Unreal.
RT rating: None
Synopsis: Narrated by entertainer Steve Allen, this revealing documentary traces professional wrestling's history from its early years as a bona fide athletic event to its current incarnation as a soap opera with a referee. Interviews with fans, sports historians and wrestling stars -- including Hulk Hogan, Andre the Giant, Killer Kowalski, Gorgeous George and Classie Freddie Blassie -- are interspersed with footage of modern and classic matches. (Yeah. I THINK this is a mistake.)
One of the biggest problems with entertainment in the last decade is the rise of reality TV shows. What began with a simple way to get around striking writers by following police officers on the road to catch drunken, belligerent rednecks beating their spouses and in the process, ruining the good name of a white muscle shirt forever, reality television shows only managed to get WORSE in the 20 years since then. Cops attacking drunken idiots gave way to celebrating young idiots getting drunk, which gave way to giving money to people you want to beat the crap out of, which gave way to a happy ending of celebrating stupid, possibly spoiled people- preferably if they have way too many kids or are challenged with some disability that the producers can simultaneously claim they're promoting awareness of and sell to networks hoping to find people who'll laugh at the freaks.
However, no matter how bad this gets, at least they don't expect us to pay to see these idiots. Luckily, when reality TV stars transfer to motion pictures themselves, the results usually tend to involve the winner failing miserably, proving that people will only watch idiots on reality shows if they're not forced to pay for the privilege. That didn't stop producers from trying to market a short-lived and 'lucrative' mini-genre of reality movies [for people who want to say they watch documentaries to sound smart, but want to remain idiots, they're perfect], with films like "The Real Cancun" providing important examples of movies to end up in DVD stores' remainder bins and pre-owned discount racks for years to come, hoping for some idiot to pick it up and think it's an off-brand "Girls Gone Wild" video.
That brings us to the movie "Unreal", which is one of the most perfect post-modern results of the whole genre: A scripted movie with the plot of pretending it's a reality TV-styled movie. While the Rotten Tomatoes Synopsis was a visible problem, giving the wrong synopsis [while it claims to be a documentary about professional wrestling on the site, the film is actually a movie pretending to be like "Blind Date", a show that amused stoned people looking for anything to watch at 3 a.m. and people who want to see pretty colors and pop-ups alike]. While most things would have this as a problem, I actually found this perfectly appropriate for the style of this movie.
For years, I thought that the pinnacle of reality television was the VH-1 series "Hogan Knows Best". To the layperson, this series was just another of the lucrative reality TV genre of "find some '80s icon turned '00s relic and show people how they live", in this case, using legendary wrestler Hulk Hogan and his family. On paper, this would be just another show similar to "The Osbournes" and its ilk, simple, effective, and disposable. However, no one knew at the time that pro wrestling fans are as rabid about the sports entertainment that they love as the traditional sports fan would be for their favorite team. This was found out when, during a seemingly throwaway moment for this show, Hogan set his semi-essential pop star daughter up with the son of a former pro wrestler...which was soon found out by wrestling newsletters as having been rigged by World Wrestling Entertainment in order to debut her 'beau' on television- a move that showed that this "reality" television show was as staged as...well, pro wrestling. Plotlines involving two recently broken-up couples being brought together by their respective camera crews seem like a joke in the movie, but they're all too perfect for this movie's place in the whole reality genre.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Together Again for the First Time
Together Again for the First Time
One of the things that is so great about Netflix is that when you take out the fact that it's a mail service, it really is the video store that we've been dreaming of for years- one that has pretty much anything that your little heart could desire. Anything from the newest releases to the most obscure, out of print releases are available with the click of a mouse. With this benefit, how could a video store, with its outdated brick and mortar build and a finite amount of films in a store ever compete?
Well, this is an example of it- the film Together Again for the First Time, the movie that the Internet seemingly forgot. If you check on Netflix, this film is not there. Likewise, there's almost no information for it on Rotten Tomatoes, with its description being as follows:
The Wolders-Frobisher family hasn't been in the same house since their parents marriage seven years before. The long awaited reunion this holiday season would normally be cause to celebrate, if they could only stand each other's company--but they can't. Matters only get worse with the unexpected arrival of an ex-boyfriend, an unannounced television broadcast, and the revelation of a dark family secret.
Compare this to the description on the back of the DVD:
The Wolders-Frobisher family hasn't been in the same house since their parents marriage seven years before. The long awaited reunion this holiday season would normally be cause to celebrate, if they could only stand each other's company--but they can't. Matters only get worse with the unexpected arrival of an ex-boyfriend, an unannounced television broadcast, and the revelation of a dark family secret. Together Again for the First Time reminds us of the importance of family- even when you don't like each other very much.
THE GOVERNMENT DOES NOT WANT YOU TO KNOW that this movie was forgotten by mankind. No Netflix examples, no Rotten Tomatoes. Through the Rotten Tomatoes website, only two people can verify reviews of this to prove that, at one point in time, this movie was ever made...and now, from picking it up in this haul, so can I.
What does this tell me when seeing the movie?
Quite frankly, I would have been happier with my purchase if, when putting the DVD into my Playstation 3, I put in through the DVD menu and saw Sadako come out of my TV screen. In both cases, the film quality would have been just as similar- the only difference is I would 'actually' die in seven days after seeing it as opposed to merely wishing to die.
This film was forgotten for no real reason- unless you consider that the film is the same old shit we get every Christmas. No matter what year, there's always going to be some movie that comes out to show the pain of the commercialization of the holiday, only to let us all reveal that true Christmas spirit comes in the love of your family- which can only be shown by taking out a second mortgage to buy everyone you know expensive presents. If you've seen one of these movies, you've seen them all, really- so it's hard to say much about it. There's nothing this mystery film could give you you wouldn't get from any of a hundred Christmas movies more easy to find.
One of the things that is so great about Netflix is that when you take out the fact that it's a mail service, it really is the video store that we've been dreaming of for years- one that has pretty much anything that your little heart could desire. Anything from the newest releases to the most obscure, out of print releases are available with the click of a mouse. With this benefit, how could a video store, with its outdated brick and mortar build and a finite amount of films in a store ever compete?
Well, this is an example of it- the film Together Again for the First Time, the movie that the Internet seemingly forgot. If you check on Netflix, this film is not there. Likewise, there's almost no information for it on Rotten Tomatoes, with its description being as follows:
The Wolders-Frobisher family hasn't been in the same house since their parents marriage seven years before. The long awaited reunion this holiday season would normally be cause to celebrate, if they could only stand each other's company--but they can't. Matters only get worse with the unexpected arrival of an ex-boyfriend, an unannounced television broadcast, and the revelation of a dark family secret.
Compare this to the description on the back of the DVD:
The Wolders-Frobisher family hasn't been in the same house since their parents marriage seven years before. The long awaited reunion this holiday season would normally be cause to celebrate, if they could only stand each other's company--but they can't. Matters only get worse with the unexpected arrival of an ex-boyfriend, an unannounced television broadcast, and the revelation of a dark family secret. Together Again for the First Time reminds us of the importance of family- even when you don't like each other very much.
THE GOVERNMENT DOES NOT WANT YOU TO KNOW that this movie was forgotten by mankind. No Netflix examples, no Rotten Tomatoes. Through the Rotten Tomatoes website, only two people can verify reviews of this to prove that, at one point in time, this movie was ever made...and now, from picking it up in this haul, so can I.
What does this tell me when seeing the movie?
Quite frankly, I would have been happier with my purchase if, when putting the DVD into my Playstation 3, I put in through the DVD menu and saw Sadako come out of my TV screen. In both cases, the film quality would have been just as similar- the only difference is I would 'actually' die in seven days after seeing it as opposed to merely wishing to die.
This film was forgotten for no real reason- unless you consider that the film is the same old shit we get every Christmas. No matter what year, there's always going to be some movie that comes out to show the pain of the commercialization of the holiday, only to let us all reveal that true Christmas spirit comes in the love of your family- which can only be shown by taking out a second mortgage to buy everyone you know expensive presents. If you've seen one of these movies, you've seen them all, really- so it's hard to say much about it. There's nothing this mystery film could give you you wouldn't get from any of a hundred Christmas movies more easy to find.
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