Product Details

• Directors: Joe Winston
• Format: Color, DTS Surround Sound, NTSC
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Ow Myeye Productions, Inc.
• VHS Release Date: April 11, 2003
• Run Time: 50 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0000959MY
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #477,344 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars the trials and tribulations of camp X, October 6, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Burning Man: Just Add Couches [VHS] (VHS Tape)

It helps to understand a bit about how burning man works, or doesn't, to appreciate this movie. The basic schtick is that most folks that go to burning man go as parts of camps, or groups of folks that have some unifying theme to their freakiness, it could be art cars, alien raves, or, as is the case in this film, couch potatoes. Anyone that's ever been knows everything goes wrong and all somehow ends up more than alright in the end. Basically you get a pretty good perspective on the whole burning man experience viewed from the perspective of a mildly sarcastic camp: motivated by the fact that the desert is hot and uncomfortable, they try and move their living room into the middle of burning man to minimize the displeasure associated with taking in the freak scene. It's not designed to be smooth or pretty, it's designed to document the experience and it does a damned fine job - sure some of the dialog is not well written, but what do you expect from a documentary where people aren't reading from teleprompters or doing studio voiceovers - there is no written dialogue, just regular people trying to build an air conditioned livingroom in the middle of a drugged drenched desert freak fest.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If you think you know Burning Man, look again, October 6, 2003

By 

John Pareles (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Burning Man: Just Add Couches [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I've been to Burning Man a couple of times, and I've always struggled to explain it to my friends and co-workers. All they ever ask me about is how many drugs I did while I was there.

I've also seen a few different movies made at the event. Most of them are pretty good, but none of them I'd seen really showed what it was like to make art at Burning Man, which for me is what makes that event so beautiful.

When I watched "Burning Man: Just Add Couches," I laughed and laughed, and immediately showed it to all my friends. "See, this is what we do at Burning Man," I told them. "We work our butts off."

The movie follows the filmmaker and three of his buddies as they prepare to go to Burning Man and build a "theme camp" there. They have the idea to bring couches to the desert with them, and make a cozy middle-American living room for revelers to escape the heat. To their eternal woe, these guys think "oh, this will be easy.' (How many times has somebody assured me that about a project!)

All sorts of things go wrong. A shipping company damages one of their installations. The truck they rented is too small. The generator they've rented is too loud. During the festival, they get lost driving across the featureless playa, which freaks out their cameraman, causing him to abandon the project and leave for home. As they describe these misadventures, the guys remain deadpan and totally hilarious.

I do think that you can only really appreciate this movie if you've been to Burning Man, or are at least familiar with it. Then you can relate to what the filmmaker and his friends endure trying to make art in the desert.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My favorite movie about Burning Man, February 8, 2005

By 

Art667 (Madison, WI) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Burning Man: Just Add Couches [VHS] (VHS Tape)

For anyone who's been to Burning Man, this movie is a must-see. The festival is so often misunderstood, portrayed in the news media as hippies on parade in the desert. In reality, it is much more: a radical, temporary community which arises in the desert for one week each year. Burning Man is like a laboratory for creative people to discover new ways to interact outside of commericialized mass culture. But least understood, as this movie shows, is how hard the participants work to put on each year's event.

"Burning Man: Just Add Couches" is a hilarious account of four newbies who go to Burning Man for the first time and try to set up their own theme camp at the festival. They aren't truly prepared, and they make just about every first-timers' mistake, but in the end, the festival changes them - for the better.