Truth in TV

Reading Reality Steve makes watching The Bachelorette (and other reality TV) somuch more fun

Reality Steve, with his pooch Maddie, always seems to find out the scoop about"The Bachelorette" and other reality shows.
We never noticed Roberto Martinez's caterpillar eyebrows until Reality Stevepointed them out.
Robert Martinez and Ali Fedotowsky on "The Bachelorette." They sure make a cutecouple.

Despite our promises to each other to do something more productive, my husband and I continue to tune in to The Bachelor/Bachelorette series.

“Sooooo sad,” you are thinking!

I know. The shows and characters are all the same. There’s the girl everyone loves to hate, the sweet girl, the wild one, the one who “is not there for the right reasons,” the one who ends up in the dreaded “friend zone,” and the stupid chick that tries to warn the already-paranoid bachelor about the bad apples. THAT poor girl ALWAYS gets cut. Lately, they have also thrown in some character who allegedly has a significant other at home.

Oh! The drama!

To top it off, the supposedly happy couple almost always breaks up before the show finishes airing! Of course, it cannot help to watch your new significant other mugging, hot-tubbing and professing serious emotions to a dozen other people.

Here is what has kept us hooked despite the predictability of the show: His name, my friends, is Reality Steve. Now, after watching each episode, we run to the computer, choking with laughter as we read his blog.

These shows are heavily scripted. Mix together a bevy of writers, more gallons of alcohol than oil in the Gulf and a bunch of aspiring actors in their 20s and you have the perfect combination for outrageous behavior and dialogue. Add someone with terrific sense of humor and great powers of observation irreverently blogging about it and you have plenty of terrific water cooler bull.

When one of my funniest law school friends used to recount episodes of SNL, South Park or Rin & Stimpy (Rremember them?), it was so much funnier hearing about the show from him than actually watching it. We all have one of those friends and ours is now Reality Steve.

First of all, Reality Steve is wickedly funny. He takes NO prisoners. He points out inadequacies and peculiarities about the cast that you might miss.

For example, on this season’s Bachelorette, he wrote about Roberto’s “double-layered eyebrows.” I die every time the Latin Casanova talks. His eyebrows are like two furry caterpillars stacked on top of each other and I would not have noticed how bizarre they were unless blogger man had mentioned them.

I am SURE that Roberto has a lifetime of waxing in his future and a complex about facial hair to add to any trauma he may face having his life scrutinized on the show.

I can only guess what the producers did to prompt this other poor guy on this season’s show to openly inform the bachelorette that he was nicknamed “Shooter. ” Why? According to this sad dude -- gosh, this is awkward -- well, let us just say that he had an “incident” with a girl in which he, um, did something a little early. FANTASTIC! Reading about it on Reality Steve made it even funnier.

And Reality Steve has the inside scoop on the entire season. He reportedly has sources at the network who feed him what is going to happen and has numerous people writing in about what they have experienced or seen of the cast members. Plus, he makes some very smart educated guesses. Some information originates with Facebook and Twitter.

He has what he calls “spoilers,” where he details who will depart each show, how and often, why. Reading the “spoilers” does not ruin the show. It is not the "who" that matters to me anymore, it is "what happens" and "how it plays out."

Reality Steve gives behind the scenes action, too. If someone “accidently” trips and falls out of the limo in the first episode, he will tell us that they had to do the take three times to get it right because it was no accident. He can tell you the sequence of major events in the order that they actually happened, not the order in which they are shown. Shocked that the producers turn events upside down?

Read Reality Steve and nothing will shock you again about reality shows.

He often interviews cast members after they exit; they provide even more behind-the-scenes scoop. How they can give an interview without violating the extraordinarily strict confidentiality agreements (that allegedly are in effect FOR LIFE) is beyond me, but they do and it is enlightening.

Reality Steve can tell you what lines the producers cut and spliced to give a sentence an entirely concocted meaning. Since you sign away everything on those contracts, that becomes fair game for the producers. You can replay a sentence over a couple of times and notice how it does not connect smoothly.

ABC cannot get this guy to stop and Reality Steve is constantly taunting the show’s host, Chris Harrison, to mention his name. Every time Reality Steve blogs, Chris Harrison blogs back in a desperate attempt to dispel what was written and prove that the show is as it is billed: A show where 25 singles are truly there to find their soul mate. Right …

I believe that the network now has come to recognize the value of this guy. His blog fits the adage that “any publicity is good publicity,” and I think that he has become an invaluable part of that show. While ABC might have wanted this guy to stop blogging initially, Reality Steve and the buzz he generates keeps many people watching long after the show’s expiration date.

Given that the Bachelor/Bachelorette series is celebrating its 20th installment, that date came and went long ago.

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Holidays Are Here

Ben Stiller delivers lighthearted fun in new Hulu movie Nutcrackers

Photo courtesy of Nutcracker Productions LLC/Hulu

Ben Stiller, Atlas Janson, Homer Janson, and Ulysses Janson in Nutcrackers.

A holiday-themed comedy seems like just what the doctor ordered right now, and the new Hulu film Nutcrackers steps up with a little mayhem, heartfelt sentiment, and a nod to traditions. But it doesn't add up to a memorable experience.

The film stars Ben Stiller as Mike, a high-powered Chicago architect with little time for anybody but himself whose sister and brother-in-law are recently deceased. He is supposedly there to place his four nephews — Justice (Homer Janson), Simon (Arlo Janson), Steve (Ulysses Janson), and Samuel (Atlas Janson) — into foster care. But social worker Gretchen (Linda Cardellini) informs Mike that the foster family has fallen through, and he needs to act as guardian until she can find someone else.

Whether they’re still reeling from their parents’ deaths or are just wild in general, the kids prove to be more than a handful for Mike, who always has one eye on the door, hoping to get back to his own life as soon as possible. But the longer he’s forced to stay, the more the kids grow on him, especially when he learns that at least two of them were students at their mom’s dance studio, giving him an idea to stage a version of a certain holiday classic.

Directed by David Gordon Green and written by Leland Douglas, the film would seem to have all the elements that make a holiday film memorable, but the vibe is off right from the start. First of all, the audience is thrown right into the mix along with Mike, with barely any introduction to the main characters. As their backstories are mostly missing, it’s difficult to feel anything — good or bad — about Mike or the kids, and so they just kind of co-exist for the first act of the film.

Green and Douglas can also never decide what kind of people they want the kids to be. The film starts with a scene of them sneaking into an amusement park and causing havoc, and subsequent scenes make it seem like they’re supposed to be hellions. But when the filmmakers start going back-and-forth between them wrecking things and being responsible, down-to-earth kids, the plot thread gets confusing and less interesting.

It’s also perplexing why they would cast Stiller, who’s been known to play straight-laced characters who go off the rails on many occasions, and then not let him do what he does best. Even when confronted with some of the kids’ worst behavior, Mike keeps his reactions in check, which may be good for a real-life uncle, but makes for a less-than-entertaining holiday family film.

Stiller still lives up to his star-billing at times, but the arc of his character is not that inspiring, even when a slight romance starts to bloom between Mike and Gretchen. The Janson brothers, who are making their collective film debut, are fun at times, but their lack of experience shows in their unpolished performances. Cardellini is a nice presence, but she’s not given enough to do to make a big impact.

Nutcrackers is an inoffensive movie in that it’s not so terrible that there’s no way to actually finish it. But there’s little in its story, characters, or attempt to be a holiday movie that can be recommended as a fun family watch, so it’s likely to fade away into streamer oblivion.

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Nutcrackers is now streaming on Hulu.

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