PEOPLE: The main character’s friend Pierce is played by Dylan Moran, who was David in Shaun Of The Dead and Gordon in Run,Fatboy,Run, and was in the Black Books series. Keith Allen (Jack) was messenger #2 in The Toxic Avenger 2, and was in an ep of Spaced, 24 Hour Party People, and Trainspotting (as a dealer).
QUIRKS: Morbid dry black comedy. Or that’s what IMDB told me, anyway. It wasn’t actually funny.
POLITICS: Police are so prosecutor-hungry that if something happens that makes you look guilty, they’ll find a way to lock you up even if you didn’t do it. Remember The Fugitive? That’s one approach. Another approach is to try to lie your ass off about what happened. That *should* be funny… But in this case, they managed to make it NOT FUNNY.
GOOD STUFF: Nothing!
BAD STUFF: Boring! Not funny! Black humor fail!
CONCLUSION: Even though the plot could have been made interesting, this movie was an incredibly boring, dull, uninteresting disaster. Nothing about it was ever, at any point, enjoyable. Dull, dull, dull, and it never got un-dull, even when people were dying left and right. There were maybe 1 or 2 genuine laughs, and they were not worth the expense of trudging through the rest of this boring piece of shit movie.
The native public rating for this movie is: IMDB: 6.6/10, Netflix: 3.0/5 stars (Netflix‘s predicted rating for us was 3.7/5 stars–WRONG, WRONG, WRONG! WRONG, NETFLIX!!!!!).
RECOMMENDATION: STEER CLEAR FROM THIS PILE OF GARBAGE!
SIMILAR MOVIES: Described as a more lighthearted version of Very Bad Things (which I haven’t seen).
MOVIE QUOTE: “When I left this apartment there were two dead people… How many are there now?”
FRIENDS’ RATINGS: They’re lucky enough to have not seen this garbage! (more…)
PEOPLE: Directed by Jay Roach (Meet The Parents, Meet The Fockers, Austin Powers 1-3). Starring Paul Rudd as the straight guy, and Steve Carell as the schmuck (was originally going to be Sasha Baron Cohen).
PLOT SUMMARY: Rising worker cog must attend dinner with fancy snobby bosses. The requirement is to bring one idiot that everyone can subtly make fun of without the idiot realizing. But this is just the framing plot for the bigger issue in his life: Getting his girlfriend to finally agree to marrying him. But even that is just the framing plot for a LOT OF WACKY STUFF to end up happening.
UNCOMFORTABLE PLOT SUMMARY (inspired by this): [highlight for spoilers]→Couple wrecks each others’ careers due to relationship indecision.
QUIRKS: A screwball comedy. Remake of The Dinner Game (1998), a French movie (rated 7.7/10 on IMDB). All kinds of crazy, painful, ridiculous situations arise.
VISUALS: The mouse art is interesting.
SOUNDTRACK: Alright.
MORALS: People involved in capitalistic profit don’t tend to have as many.
GOOD STUFF: Ridiculous situations. Cringe comedy that makes Season 1 of the American office look easy to watch in comparison. A crazy stalker chick. Douchey co-workers. Idiots from many walks of life coming together.
BAD STUFF: The middle is such a disaster [in terms of how much Paul Rudd’s life is getting messed up by Steve Carell] that it actually HURTS to watch. You may be tempted to think that means it’s not funny, but it’s simply dry cringe comedy humor. Most humor is dry anyway, so try to revel in the pain here.
CONCLUSION: Started out funny, but a bit stuffier than you’d expect. That then that went out the door, and it got so awkward that it was painful. *Dreadfully* painful, dry, cringe comedy. But then everything went to a shitstorm and it became hilarious and ridiculous, turning into a genuine screwball laugh out loud comedy. And then it had a really great feelgood ending. Definitely a crazy and hilarious movie, with several noticeable pacing changes that keep you on your toes. Good stuff.
The native public rating for this movie is: IMDB: 6.2/10, Netflix: 3.6/5 stars (Netflix‘s predicted rating for us was 4.3/5 stars–Netflix was right that we’d like this more than average, though both 3.6 and 4.3 round to 4).
RECOMMENDATION: Definitely worth seeing! It’s like a sampler platter of different kinds of comedy.
SIMILAR MOVIES: The movie it’s based on :)
MOVIE QUOTES:
“It’s my wife’s favorite finger!”
“I want you to say, ‘You can eat my pudding.'”
Kieran: “Have you ever lived among a herd of goats, for months at a time, as one of them?”
Barry: “No.”
Kieran: “That surprises me.” (more…)
PLOT SUMMARY: 12 “lost” reality TV pilots that nobody wanted… now presented here for our entertainment.
UNCOMFORTABLE PLOT SUMMARY (inspired by this): A grim look at what watching television might be like in a dystopian future where nobody cares.
GOOD STUFF: Completely tasteless, exploitative, gross, outrageous, over-the-top entertainment.
MORALS: Nobody involved in any of these productions has any.
BAD STUFF: A lot of the stuff wasn’t that funny, or was in very poor taste. It’s why these shows weren’t picked up.
PER-SEGMENT RATINGS:
Money. More segments from the “anything for money” show that was screened in the first movie. For a few hundred, people let a homeless guy chew up food and drop it in their mouth, carry a 160lb fat midget across the street and back, put a dead squirrel on their head and go talk to a random woman, pump gas naked (that girl was cheap! only $200!), let a homeless guy urinate on them, etc, etc. Hilarious how peoples’ dignity disappears at a specific dollar amount. One guy, for $1000, ate a hot dog from in between a fat midget’s ass cheeks, then flossed with one of the midget’s public hairs. Wow. Humans can be turned into entertainment VERY easily, if you have enough money.
Carolyn: 3/5 stars, 6/10.
Clint: 4/5 stars, 8/10.
The Amazing Racist. This time he makes fun of Asians and Latinos. Including dressing Kabuki and asking for dog at restaurants, picking up day workers, driving over speed bumps, swerving, then dropping them off at the local INS office to watch them scatter. Really really mean shit that most people would never do. Frickin’ hilarious if you believe that NOTHING IS SACRED.
Carolyn: 3/5 stars, 6/10.
Clint: 4/5 stars, 7/10.
Project Redlight. Film students are told they will get to direct a film, which makes them very happy. But, unbeknown to them, they are paired with adult movie stars, and are making a porno. They get disappointed. Some potential here, but it was wasted.
Carolyn: 2/5 stars, 5/10.
Clint: 2/5 stars, 4/10.
Beer Goggles. Ugly girls are rounded up, and a guy is given drink after drink until he is willing to hook up with one. It would have been better if they’d picked uglier girls and actually shown some of the interactions “Blind Date-style”. But again, the potential here was wasted.
Clint: 2/5 stars, 5/10.
Carolyn: 2/5 stars, 5/10.
Scare Me. Guys literally go up to people and scare them in situations. Going up to a guy at a bar and making him spill the entire contents of his drink is pretty hilarious. Scaring the person bowling next to you is quite awesome too. I am continuously disappointed in human beings’ propensity for violence, however, as a lot of people seem to think it’s perfectly fine to assault someone for daring to scare you. It’s not. This show is freakin’ hilarious, but there’s really not much to it, so it was never picked up.
Clint: 5/5 stars, 9/10.
Carolyn: 3/5 stars, 7/10.
Lifestyles Of The Poor And Homeless. Inspired by Bumfights, they found a way to be even meaner to the homeless. This time, instead of physically attacking them and possibly facing charges, they mentally attack them. Get them to fish for a wishbone inside a port-o-potty full of human feces. Tell them their reward is a night in a mansion with a hot shower. When they succeed, pull up the limo — only to drive them back to their original corner and tell them that their actual reward is only ONE DOLLAR. This actually seems meaner than Bumfights; the people in Bumfights knew what they were getting into. The people here did not. This is mean as FUCK. And that makes it funny, even if it’s wrong.
Clint: 4/5 stars, 7/10.
Carolyn: 3/5 stars, 6/10.
Swing House. Inspired by Big Brother and Temptation Island, they put 4 swinger couples into 1 house. Production was scrapped when the producer’s wife slept with one of them. This looks like a fuckfest with typical lame human drama. The sex doesn’t make it more interesting as a show. (It makes it more interesting as a porno, but it’s not a porno — it’s a reality TV show — so that doesn’t help.)
[the boner guy]. A guy walks around with a boner. Everywhere. Goes to Yoga classes, gets his hair cut, goes to the tailor. They said they found this tape in a trash can. This strikes me as the kind of thing Beavis & Butt-head would laugh at, but people who watch Beavis & Butt-head wouldn’t. The only funny parts were when the other chicks checked him out. At least his girlfriend was hot. (It was kind of weird that she was bought along with him. Perhaps she was a buffer in case people got mad or tried to call the police. Who’s going to arrest a man for having an erection around his hot girlfriend?)
Clint: 2/5 stars, 4/10.
Carolyn: 3/5 stars, 6/10.
Dumpster Dinner. Two chefs are given 3 minutes to dig whatever edible material they can find out of a dumpster. They are then given an hour to cook this food into various entrees which are served to unsuspecting customers. If the customer eats it, they get a point. If the customer sends it back, they don’t. HOW IS THIS LEGAL?? Soooo disgusting! The food does look good by the time they are done with it, but the customers complain that they taste “not right”, or “funky”, or “not like any fish I’ve had before”. The major flaw was that it resulted in a tie, so nobody won. What a disappointment. This had potential as a real game show.
Clint: 3/5 stars, 6/10.
Carolyn: 3/5 stars, 6/10.
Payback. Parents turning the tables by torturing their kid. Whiny little girl is left alone in a super market, kneeling on the floor crying, as other passerbys ignore her. Loser college dropout kid watches as his dad pretends to have a heart attack. This was way funnier when levied against little children than college dropouts. Tormenting a 20-year-old is only 3/5 stars, tormenting a 5-year-old is 5/5 stars.
Clint: 4/5 stars, 7/10. I’d really rate the 5-year-old prank 5/5 stars, 9/10, and the 20-year-old prank 2.6/5 stars, 5/10.
Carolyn: 3/5 stars, 6/10.
Foreign Family Affair. A horny family with Pakistani exchange kid. They wear suggestive clothing, have him rub oil on the daughter while topless, the milfy mother comes in wearing just an apron, everyone gets really comfy with the exchange kid. But they must get him to complete certain tasks for the show to continue. This week, they must get him to say “motherfucker”. Corrupting someone from a culture that doesn’t appreciate sex as much? Priceless. This reminded me of Sherman Oaks in some ways.
Clint: 3/5 stars, 7/10.
Carolyn: 3/5 stars, 6/10.
Midget Wars. Like American Gladiators, except 2 full-sized human guests fight against little people. The little people ALWAYS lose. Almost effortlessly so. Total exploitation. Not much to it, and yet… Little people are inherently entertaining. Especially the post-credits scene where the largest of the group of 4 little people — the sole woman on the team — tries to pep up her teammates to actually win. It’s never, ever, ever going to happen. So sad. So wrong. Yet funny. Like most of this.
Clint: 4/5 stars, 7/10.
Carolyn: 3/5 stars, 7/10.
CONCLUSION: I dunno… Carolyn said she liked the first one slightly better, but I think I may actually like this one better.
RATINGS:
Clint: Netflix: 3/5 stars. IMDB: 6/10.
Carolyn: Netflix: 3/5 stars. IMDB: 6/10.
The native public rating for this movie is: IMDB: 5.1/10, Netflix: 2.7/5 stars (Netflix‘s predicted rating for us was 4.1/5 stars–another huge difference).
RECOMMENDATION: This is some of the most interesting stuff I’d seen, but it’s not for the faint of heart, or the overly moral.
PEOPLE: This is actually a collection of 7-8 different failed reality TV pilots. So they are all done by different people. Ron Jeremy is in one, though. So is Rip Taylor.
QUIRKS: A collection of shows. Are they staged, or are they real? It’s really hard to know. But they all appear to be different productions from different companies with different casts.
VISUALS: Varying video quality; nothing seems to be shot on actual film. There are definitely some visual horrors within this video. Not a lot, but enough to scar you.
MORALS: People will do anything for money.
GOOD STUFF: The variety of different shows keeps things interesting. If you don’t like one segment, there’s 6 others that you might like. And the funnier ones seem to be more toward the end.
BAD STUFF: 1 or 2 of these segments weren’t that great. These are all FAILED shows, so they already represent shows that were rejected by many, many cable and broadcast TV channels. This movie is definitely not for a film snob.
RATINGS FOR INDIVIDUAL SEGMENTS:
He Said She Said. Guys compete for a lovely Asian girl’s affections. Only problem is she’s a transsexual who then reveals her penis to them on camera.
Clint: 3/5 stars, 7/10. Kenny Vs. Spenny did something similar. It’s a common form of comedy.
Carolyn: 3/5 stars, 7/10.
The Amazing Racist. A Jewish kid pretends to be a racist,going through LA and Watts in a Ku Klux Klan robe. Nobody seems to realize he’s Jewish, who the Klan hates on an equal to or greater footing than blacks. He goes into a convienence store with a wooden cross and tries to buy some lighters. Then he goes to a dry cleaning establishment, calls the guy “Mr. Jefferson” and tries to get his robe and hood cleaned. Then, still in Klan robe, he tries to bum gas from black people fueling up their cars. In another episode he plays a Jew that sets up a souvenier stand outside a mosque. The stand makes fun of Arabs, including selling shirts that say, “I Went To Mecca And All I Got Was This Loudy Odor.”
Clint: 4/5 stars, 8/10. OMG this was some of the most awkard situations I’ve ever seen on film. Dealing with Tom Green is a walk in the park by comparison. No political correctness here; I’m really surprised he didn’t get his ass kicked.
Carolyn: 3/5 stars, 7/10.
Not from this movie, but a different clip of The Amazing Racist:
Don’t Get Caught Stealing. Two contestants are told to steal things. Watch a dude run out of the store wearing an Italian suit and steal a car from a car wash.
Clint: 2.6/5 stars, 5/10. It could have been a lot funnier, but it wasn’t.
Carolyn: 4/5 stars, 7/10.
[FORGOT THE NAME] A dude has terminal cancer and wants to document the last days of his life. He tells off his boss then takes a dump on his desk.
Clint: 2.6/5 stars, 6/10. That was the most graphic close-up of a middle-aged fat male asshole shitting that I could ever have imagined. Kind of ruined the whole thing for me, and I”m not normally squemish about things. I’d rather watch the vomelette from Jackass!
Carolyn: 3/5 stars, 6/10.
The Whore. Guys go on blind dates with a prostitute — but they don’t know she’s a whore. When the sex begins, the host ambushes them, telling the male they paid her to have sex with him. The Whore then proceeds to insult their looks and sexual prowess. “You seriously think I’d want to have sex with you? You’re hung like a field mouse!” (The Whore is played by Monique Alexander, who’s only psuedo-legitimate role was a porn star in Crank 2, and a guest on The O’Reilly Factor).
Clint: 5/5 stars, 9/10. Holy shit, this was some of the meanest, funniest shit I’ve seen in a long time. Is this really real?!
Carolyn: 4/5 stars, 8/10.
Psych Ward. A game show where all the contestants are crazy people in a psych ward. The games are deliberately designed to be failed. The orderly has to drag each losing contestant out of the room as they scream, struggle, and resist. Completely makes fun of crazy people. Over the top.
Clint: 4/5 stars, 7/10.
Carolyn: 3/5 stars, 7/10.
America’s Porn Star (only on the unrated version of the DVD). Basically an America’s Next Top Model type show, but for girls wanting to be in porn. Ron Jeremy and another porn starlet are 2 of the 3 judges. Girls fake orgasms, masturbate, practice receiving loads of fake cum to their face.
Clint: 3/5 stars, 6/10. With such a great subject matter, they could have come up with something a bit more creative than this.
Carolyn: 3/5 stars, 7/10.
Take That Drug. A great little gameshow where people take a bunch of drugs — without knowing what they all are — then draw cards to do things like “pierce your ear”, “ask your parents for money”, or “hit on the pizza guy”. They then proceed to do these things while on the drugs they did. Unfortunately, this was really short and didn’t seem to show everything they could have shown.
Clint: 5/5 stars, 9/10.
Carolyn: 5/5 stars, 8/10.
Money / Everyone Has Their Price. People on the street are asked to do stuff for money. One guy throws up on the sidewalk and then licks it up for $1000. We got a little gay midget and people are paid to kiss him and lick his feet. During the ending credits a guy is paid to eat in a Mexican restaurant with his date and do a poopy in his pants. Yes, we get to see it, unfortunately. Virginia Tech‘s Pritchard Hall did something similar with their “Anything For Money” show [which I recorded, and was at the taping of], but this was done with a “pick random people up off the street to get them to do it” vibe. Pretty outrageous stuff.
In fact, this famous Youtube clip, which I’ve seen several times before, is lifted directly from this show:
…But the version in Lost Reality is possibly more complete. Apparently this guy is an actor who vomits on command, so this is, in a sense, “fake”.
Carolyn: 3/5 stars, 7/10.
Clint: 4/5 stars, 8/10.
CONCLUSION:
Wow. What did I just watch?! That was some crazy stuff!! I actually would like TV a lot more if it picked up shows like these instead of the shows it does pick up.
The native public rating for this movie is: IMDB: 4.6/10, Netflix: 2.3/5 stars (Netflix‘s predicted rating for us was 4.6/5 stars–a whopping double of the average rating! Wow! I’ve never seen such a big deviation.)
RECOMMENDATION: Not for the faint hearted; definitely for those very interested in niche and underground video.
SIMILAR MOVIES: Will review the 2nd movie tomorrow. There are some other, more legitimate compilations of failed pilots that I have watched in the past. This, however, is the most crazy and explicit failed pilot compilation. (more…)
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