Author: Bert Ehrmann

Dangerous Universe has been Bert’s web playground since 1998 when personal web sites were a rarity rather than the norm.

Documentaries that Aren’t, Blurring the Line Between Fact and Fiction

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Over the years a sort of sub film genera has emerged — the faux documentary. These films aren’t quite fiction nor docudrama, they’re something else altogether. Blending fictional elements with a documentary style, these films can best be described as the “fauxcumentary.”

Writer/director Peter Watkins practically invented the fauxcumentary in 1965 with his film The War Game . In Watkins’ film, tensions between the U.S. and Soviet Union spill over to nuclear war, and an unprepared people of Great Britain must deal with the fallout of this shattering event.

Watkins’ generation would have lived through the real bombings of the Nazi blitz during WWII and this first-hand realism shows in The War Game . The film is shot in a detached sort of style and looks as if it were assembled by some film crew in the future with access to archival footage documenting past events.

So controversial was The War Game on initial release the film wasn’t shown on British television screens, what it was created for, for over 20 years. After the film was turned down for television audiences, The War Game was released as a feature film and won an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 1966.

Watkins would also use the fauxcumentary style in another film of his, Punishment Park (1971). Here, a group of American dissidents in the near future are forced to choose between long prison sentences or a hike through Punishment Park to help train police and National Guardsmen on rounding other undesirables. Watkins camera follows the dissidents on their hellish trek through the park.

The icon of 1970s fauxcumentaries is The Legend of Boggy Creek (1972).   In this movie, a film crew documents weird happenings around Boggy Creek where some sort of creature has been terrorizing the population. The whole movie cumulates with an attack by the creature on a home of an unsuspecting family with the viewer at the center of the action.   Genuine creepiness pervades The Legend of Boggy Creek even if today much of the film seems dated.

Different from the work of Watkins, The Legend of Boggy Creek mixes the documentary style with filmed reenactments, to the point where the audience isn’t quite sure what’s real and what’s reenacted. Which plays well in distorting the audience’s perceptions of the film since, in reality, nothing depicted in the movie is real.

The bloodiest of all the fauxcumentaries is the cult-hit Cannibal Holocaust (1980), the one film that I stopped halfway through for being too disturbing even for “Iron Stomach Ehrmann.” Here, a film crew that ventures into the Amazon to shoot a documentary on native tribes people turns up missing, and all that anyone is able to recover from their expedition are canisters of film. Cannibal Holocaust documents the crew filming their documentary, playing god with the locals and suffering the consequences when these people come looking for supper.

So evil are the film crew to the land, animals and peoples of the Amazon, I was actually rooting for the natives by the time I shut Cannibal Holocaust off.

Writers/directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez would go onto use the concept of “found footage” in their fauxcumentary The Blair Witch Project in 1999 and, rather than having a film few in U.S. would ever see, made a movie that grossed over $140 million in theaters and would become a cult phenomena worldwide.

The fauxcumentary that resonates most today is This is Spinal Tap (1984). This classic movie documents the fall of Spinal Tap, a heavy metal band being left behind in a changing musical landscape. Shot tongue in cheek style, the film depicts how outlandish it can be backstage of a music tour and why amplifiers need to go to “eleven.” A quote by David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean) so eloquently sums up This is Spinal Tap, “It’s such a fine line between stupid, and clever.” This is Spinal Tap is certainly more clever than stupid.

The core of the actors who comprised the Spinal Tap band is still making movies today. Their fauxcumentary A Mighty Wind (2003) was nominated for an Academy Award and their next movie For Your Consideration is due in theaters at the end of November.

Top TV Shows of 2005

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To say that 2005 was perhaps the best year of television in the last decade would not be an understatement. Unlike in years past, where the networks seemed to be relying on overused reality concepts (like how many times can there be a riff on the “Who Wants to Marry a …” concept?) this year comedies and dramas were back in top form. It seemed as if the networks finally “got” that they had to put as much emphasis on writing than on the just overall concept.

But it already seems as if the networks are starting to forget what they learned in 2005. Rather than taking chances with shows like Lost or Scrubs, networks seem to be trying to clone hits wherever they can. And when was the last time a cloned hit was anything worth watching?

Still, if the 2004 television season was like a fine meal, then the 2005 season was like an even finer meal with desert, a movie, dancing and a nightcap…

The best show of 2005 – Battlestar Galactica: On one level, Battlestar Galactica works as a traditional sci-fi yarn of “large space-ships” blasting other “large space-ships.” But where Battlestar Galactica excels is that it works on a whole other level. Correction, other levels. Like it or not, Battlestar Galactica is a mirror of our times. Good (like the best bits of humanity shining through in times of crisis) or bad (paranoia existing at an almost cellular level) we are them and they are us.

The rest, in alphabetical order:

Arrested Development: Twenty minutes of Arrested Development is sheer bliss. At times watching the show, I would literally laugh to the point of almost choking. But choking in a good way. Now, it looks as if the current season of Arrested Development will be the last. Depressing? Yes. Then again, the best way to cure this type of depression is watching more Arrested Development! (A conundrum – I know.)

Deadwood: Deadwood is the perfect pragmatic drama on television these days. Characters act and behave as they seemingly would and do in real life. I think that’s the real strength of Deadwood – it breaks all the rules of the “traditional” Western genera by having the characters behave in a realistic manner rather than a wishful one.

Doctor Who: (Doctor Who has not yet aired in the U.S.) Every bit a reinvention of the Doctor Who franchise as the remake of Battlestar Galactica was to that one, the new Doctor Who took a series that had low production values and decent story and gave it great production values and excellent story. It’s the “perfect storm” of a show with writer/creator Russell T. Davies overseeing an excellent writing staff and he himself delivering excellent script after script and new Doctor Christopher Eccleston redefining the character.

Extras: Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant had a hard road to travel with Extras, their follow-up one of the best comedies ever, The Office. Somehow, Gervais and Merchant hit yet another homerun with Extras. Never relying on simple sight gags or jokes, the comedy of Extras comes from the life of the characters. In typical Gervais/Merchant style, one season of Extras consists of just six shows, three hours of television. But what fun spending those three hours with Extras is.

Lost: Has Lost redefined the face of modern television? At least in the short term it has. This season there were no less than four new dramas to “borrow” the technique used in Lost where the story unfolds over the course of the entire season. And one of those shows, Prison Break, is a certified hit. (No comment on the other three.)

Thick of It: (Thick of It has not yet aired in the U.S.) A child to The Office, Thick of It roams the halls of the British government and all that happens there. Sometimes I think we feel that politicians and people with power in general are flawless. But Thick of It reveals that politicians are people too with all the flaws that go along with being human.

Veronica Mars: Blending the typical teen drama (boyfriends and cars) with a hint of reality (being burned alive in a gasoline soaked refrigerator) Veronica Mars bends our expectations of what the teen is and transforms it into what it should be. Somehow, Veronica Mars survived cancellation and is currently airing in its second season on UPN.

Honorable mentions:

Scrubs – Still one of the funniest comedy series even after five seasons.

Justice League Unlimited: Adult themes in a kids cartoon. Paranoia so thick it puts The X-Files to shame.

Mythbusters: Any show where the hosts blow up automobiles for fun is a show for me!

Survivorman: Living off the land can be hard work. Very hard work!

2006-2007 Television Pilots (Incomplete at Best) Has Good Television Returned from the Dead, or is it Just a Zombie Here to Eat Our Brains?

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Compiled from Zap2It.com, The Futon Critic, The Hollywood Reporter & Yahoo
If you have any additions/corrections to this list, please send Bert an e-mail.

TV Doesn’t Get Much Worse Than This in the 2005-2006 pilot season
See the birth of bad television in the 2004-2005 pilot season
Relive the horror that was the 2003-2004 television pilot season
Witness the 2002-2003 television pilots

Network – FOX
AMERICAN CRIME: About a team of media-savvy defense attorneys who handle high-profile cases.

SOUTHERN COMFORT: An ensemble crime drama about the wife of a mob boss who’s thrust into running their Biloxi, Mississippi-based organized crime operation.

More, Patience: Comedy about a psychiatrist whose own life needs help.

IF YOU LIVED HERE, YOU’D BE HOME BY NOW: Comedy about a group of young friends living in a corporate housing-style apartment complex.

VANISHED: Chronicles the disappearance of a senator’s wife over the course of the season.

UNTITLED: Comedy about the unlikely friendship between two recently divorced high-society women in New York.

DAMAGES: Drama about “the pathology and personal hazards” lawyers face in juggling their career and personal lives.

Faceless: Centers on a federal prosecutor who goes undercover as a criminal in order to take down a sprawling underworld organization.

BUST: Comedy about a single mom in Reno, Nevada, who decides to apply her anger issues to the profitable field of bounty hunting.

WACKO: Comedy about a man keeping the peace between his mother and sister after his father leaves the entire family fortune in the hands of their certifiably insane mom.

THE WORST WEEK OF MY LIFE: Comedy based on the BBC series of the same name, about a young engaged couple’s hellacious week leading up to their wedding.

UNTITLED: Drama set in a high-end Beverly Hills animal hospital.

REVISION: A time-travel themed drama about a man who finds himself returning to the past in order to prevent disaster in the future.

UNTITLED: Comedy about an unmarried 30ish man whose friends all seem to have married.

CRISIS: Drama about a terrorist takeover of a luxury resort in Miami’s South Beach district.

BECOMING GLEN: Comedy about a successful fortysomething man who looks back at 1994, when he was a 32-year-old slacker living with his parents and spending all his time lying on the couch watching TV. (OR) About a guy in his 40s who reminisces about his life a decade earlier, when he finally started to make something of his life.

UNTITLED: A psychological family drama with a major twist.

THE ADVENTURES OF BIG HANDSOME GUY AND HIS LITTLE FRIEND: Comedy based on the short film of the same name from Jason Weiner and Hayes MacArthur, about their real-life friendship, and how everything comes easy for Hayes (“the big handsome guy”), but not Weiner (“his little friend”).

UNTITLED: Comedy which features Harvey Fierstein (in drag) as a blue-collar mom raising two kids.

UNTITLED: Comedy about the current state of male-female relationships.

HAPPY HOUR: Comedy about a pair of roommates “one who’s been damaged by love, and another who’s been blinded by love.”

BIG LOUD LISA: Comedy about Lisa Lampanelli’s life as a self-described woman with “a big heart but can’t edit her mouth.”

The Operative: Tracks a criminal mastermind who, unbeknownst to him, has a mole in the ranks. The series will then feature clues about who is actually an undercover F.B.I. agent with his/her identity being revealed in the season finale.

UNTITLED: Comedy which is described as an “All in the Family”-esque series about a young woman and her new husband who end up living next door to her father and mother.

UNTITLED: Comedy which would track Christopher Kennedy Lawford (“General Hospital”), the son of actor Peter Lawford (of Rat Pack fame) and Patricia Kennedy (sister of President John F. Kennedy), (playing himself) as he enters the family business of politics on the ground floor, running for a small local office.

PAGES: Comedy about the world of ambitious “pages” at a large New York media company, much like those at NBC’s Rockefeller Plaza or CBS’ Television City.

NICOLAI & JULIE: A U.S. version of the Danish soap of the same name about a married couple who split up and forge new romantic ties yet still remain connected.

PILGRIMAGE: Comedy about a romantic triangle that plays out in real-time over the course of a cross-country flight.

UNHINGED: Comedy about a man who moves in with his dad and grandfather after his new wife leaves him.

S.O.B.: Drama about a corporate gangster who hires a lawyer and proceeds to corrupt him.

AMBULANCE: A black comedy about L.A. paramedics.

Welcome to Paradise: The comedy would follow a teenage boy whose family moves from New York to Indiana. From, Smallville star Michael Rosenbaum.

Untitled: A single-camera comedy about minor-league baseball.

Untitled: About a civil court case.

NBC
UNTITLED: Comedy about the head writer of a variety show who has to manage her relationships with the show’s volatile star and executive producer.

UNTITLED: Comedy that revolves around as a New York guy whose much younger brother moves in with him while attending N.Y.U.

ALPHA MOMS: Comedy about a corporate mom who tries to balance kids, a stay-at-home husband and a job.

Community Service: About a disgraced real-estate developer who returns to his hometown to pursue an old flame who gets into legal hot water and is sentenced to community service.

FIX ME: Comedy about a young pediatrician who takes care of everyone around her but needs some help of her own.

UNTITLED: Comedy about a pair of brothers who take up bounty hunting – using kung fu rather than firearms – to help take care of their mom and her restaurant.

STUDIO 7 ON THE SUNSET STRIP (AKA) STUDIO 60 ON THE SUNSET STRIP: Aaron Sorkin-led drama project, about the lives of those that work on a long-running “Saturday Night Live”-esque sketch-comedy show based in Los Angeles.

THE RAFTONS: Comedy about a stiff, corporate executive who winds up running the business affairs for his younger brother, a rising hip-hop mogul in the vein of Jay-Z and Diddy.

Seeing Red: Centers on an eccentric, brilliant cop who talks to dead victims that help him solve his cases. (Monk meets House meets Medium? BE)

FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS: Small-screen adaptation of the 2004 Universal/Imagine feature, about the tumultuous 1988 season of the famed Odessa, Texas high school football team.

UNTITLED: Drama about a world overrun by vampires. Revolves around a rookie cop who joins a special unit of the L.A.P.D. that tracks the vampire population. (Sounds a bit like the UK series Ultraviolet. – BE)

Pen and the Sword: Revolves around a young man at a temp agency who comes to realize the building he works in is a portal to a sort of medieval alternate reality.

UNTITLED: Comedy about a hot up-and-coming prosecutor who’s sent to a small courthouse in the Los Angeles area by the district attorney, who perceives her as a threat. There, she clashes with a public defender who has seen better days.

THE BOGEYMAN: Drama about an expert in “deprogramming” people.

HEROES: Drama about a group of seemingly everyday people who discover that they have superpowers.

Meet the Rokers: Comedy based on Today personality Al Roker’s life.

UNTITLED: Comedy about a young man who returns to his hometown after college despite expectations that he was destined for bigger things.

Brave New World: A the ethics of modern-day science (such as stem cell research and avian flu containment) and its various dangers and abuses.

FOR PETE’S SAKE: Comedy about a group of five people who continually die and fail to get into heaven, thus sending them back to Earth for another go around.

Bond Street: Revolves around an ultra-hip New York hotel.

Untitled: Comedy about a guy whose longtime girlfriend dumps him for his business partner.

50/50: Comedy about how four modern men deal with divorce, fatherhood and dating.

LIPSTICK JUNGLE: Comedy that tells the story of three women who are listed among The New York Post’s “New York’s 50 Most Powerful Women” and will do anything to get ahead and stay on top. From “Sex and the City” writer Candace Bushnell.

UNTITLED: Revolves around a recently married couple whose lives are complicated by the fact that the husband is a well-known sex therapist.

Kidnapped: A plot-driven serial in the vein of 24 or Prison Break, will follow the investigation of a wealthy New York family’s teenage son over the course of a season.

Heist: About a group of professional thieves who want to take down three Beverly Hills jewelers simultaneously. The show would follow the planning and execution of the robbery over the course of a full season.

Untitled: About an average guy comes to realize his life is the subject of a pitched fight between light and dark supernatural forces. From Victor Fresco, who created Andy Richter Controls the Universe.

ABC
UGLY BETTY: Drama about an unattractive but efficient secretary at a fashion magazine.

UNTITLED: Comedy about two sisters with very different childhoods – one was born while their parents were poor, the other after they struck it rich – who come to live together.

MR. & MRS. SMITH: Based on the movie of the same name in which a suburban married couple who each find out that the other is an assassin when they’re hired to kill each other.

In Case of Emergency: Centers on four former high school friends, now in their 30s. A calamity brings them back together, and they discover that their lives haven’t quite worked out as they envisioned.

Twenty Questions: About a young State Department employee who uncovers a conspiracy to subvert the government.

A House Divided: A spat between a small town in the Midwest and the feds threatens to escalate into civil war.

Sheriff Luke: About a small-town sheriff and Gulf War veteran whose department has to deal with some big-city ills and who’s raising his kids alone following his wife’s death.

Brothers & Sisters: Revolves around a group of adult siblings.

60 MINUTE MAN: About a suburban family man who, after discovering that he can’t recall his actions during one hour of each day, risks his life to determine whether he’s the key player in a conspiracy that could alter the course of U.S. history.

UNTITLED: Comedy bout an interracial family of three adult sisters and their relatives.

UNTITLED: About two male best friends, one of whom is getting married and the other getting divorced.

THE TRAVELER: Drama about two friends who are framed as terrorists by someone they both thought was their friend.

UNTITLED: A “Desperate Housewives”-esque drama about a group of women who work together at the same law firm.

Six Degrees: From JJ Abrams (LOST), an ensemble soap about the intertwined stories of a group of strangers in New York from different walks of life.

UNTITLED: Comedy about a single young woman in the city.

BETTY LA FEA: Drama – a U.S. version of the Colombian telenovela of the same name about an unattractive girl who’s hired by a Vogue-esque fashion magazine to stop her new boss’s habit of sleeping with attractive assistants.

The Model: Comedy described as “That Girl” set in the New York modeling universe.

86 Ocean Ave.: Comedy about a group of divorced friends who live in the same apartment building.

Paradise: Drama about the Miami police department’s internal affairs division.

UNTITLED: Follows a guy in his 30s who realizes he’s become a jerk. He quits his job in real estate and sets about trying to change his life for the better.

NINE LIVES: Follows the lives of nine strangers who share a bond after experiencing a 52-hour hostage crisis that stems from a bank robbery that goes bad.

HOLLIS & RAE : Drama about female best friends, a detective and a prosecuting attorney, who tackle criminal cases in a small southern town.

UNTITLED: Comedy about a group of blue-collar guys in New York City who decide to rob a celebrity. Starring Donal Logue.

MO’S HOUSE: Comedy based on Mo’Nique’s (The Parkers) own life experiences with the comic playing a working class married mother who works at a neighborhood grocery store in a town outside of Baltimore.

MEN IN TREES: Drama about a thirtysomething relationship expert who gets stuck in an Alaskan town full of men soon after she discovers her own fiance has been cheating.

UNTITLED: About a private detective who has to re-order his life when his ex-wife and son move back to his hometown.

20 Questions: A conspiracy-themed series set in Washington, D.C. (OR) About the lives of nine strangers who share a bond after experiencing a 52-hour hostage crisis.

TRIUMPH: Drama about an 18-year-old boy who ends up as mayor of a midsize town.

Napoleon Hendrix: Dama starring Michael Clarke Duncan which is based on the life of San Francisco homicide detective Napoleon Hendrix.

NINE LIVES: Post-Sept. 11-themed drama.

Day Break: Action thriller.

Caroline’s: single-camera project based on the life of Caroline Hirsch, the founder of the Caroline’s Comedy Club in New York City.

UNTITLED: Comedy which is expected to be loosely based on American Idol Constantine Maroulis’ real life and his extended family in New York.

ENDLESS SUMMER: Semi-improv comedy about a father and son who spend the summer at the beach chasing women.

UNTITLED: Comedy that would follow the lives of four women in a small Southern town. Starring Sela Ward.

Him and Us: Based loosely on the life of Elton John and those of some of his peers, will follow the life of a graying rock star, his manager and other assorted hangers-on. (OR) About an over-the-hill gay British rock star and his relationship with his long-time manager and the rest of his colorful entourage.

Kill/Switch: Will center on a woman who is executed for killing her daughter’s murderer. Following her death, she enters a state of limbo, repeatedly finding herself in the body of someone who’s about to be killed.

CBS
CREATURE COMFORTS: U.S. version of the British series of the same name.

untitled: Centers on five friends — a married couple, an engaged couple and a single guy.

UNTITLED: Follows a young couple’s adjustment to life with the wife’s large family.

Welcome to the Jungle Gym: About a woman who cuts back at her job to spend more time with her kids, and the conflicts her decision creates.

Ultra: About a young woman whose search for the right guy is complicated by the fact that she’s a superhero.

The Way: About a crime family that turns to witchcraft to keep its hold on power following the death of its matriarch.

THE ANGRIEST MAN IN SUBURBIA: Comedy about a married stay-at-home father dealing with the pesky problems of everyday life.

COMPANY TOWN: Drama about the lives of government agents who happen to live in the same neighborhood.

IN THE SHADOW OF THE LAW: Drama about a group of smart legal associates trying to make partner while dealing with a host of moral, ethical and legal challenges not to mention a Gordon Gekko-esque managing partner.

Jericho: Chronicles the social, psychological and physical chaos that ensues in a small town when it becomes isolated from the rest of the world after a nuclear disaster.

UNTITLED: Comedy about an ambitious young man who takes over the family car dealership in Queens, New York.

RED DOOR: About a suburban Chinese-American family with three daughters.

Cutter: About the professional and personal lives of the crew of a Coast Guard cutter.

Orpheus: Centers on the activities of a cult. (OR) Centers on a young man whose girlfriend is involved in a sophisticated, modern-day cult.

New Mexico: About a town in New Mexico where technology meets spirituality.

THE CLASS: About a group of eight twentysomething friends – all of whom are from the same third grade class – who reunite when one throws a party.

SEX, POWER, LOVE & POLITICS: Comedy about four underachieving staffers in their mid-30s who work on Capitol Hill.

UNTITLED: About a sex therapist.

AL IN THE FAMILY: Family comedy with Al Sharpton playing off his larger-than-life personality.

KEEPING UP WITH THE JONES’S: Drama that tracks a covert operative who’s trying to save her failing marriage to her spy partner.

THE WB
AQUAMAN: Drama about the DC Comics character of the same name.

THE GIFT: Drama about a college freshman who discovers she has special psychic powers.

MIDNIGHTERS: Deals with the strange happenings in the town of Bixby, Oklahoma. Every night in said town time freezes for one hour, leaving the townsfolk prey to various dark creatures, except for four teen outcasts who call themselves the “Midnighters.”

PRETTY LITTLE LIARS: Revolves around four 16-year-old girls – whose fifth best friend went missing two years ago – that suddenly become haunted by messages that appear from her.

UNTITLED: Comedy about a die-hard New Yorker who moves to Los Angeles to take a job as an entertainment editor.

CITY OF GOLD: Adventure series about an archeological expedition in the Amazon, with the central conflict being between a father and son.

MOMMIES WHO DRINK: Comedy about a group of women who are trying to hold on to their old lives while raising their kids.

UNTITLED: Nick Lachey will play a big-league ballplayer trying to get a handle on married life.

WEEKEND: Comedy about a group of friends trapped in minimum-wage jobs whose most important life events happen on Saturdays and Sundays.

Untitled: Focuses on two young detectives who work in the LAPD’s Hollywood Division.

UPN
UNTITLED: Spin-off of the veteran comedy Girlfriends as an upcoming episode of the series will be used as a backdoor pilot. Said installment will introduce a group of women in various stages of relationships with pro football players.

UNTITLED: Comedian Paul Rodriguez and his skateboarding champ son, Paul Rodriguez, Jr., are developing a new comedy at the netlet about the relationship between a father and son, who reunite after a lengthy estrangement.

ON THE EDGE: Drama about a young female assistant district attorney trying to discover who murdered her parents while struggling with her alter ego bent on returning her to a life of drugs and alcohol.

SPLIT DECISION: Drama series about a girl who gets a chance to reinvent herself upon moving to a new high school, with dual plotlines following her decision to sit with either the popular kids or the arty outsiders on the first day of school.

ARMED & DANGEROUS: About rookies in the Chicago police academy.

USA
ORGANIZED MEDICINE: Drama based on true events surrounding organized crime infiltrating the medical profession.

IN PLAIN SIGHT: Drama about a no-nonsense female federal marshal who works in the witness protection branch of the government even though her friends and family are led to believe she is a glorified meter maid.

Underfunded: Centers on Darryl Freehorn, star agent for the little-known Canadian Secret Service whose brilliance in the field compensates for the woefully underfunded agency’s lack of resources.

BURN NOTICE: Drama about a blacklisted special ops agent who ends up taking a low-level gig as a private eye.

TNT
TALK TO ME: Drama about the efforts of hostage negotiation and S.W.A.T. teams during emergency situations.

Spike TV
The Big Empty: A gritty drama that portrays the reality of ordinary P.I.s caught in the middle of an unsavory world.

BLADE: Based off of the trio of the Blade the vampire hunter movies. Two-hour drama pilot which will become a series if successful.

HBO
The 17th C.S.H.: A satirical look at medics in wartime.

UNTITLED: Comedy on The life of Ruth Reichl, editor-in-chief of Gourmet magazine and the former food critic of the New York Times and Los Angeles Times which will cover Reichel’s evolution from chef to food writer in addition to the dissolution of her first marriage, a sexual awakening at the start of a second and motherhood at the age of 40.

UNTITLED: Comedy set in the world of basketball.

LUCKY LOUIE: Multi-camera comedy which is described as a mature family comedy that centers on a middle-class couple raising their daughter.

FX
LOW LIFE: Drama about a family of grifters who take the identity of an upper-middle-class suburban family in Louisiana starring Eddie Izzard.

DIRT: Drama about a tabloid editor and her right-hand photographer as they navigate the murky world of celebrity journalism.

Sci Fi
Butterfly Effect: Television version of the movie of the same name. Revolves around a man who discovers he has the ability to go back and forth in time to change the future of himself and others — for better or worse.

WAREHOUSE 13: About a pair of government officials banished to a storage facility in North Dakota where they spend their days cataloguing artifacts and other odds and ends collected by the government over the years, unknowingly pulling them into fantastic and supernatural quests each week.

THE DRESDEN FILES: About occult investigator Harry Dresden and a hard-nosed Chicago police detective who handles violent crimes and works side by side with him.

AMC
UNTITLED AKA French Connection: Former New York police detective-turned-producer Sonny Grosso, the focus of William Friedkin’s Oscar-winning 1971 feature “The French Connection,” has inked a development deal with the cable channel to develop a limited series about the infamous 1961 drug bust.

I remember a Fantastic Four movie that wasn’t all that fantastic.

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I’ve seen the Fantastic Four movie, but probably not the one you’re thinking of. Sometime in the early 1990’s, a Fantastic Four movie was shot and never released ­ a rarity in an industry that will do almost anything to recoup an investment. The movie was promoted in specialty magazines, and fans waited for a release date that would never come, wondering whether they’d ever get to see this movie.

Unfortunately, many of them did.

Fantastic Four (1994) starred a group of B-list and no name actors who would go onto such things as The Truth About Beef Jerky (2002) and The Substitute 3: Winner Takes All (1999). The plot of the movie follows that of the comic book (which is also the inspiration of the 2005 version): four friends are bombarded with cosmic rays during a scientific trip into space that causes them to develop superpowers. With these powers, they must do battle with the evil “Doctor Doom” and “The Jeweler.” However, the film’s budget dictated that the powers were less “super” and more “awful.”

Effects for the never-released Fantastic Four ranged from good (The Thing suit looked decent enough) to very bad (Johnny Storm has the ability to ignite his entire body in flame and fly, but he never does this until the end of the movie in an awful CGI shot used to close-out the story.) Mr. Fantastic’s ability to stretch any part of his body is achieved via quick cuts — he reaches out his arm and the movie cuts to the actor wearing an arm-lengthening prostheses — while The Invisible Girl simply vanishes from the screen leaving no trace, arguably the most effective visual effect in the movie and probably most cost-saving.

Rumors abound as to the reasoning behind just why Fantastic Four was never released. In the book The Greatest Sci-Fi Movies Never Made, author David Hughes suggests that the movie’s producers were contractually obligated to deliver a Fantastic Four movie by a certain date, or the property would revert back to its owner and they would loose all rights to any future Fantastic Four movies. Realizing that director Chris Columbus (the first two Harry Potter movies) was in the process of developing his own big-budget version of Fantastic Four, and eyeing a piece of that film’s grosses, the producers hired schlock-producer Roger Corman to film his own version of Fantastic Four for a reported $1.5 million, thus fulfilling their contractual obligations. Apparently, there was nothing in the contract about the movie being released, only it getting made.

Then, the producers working with Chris Columbus on his version of the movie saw how awful a $1.5 million version of Fantastic Four looked and decided that rather than letting the general public see a very bad Fantastic Four, and potentially hurting their own big-budget franchise, they would pay the producers of the never-released Fantastic Four to keep the movie under wraps and, well, never release it.

Rumors also suggest that this was the intention of the producers of the never-released version of Fantastic Four all along.

So how did I, and thousands of other comic book fans worldwide, get to see a “never-released” movie? The answer ­ the power of bootleg.

Sometime in the late 1990s a print of the movie was leaked to the public and made its way onto the comic book convention circuit. Suddenly, dealers across the country were making copies of this never-released movie and selling it themselves at $20 a copy on VHS. The copy I saw looked to be a dub of a dub of a dub on VHS. It was watchable, but just barely.

Trust me when I say that the never-released version of Fantastic Four is just as awful as I describe ­ don’t dare try watching it for yourself. It’s definitely a movie only a movie-lover would search out, let alone sit though. And then, after watching, be forced to question their love of movies in the first place.

Which proves the point ­ just because you can see something, doesn’t mean that you should see something.

Six degrees of “Can’t Hardly Wait”

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The other night I was flipping through the television landscape when I came across one movie I have an affinity for, 1998’s Can’t Hardly Wait. Can’t Hardly Wait is set at a high school graduation party where teens that wouldn’t usually get together do. There’s the jocks, the white kids pretending to be gangsta’ rappers, goths, preppies, etc. The main crux of the plot comes from character Preston Meyers (Ethan Embry) finally deciding to ask his high school crush (Jennifer Love Hewitt) out on a date. What I found most interesting about the movie were all of the actors who would go on to bigger and better things after Can’t Hardly Wait.

When it was released, Can’t Hardly Wait was rated “PG-13” and earned around 25 million dollars at the box office. If the movie has one failing, it’s that Can’t Hardly Wait could have been a bit more crass and crude, but these elements seemed to have been cut in editing to earn the rating. One year later American Pie would be released rated “R” and would earn four times what Can’t Hardly Wait did in theaters.

At the time of Can’t Hardly Wait, Embry was a veteran actor co-starring in movies like That Thing You Do! (another underrated classic) and White Squall. He would go onto more movies and most recently was seen on television in the revival of Dragnet. Can’t Hardly Wait marked the crux of Jennifer Love Hewitt’s career, with her starring in Party of Five and the I Know What You Did Last Summer movies around this same time. Since then, though, there hasn’t been to many high profile projects for Hewitt, unless you count last summer’s Garfield alongside Can’t Hardly Wait alum Breckin Meyer.

Sometime during the filming of Can’t Hardly Wait, Seth Green’s career was just about to take off. He had starred in 1997’s Austin Powers, but although Austin Powers is now considered a successful movie franchise, when it was initially released in theaters it didn’t do terribly well. The movie was really discovered by the masses on VHS, moving Green’s career into another league.

There’s also actors like Selma Blair (Hellboy, Legally Blonde), Sara Rue (Pearl Harbor, Less Than Perfect), Erik Palladino (ER, U-571), Clea DuVall (Carnivále, Ghosts of Mars) and Donald Faison (Scrubs) who went on to bigger and better things.

But the oddest bit of trivia I came upon was the inordinate amount of actors who would go onto have roles in HBO’s Six Feet Under. In fact, four actors from Can’t Hardly Wait were featured in Six Feet Under at some point.

Six Feet Under star Lauren Ambrose played Seth Green’s almost girlfriend in Can’t Hardly Wait, while Eric Balafour, who played Claire’s boyfriend during the first few seasons, played Steve in the movie. Freddy Rodríguez starred as jock T.J. in Can’t Hardly Wait and plays philandering mortician Federico Diaz in Six Feet Under.

Last but not least, one time Tom Cruise look-alike (compare their photos and tell me I’m wrong) Peter Facinelli was Mike Dexter in Can’t Hardly Wait and Jimmy in Six Feet Under.

All these links got me thinking ­ what’s stranger, that a movie like Can’t Hardly Wait could spawn the careers of all these actors, or that I’m willing to spend a Sunday afternoon researching these useless bits of trivia and then write a column about them?

You be the judge.