Eva Mendes goes Live

Ah, reality TV. How you make people eat insects. Or swap parents between dysfunctional families. Or convince people who sound like strangled geese that they might actually possess some singing talent.

The world of “unscripted” telly is usually a ripe subject for spoofing or even just a quick kick in the morality testicles. But few recent efforts have had the punch of, say, Series 7. American Dreamz? Fuhgeddaboutit.

But now Eva Mendes is having a crack at the idea in Live! And with Oscar-scooping docu-maker Bill Guttentag behind the camera, there’s at least a little pedigree. The plot sees a documentary film crew following a crafty programming executive (Mendes) as she tries to drag a reality TV show onto the schedule featuring contestants competing for a cool five million dollars. The catch? They have to play Russian Roulette with loaded weapons live on air. Derren Brown will not be allowed to participate, we fear.

It must be said that the actual TV show sounds like a winner. Especially if they put bullets in every gun chamber and forced the more annoying former Big Brother housemates to have a go. And by “more annoying”, we of course mean “all of them.”

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