By Jordan Hue
There are those movies that make you laugh, cry, or those that inspire you to do things that you’ve felt too inhibited to do for a long, long while. National Lampoon’s Lost Reality, a straight-to-DVD release from one of America’s most well-known comedy groups, falls into a majestic fourth category. It is a movie that makes you want to stop watching movies.
Apparently, this tragedy of epic proportions is supposed to be a spoof on all reality television. The premise is that this very DVD is a collection of reality show pilots that were just too risky for the networks to air. Each of the nine episodes presented on the DVD represents a different kind of reality scenario. While this is a fantastic idea and reality television is ripe for “lampooning,” none of the sketches in Lost Reality are very funny at all. In most cases, the writers and actors are so unbelievably amateur that only confusion is communicated to the helpless audience. Not only are the lines of comprehension and decency blurred in Lost Reality, they are entirely erased. This does not result in cinematic liberation-it merely results in an unhappy anarchy in which no one may find enjoyment.
The DVD’s first sketch, “He Said, She Said,” is an unfunny takeoff on “The Bachelorette”-in which, when the contestants are eliminated, they find out the woman they have been courting is (gasp!) a man. And that’s it-that’s the whole sketch. No jokes worth mentioning until the punch line. This first act sets the trend for the others to follow. Like every other episode in Lost Reality, the script is so atrocious you don’t even want to stick around long enough to be brought to the utterly boring conclusion. The other sketches, including “Caught Stealing,” “Casting Couch” and “The Whore,” range from the too offensive-to-be-funny to the blatantly pornographic. Absolutely nothing that could be interpreted as even mildly laughter inducing.
The most painful of these featured sketches is the one entitled “Dying Dave.” It is, quite possibly, the worst thing one might ever see on a DVD player (including a month-old sandwich perched on the receiver). In this bit of celluloid brilliance, we embark on what is to be a documentary on the last few days in the life of a guy named Dave. Dave has been diagnosed with a nameless, terminal cancer. We spend the next 10 minutes following Dave around as he does all the things he’s ever aspired to accomplish. These things include: shouting obscenities in public places, stealing people’s food, and going to a strip club… Laughing yet? This was the prime example of a decent idea gone awry. The episode was most certainly at the bottom of a very shallow reality barrel.
The only saving grace of Lost Reality is a sketch entitled “The Amazing Racist.” Essentially, a very talented Jewish actor runs around a predominantly black neighborhood dressed as a Klu Klux Klan member. Chaos ensues. The success of the lone funny sketch on this DVD is entirely reliant on the young actor playing the racist. If other roles had been cast to his caliber, this review might not have been constructed with such discontent and malice.
No one else should be subjected to this horrible assortment of anti-comedy. The only possible enjoyment that could be wrought from watching this miserable bit of trite is knowing that somewhere, someone is losing their job over this. Those interested in the integrity of National Lampoon’s will do as the advertisement jokingly commands on the DVD cover and “Please Destroy If Found!”
Final Grade: A most resounding F!