A Year of Bad Movies # 23 — “National Lampoon’s Lost Reality”
National Lampoon’s Lost Reality (2004)
IMDB Score: 4.7 out of 10
“National Lampoon’s Lost Reality” is proof that quality can no longer be guaranteed by a brand name in itself.
They actually made a sequel too.
The name “National Lampoon” at one time used to mean sure-fire comedic hits staring a collection of some of the hottest comedians and created by some of the best comedy writers working.
Today, the name usually signifies cheaply made, straight-to-DVD garbage.
I’m not even sure if I should be considering “Lost Reality” a true movie. In actuality, it seems that this brief, somewhat entertaining DVD is really a collection of short pre-produced viral videos sprinkled with a few homespun reality show parodies.
There are some really funny clips on the DVD and then there are some really outrageous clips that caused me to laugh out of that same mixture of shock and appreciation of the grosser things in life that “Jackass” used to produce. But mostly, the DVD contains some painfully unfunny parodies of reality show concepts that fall flat even at an average running time of four minutes.
One of the better bits is “The Amazing Racist,” a collection of two short videos in which comedian Ari Shaffir uses exaggerated racist behavior to get a rise out of an African-American community and a Muslim mosque.
Another pretty entertaining segment is “Caught Stealing,” a supposed pilot for a reality show program that would have featured two guys competing in a shoplifting competition.
And then, of course, there is “Money,” in which a man is tested for how much he is willing to do for some money when he is asked to drown a bottle of ipecac.
The ability to enjoy these segments comes with the ability to put your skepticism on hold, ignore all those bits of common sense that are telling you that these videos are probably staged shenanigans and just enjoy the videos for what they purport to be — shock-art version of “Candid Camera.”
“National Lampoon’s Lost Reality” is the movie for the YouTube generation.
Watching the movie is literally like sitting back for an hour-plus viral video marathon. And just like surfing YouTube, there are some pretty clever bits hidden between the folds but unfortunately most of the crap people put online (or on a National Lampoon DVD) is just plain unwatchable.
Marketed to tie-in with the popularity of reality television, the DVD aims to meet the desires of a population whose attention span has shrunk to astronomically small proportions. When an audience can’t keep their attention on a single concept for more then seven minutes, how could they enjoy something more engaging then “National Lampoon’s Lost Reality.”
I don’t blame the movie for being a bad movie. It’s merely the by-product of a larger problem at hand. If anything, I look upon “National Lampoon’s Lost Reality” with fear — a harbinger of worse things to come.
Today, DVDs such as “Lost Reality” are merely made-for-DVD consumer garbage that will be eaten up by its target audience and will, for the most part, be doomed to an existence of bargain-bin obscurity.
How long, though, until more movies such as “Lost Reality” find their way onto the big screen and become the norm for taste and preference.
How long before viral videos take over the entertainment world? How long until the Star Wars kid is hosting the Oscars and LOLcats are the subject of the latest Disney cartoon? How long until the world is pwned by its own bad taste?
i actually own that…
As ashamed as I am to say, so do I. My excuse is that I was given a copy from a PR company to review when I worked for my college paper. That doesn’t make it any less a part of my DVD collection, though.