The Product:
The world is going to end. It may not be tomorrow, or at a precise date in December 2012. It could be decades or even millennia away. But one thing is for certain - just as clearly as the planet was created and evolved into the varied place we humans call home, there will be a moment in the future (the supernova of our sun, a dissipation of the ozone layer) when life on the globe will be impossible to maintain. For some, of course, that time is nigh. According to the talking heads who take part in Reality Films flimsy Apocalypse 2012: The World After Time Ends, we are on the precipice of total destruction. In fact, many believe it's too late. We are doomed to die by our own hand. The means seem like a laundry list of activist caveats: mistreatment of the environment, overpopulation, an overreliance on fossil fuels, the depletion of major natural resources (water, air, foo...Read the entire review

The Movie:

Traditionally I have a history of respecting a fan base and their devotion to an aspect of entertainment, even as I might not like said entertainment all that much. I don't really like Pink Floyd, the Grateful Dead or Phish but I can appreciate the followings or even passion that their supporters bring to their shows. And while I haven't read a word of the Harry Potter books, I've seen all of the films in the series to date, and have even taken my wife (a devotee of both the films and books) to the theme park for all things...Read the entire review

REVIEW
For the record I believe in UFOs, aliens, and life on other planets. I believe the government knows more than they're telling us and that something is indeed out there.

There, I've said it. Does that mean I believe every grainy photo or sketchy witness? Nope. But much like my man Fox Mulder I want to believe, and I've spent a good part of my life watching the skies, as well as reading about the phenomena, wallowing in an abundance of often sloppy journalism and twisted truths designed either to prove or disprove a point.

That brings us to Bill Knell's documentary UFOs Do Not Exist!. Knell is a longtime UFO researcher (I guess that means he has read more books than me) and over the course of two VERY LONG hours he uses still photos - and ONLY still photos save for a clip of him on a cable access show - to illustrate his theoretical ramblings on UFOs and government...Read the entire review

REVIEW
For the record, I am a Bigfoot nerd from way back. As a teen - after seeing the infamous Patterson footage - I dreamt of exploring the Pacific Northwest for irrefutable proof of the creature's existence. That pie-eyed dream (decades before the Internet, my friend) eventually fell by the wayside, but I would absorb any and all Bigfoot literature and the rare documentary when I could. I'm still fascinated by the subject, and when this 2-disc set from Reality Films crossed my desk, with cover art promising "over four hours of Bigfoot" and "amazing accounts of Bigfoot from around the world", I was mildly giddy.

Unfortunately the material here is remarkably uneventful, consisting of four separate films largely centered on Oklahoma, Kentucky and Louisiana, which is apparently the "around the world" mentioned on the cover art. I could forgive Reality Films for forsaking any coverage of...Read the entire review

The Product:
Some writers are known for their ideas. They reputation is built on being imaginative and putting said originality into words. Others are famed for how prolific they are, churning out tome after tome without ever stopping to settle down. And then there is Colin Wilson, a British scribe whose specializes in both. Over the course of some five decades, he has penned nearly 150 volumes, many dealing with such esoteric subjects as existentialism, the occult, true crime, serial killers, the supernatural, and all other manner of the macabre and mysticism. Since the publication of his first work, The Outsider, in 1956, he has maintained a rollercoaster career of highs (the non-fiction effort was widely praised) and lows (his follow-up, Religion and the Rebel, was panned). Now in his late '70s, he sits down with the cameras of Reality Films for a 90 minute Q&A on his be...Read the entire review

Seriously? I mean...this is pushing it, even for me. Reality Films has released Bigfoot is Real, a 2-disc set of 4 documentaries on Bigfoot (or fauna akin to the Hairy One) that are without a doubt some of the most boring examinations of this phenomenon that I've ever encountered. Titles included are Bigfooting in Oklahoma, Tale of the Honey Island Swamp Monster, Swamp Apes, and The Wildman of Kentucky: The Mystery of Panther Rock. Immediately starting out on the wrong foot with some phony-baloney stumping on the front DVD cover ("From Sasquatch to The Abominable Snowman" sounds good...but someone forgot to mention Snowman in any of the docs, while "amazing accounts of Bigfoot from around the world" seem limited to western and southern America), things didn't get any better once the films rolled. We're not going to spend a whole lot of time on these.Read the entire review

The Series:

This three disc set from Reality Films supposedly shows us 'real ghosts' in the United Kingdom, a country with a rich history and ripe for supernatural explorations such as this. Each of the three episodes takes place in a haunted location and an 'acclaimed psychic and medium' named Patrick McNamara leads some adventurous types through sessions in which they all sit around in the dark, talk a lot, and supposedly see some ghosts. Sounds pretty good, right? On paper (or in this case, monitor) maybe, but the proof is in the pudding...

The Mermaid Inn:

After a portly man who speaks in mumbled tones explores some of the rooms of this supposedly haunted inn, we are then treated to a talking head interview with the cute blonde proprietor of said inn who tells us of its history and of some of the hauntings that occur there. Located in Rye, England, this is supposedly...Read the entire review

The Product:
Living in such a high tech, media-savvy society, it should be rather obvious by now: many of the players within the current crop of conspiracy theories are as dead as Bigfoot's family tree. Wander over to YouTube or Facebook and feast on the numerous examples of "real evidence" that wind up being some film student's final thesis and you'll realize that, with advances in science comes equally vast increases in skepticism. It's not enough to get on TV and talk about "seeing" ghosts. You have to have actual footage, creepshow images crawling across the screen with macabre meaning. Put another way, we no longer wish to "take your word for it". To paraphrase a famous saying "proof of aliens speaks louder than your mere mentioning of same." This is the problem facing The Alien Time Machine. For an hour, we hear a well meaning British man discuss his history with extraterrestrial...Read the entire review

The Conspiracy To Rule The World: From 911 To The Illuminati:
Reality Films and Reality Entertainment once again implore viewers that 'reality is what you make it.' It's good advice as far as approaching your life goals, and as far as acidheads are concerned is either a gospel truth or complete fallacy. Somewhere in between these two dynamics lies Conspiracy, a documentary hodgepodge capitalizing on conspiracy theorists' need to find answers never-to-be-revealed. As human nature goes, the need to create mysteries and answers is universal; one of those aphoristic answers is, 'if you want to find the truth, follow the money.' Based on their offerings, I suspect not a ton of dough will be spilling into Reality Films coffers. You can then come to your own conclusions as to what level of truth you will find in this compelling yet short-handed DVD.

Conspiracy follows the same bluepr...Read the entire review

Lies And Deception: UFO's [sic] & The Secret Agenda:
I'd be wary about any DVD label with the moniker 'Reality Entertainment'. Reality is often entertaining, but when looking for hard facts, 'reality' and 'entertainment' seem an uneasy mix. When the DVD in question is titled Lies and Deception: UFO's [sic] and the Secret Agenda, the notion of reality becomes a bit fluid, so hopefully at least entertainment will be available. Yet, this padded, plodding documentary comes up a bit short in each department - and I'm one of those who wants to believe. Lies and deception indeed.

Constructed cheaply from the most basic doc ingredients, Lies fails to impress. Unattributed UFO photos dreamily float about in hazy seas of computer imagery, CGI aliens ominously spiral through the blackness, and New Age techno music enforces a soporific air. These graphics repeat ad absurdum, in...Read the entire review

The Movie:
One would think that a documentary entitled Elementary My Dear Watson: The Man Behind Sherlock Holmes would provide the viewer with much tasty information about Arthur Conan Doyle. Unfortunately, the said documentary is much more revealing about its writer and director, Philip Gardiner, whose fixation on the occult informs the film, sometimes to the detriment of the subject at hand.

To be sure, Conan Doyle was a student of the occult and spiritualism, believed in fairies and publicly advocated for related causes. However, Gardiner presents the occult as the defining element of Doyle's life, the primary impetus of all of his fiction, even such as the Sherlock Holmes stories, which are not concerned with anything outside of the workaday world. There are two films included on the disc: Elementary My Dear Watson and The Madness of Sherlock Holmes: Arthur Conan Doyle ...Read the entire review