tek's rating: ¼

Totally Real Movies Coming Soon, on Amazon

Caution: spoilers!

So... this is basically a bunch of unrelated fake movie trailers from Funny or Die, which have apparently been randomly put together as a sort of anthology series on Amazon. The first episode is one that I watched in January 2018, a few months before I learned that this series even existed, in April. (And if you look at the release dates on Amazon, you'll see they're all totally out of chronological order in this series. Which is fine, I guess.) Update: this series is no longer available, but the page for it is still on Amazon.


Sofia Coppola's Little Mermaid (1:59)
Funny or Die; IMDb

From May 2014. I guess at the time this was made, Sofia Coppola was attached to direct a live-action version of "The Little Mermaid," but that subsequently fell through. Anyway, in this fake trailer for the movie that never happened, AnnaSophia Robb plays Ariel. There's not much to it, but it's reasonably amusing, I guess.


Rush Hour 4: Face/Off 2 (2:51)
Funny or Die; IMDb

From April 2015. Sean Combs plays Detective Carter. Some guy I never heard of plays Detective Lee. The two of them switch faces in a simultaneous parody of the "Rush Hour" movies and "Face/Off," none of which I've ever seen. And it's pretty funny, if you like totally redonkulous concepts.


Wax On, Fuck Off (4:18)
Funny or Die; IMDb

From June 2010. Ralph Macchio stars in a documentary about his attempts to tarnish his squeaky-clean image, because someone as nice as him can't be successful in Hollywood. Mildly amusing.


Meryl: The Lifetime Biopic (2:43)
Funny or Die; IMDb

From August 2015. Christina Applegate stars in a Lifetime biopic about Meryl Streep. The voiceover guy in the trailer admits Applegate was a terrible casting choice, as we see her doing bad reenactments of scenes from Streep's movies. It's kind of funny.


Rugrats (2:02)
Funny or Die; IMDb

From January 2012. I... never really watched the cartoon "Rugrats," but at least I recognize the major characters and know their names. So I get how disturbing this live-action version with adult actors is, particularly since it seems to involve covering up a murder. Also, it's fun because I know some of the actors from other stuff, and seeing them as Rugrats characters is... interesting. Mae Whitman plays Angelica, Alia Shawkat plays Chuckie, Sarah Ramos plays Lil/Phil. (Tommy is played by Michael Angarano, whom I don't know.) Anyway... I don't know what else to say.


Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (2:40)
Funny or Die; IMDb

From March 2010. The cast includes Aaron Paul as Weird Al, Gary Cole and Mary Steenburgen as his parents, Olivia Wilde as Madonna, Patton Oswalt as Dr. Demento, and Weird Al himself as a music producer. And yet somehow, the whole thing manages to be pretty blah.


The Girl with the Tramp Stamp Tattoo (2:40)
Funny or Die; IMDb

From December 2011. Emma Roberts stars in a parody of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. But instead of being an expert investigator, she's really flaky and constantly checking her phone. And um... Ray Wise has a minor role. I guess the short is mildly amusing, at least in theory. But it probably could have been better.


Snackpocalypse (3:37)
Funny or Die; IMDb

From September 2014. Chloë Grace Moretz narrates and stars in this apocalypse movie. Clark Duke plays the student body president, who promised to provide students with tons of junk food if elected. And eating nothing but junk food and soda turns almost all the kids into zombies (sort of), before finally they just basically go into sugar comas, or whatever. I dunno. But Moretz's character eats healthy, so she's like the "chosen one," who has to save them, which she finds ridiculous. Because of course it is. But it's fairly amusing. (Tyler Posey plays another student who isn't affected by the epidemic, so I'm not sure why he can't do anything except encourage Moretz's character to accept her destiny. But whatever.) Also... Michelle Obama has a cameo at the end. How cool is that?


Charlie Brown: Blockhead's Revenge (3:10)
Funny or Die; Halloween Short Films; IMDb

From October 2011. This short is introduced by John Carpenter. It features live-action, grown-up versions of the "Peanuts" characters, and is set at Halloween. Most of the allusions are to It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, but there's also a bit from A Charlie Brown Christmas. Anyway... a few of the actors are from MTV's "Teen Wolf," but I didn't recognize them, since I only watched a few episodes of that. (Although Linus is played by Colton Haynes, whom I know from Arrow.) And um... it doesn't take long for the short to turn into a horror movie. I guess it's kind of amusing, and a pretty good spoof of slasher films in general. (Also the girls are hot. Which... is par for the horror movie course, I expect.)


When Harry Met Sally 2 (4:31)
Funny or Die; IMDb

From April 2011. It starts out with Billy Crystal and Rob Reiner pitching a sequel to When Harry Met Sally, to a trio of movie executives. Sally would be dead, but we'd get to see what goes on with Harry after that. The main executive (played by Adam Scott) has one little tweak, which we'll discover halfway through the trailer. The trailer itself begins with Harry going to live in a retirement home, where he meets and falls in love with a woman named Sharon (Helen Mirren). But then the plot twist comes, and I'm totally not going to spoil it, but it's pretty damned funny, I'd say.


The Hug (2:07)
Funny or Die; IMDb

From February 2014. So... one day a guy named Ryan hugs a woman named Susanna (Bryce Dallas Howard), momentarily mistaking her for his cousin. After that, she becomes obsessed with him, to his ever-increasing dismay. The whole thing is a parody of Nicholas Sparks movies. (It's framed by Susanna as an old woman telling her story to... I guess a nurse in a retirement home... who is played by D'Arcy Carden, whom I know from The Good Place.) Anyway, I guess it's kind of amusing, but more disturbing, really. (Honestly, it's hard to imagine it being anything but disturbing, if the roles were reversed, with the man being the obsessive one.)


Boop (2:40)
Funny or Die; IMDb

From April 2011. Rose McGowan plays Elizabeth Boop, who inspires Max Fleischer to create the cartoon character Betty Boop. Um... obviously, the short is not based in reality, and the whole thing is just utterly redonkulous. Honestly, I don't know how to feel about it. It's too weird for me to find it amusing, and it's... almost too ludicrous for me to appreciate its weirdness. But I can't really say I disliked it.


Weird Science 2: Strange Chemistry (3:52)
Funny or Die; IMDb

From August 2013. This, of course, is meant to be a sequel to Weird Science. Same basic plot, but it goes awry. And it's really pretty stupid and pointless.


For (Stuffed) Colored Girls (1:34)
Funny or Die; IMDb

From November 2010. I guess this is a parody of the movie "For Colored Girls," which I haven't seen. I really have no fucking clue what's going on here, except that it involves puppets.



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