by SARAH ROWLAND

Whether you’re searching for a swinging mate, sperm donor, second-hand army fatigues or a support group for people living with morbidly obese pets, you can find it at www.craigslist.org. On average, the non-commercial, online bulletin board, which only charges for job postings, posts five million ads and boasts 10 million active users each month.

One of its most devoted surfers, Michael Ferris Gibson, decided to make a movie about the beloved cyber community and call it 24 Hours on Craigslist. But the Bay Area filmmaker wanted to do it in a way that wouldn’t betray the grassroots feel of the site, so he enlisted eight amateur camera crews to spend the day following 121 different stories found on Craigslist.

And who do we meet? Well, all the usual freaks, loners and cat lovers you’d expect to meet in a closely-knit search engine society—all of whom are spectacularly eccentric and of course camera-ready. There’s the heavy metal chef who wants to work as a caterer for a touring band. He’s 420-friendly (code word for pothead) and all his gourmet dishes are named after Slayer songs—naturally. Then there’s the Ethel Merman drag queen, who’s looking for back-up musicians for her Led Zep cover band. As well, there’s a diabetic cat whose owners are aching to share their pain with others. There’s also the requisite lesbian whose ticking biological clock is driving her to hunt down gay men with high sperm-counts. And on and on it goes.

But with so many stories to cover, Gibson edits at neck-breaking speed. We barely get to hear the Merman impersonator do “Houses of the Holy” before he cuts to a nymphomaniac demonstrating her state-of-the-art vibrator (a sexual crutch she hopes to replace with some lucky person she meets online). The result of these superficial introductions to people who all swear by Craig is that 24 Hours on Craigslist feels like more of an extended infomercial for the site than an honest look at the kind of desperate souls who rely on the Internet for companionship.

24 Hours on Craigslist opens at Cinéma du Parc Friday, Jan. 27

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