The Wedding Video (2003)

You're invited to the wackiest wedding since Robert Altman last threw the rice, where no one is polite and everyone "acts" real. What is truth, and what is fiction? How does one discern reality from pretense? These are serious questions, but if you're looking for answers à la Japanese abstraction, German expressionism or Swedish nihilism, keep looking, because The Wedding Video has the answer, "REAL WORLD" style. In the first film to come out of the MTV phenomenon, Norman Korpi (the gay guy from "Real World-New York") and creative partner Clint Cowen have made a deliciously wicked satire that skewers all the clichés and conventions of the reality show. Norm plays "Norm" who hires "Clint" to film his gay wedding. He invites his best friends - all popular "Real World" alums - and has Clint tape them as they arrive for the bachelor party and ceremony. The cast members have great fun parodying the on-air personas that MTV created for them through its editing: San Francisco's Rachel is now the ultimate self-centered bitch, London's Lars has his nose stuck up so high he might die from asphyxiation, and New York's Heather B. becomes a walking-talking hip-hop video. And in the "true" manner of such shows, every backstab, every catfight, and every shocking revelation is caught on videotape for our tawdry entertainment. As the reality genre pushes the envelope - and strains credibility - it becomes ripe for parody; who better to do it than the people who created it in the first place?