It's easy to turn up your nose at the cultural contributions of Tom Greene, South Park, and, well, a lot of MTV, Comedy Central and FOX programming.

And, for the most part, you probably should.  But what's interesting to me is that these shows are designed to tweak the culturally programmed rules for taste and decency in all of us.  Done well, cringe-humor is, ultimately, an exploration of the values and standards of the audience.

Most of the shows that make it on the air bludgeon around these issues with sledgehammers and whiffle-ball bats, in uninspired, mediocre, dull, repetitive, sophomoric attempts to be provocative.
But Royal and Eva have been exploring this territory for a long time, since before I met them, and I've been repeatedly impressed with their virtuosity.This film achieves a truly sublime emotional dialectic, between the very real, personal, private, scary, true story we're being told, in Royal's own voice, and the exaggeratedly bright and cheery, and sometimes cringe-worthy, but honest, attitude of the "Dramatic Reenactments".

If anyone told me about the film, I'd certainly be skeptical of a blood-spurting "Operation" game and a character in a testicle costume.  Among other things.  But they make it all flow seamlessly, both technically and tonally speaking.

Andrew Culver is pitch-perfect as Actor Royal, and the War Zone footage is the best war I've ever, ever seen in a student film.  This film is way better than the Tom Greene cancer special.