments of recognition and identification of the sort only possible in documentary film, but overall there's not much more truth here than in "Bully" or, for that matter, a decent TV documentary of the same sort. Though full of talk about sex and sexual diversity and racism, the film brings nothing to the table that will be of use to anyone who has thought about any of these issues with any seriousness. And while certain segments serve absolutely no purpose other than to inject a bit of (admittedly welcome) comic relief, most often the five-minute limit keeps up from becoming emotionally involved with any of the students. An interesting idea, but thumbs down for CHAIN CAMERA.

Finally a REAL "reality" show! One Marshall High School student (in Los Angeles) is given a camera and a week to film their life then pass the camera on to a classmate. The resulting 10 vignettes create a compelling reality documentary. It is 100% human, thus it is often loving and compassionate, sometimes chilling, and sometimes extremely funny. The audience applauded loudly at the end. It makes one realize how phony the current "reality TV show" rage is.