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Movies & TV Movies & TV Reviews

SECOND SKIN

SECOND SKIN (Juan Carlos Pineiro, U.S.). 90 minutes. Monday (April 21), 7:15 pm, ROM Wednesday (April 23), 1:30 pm, Isabel Bader. Rating: NNNN


Second Skin should click with viewers who are — or know — one of the sleep-deprived millions who play massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG) like World Of Warcraft.

Director Juan Carlos Pineiro focuses mostly on the gamers themselves. One guy pees in a bottle so he can play EverQuest uninterrupted, another (men outnumber women, natch) checks himself into Online Gamers Anonymous, a group whose maternal leader has her own tragic story.

Pineiro humanizes the playfully shot doc by following the breakup of one group of gaming roommates, and also chronicles one couple who take their virtual flirtation to the next step. He doesn’t avoid exploring the darker implications of the industry, like social isolation and the exploitation of so-called foreign “gold farmers.”

As with any classic comedy, it ends with one awesome wedding.

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