You can stay home every night and watch some form of reality television the guilty pleasure "Survivor," the contemptible "Temptation Island," the old-school "Cops" or, my personal favorite, "When Good Pets Go Bad."
Or can you can get off the couch and watch the same thing on the big screen in "Series 7," which would be a satire if it weren't so dead-on.
"Series 7" feels so real, it's not even funny. Granted, it's amusing with its urgent, breathless voice-overs, quick edits and blaring full-screen graphics. Like "The Real World," regular people look into the camera and spill the most intimate details of their lives. And because we're all voyeurs deep down, we watch, hanging on every insipid word.
But "Series 7" takes the genre to a bloodier, more violent level. This is the story of six people, picked to kill each other, in a show called "The Contenders." Each contestant gets a gun and a cameraman; the person left standing wins.
And you thought the tribal council was rough.
The reigning champion is Dawn (Brooke Smith, who survived the pit in "The Silence of The Lambs" by using Precious the poodle as bait). She's single and eight months' pregnant, and all she has to do to be free of the show for good is win the seventh round. She's also a dead ringer for Sue Hawk, the sharp-tongued truck driver from the original "Survivor."
Challenging Dawn: Connie (Marylouise Burke), a religious emergency room nurse; Tony (Michael Kaycheck), a husband and father who removes asbestos for a living; Franklin (Richard Venture), an elderly trailer dweller; Lindsay (Merritt Wever), a suburban teen whose parents drive her around to hunt her enemies; and Jeff (Glenn Fitzgerald), an artist who's dying of testicular cancer.
We get a glimpse of each competitor's home life: Tony playing in the back yard with his kids, Jeff dancing with his wife on their wedding video.
A connection between Dawn and Jeff is revealed, and as the number of players dwindles and the film reaches a climax, it's admittedly as compelling as the final episode of last season's "Survivor." Who will win? Tune in next time and find out!
Writer-director Daniel Minahan has said he watched hours of reality TV shows to prepare for this movie.
"At a certain point, I became really obsessed by them and couldn't stop watching," he said.
And it shows. His attention to detail is impeccable, and his use of no-name actors adds to the film's authenticity.
But what is Minahan trying to say? That reality TV is bad? That it's a violent, mind-numbing waste of time?
Well, duh.
The upcoming film "15 Minutes," in which two immigrants seek fame by going on a killing spree, similarly indicts television for making real people stars for doing horrible deeds.
If Minahan is just trying to entertain, he's achieved his goal, but only in the same basic way as the TV shows he imitates.
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