Nostalgia Kinky

Deborah Harry’s seductively dreamy voice guides us through Amanda Kramer’s hypnotic So Unreal (2023), a fascinating feature-length visual essay now available as a packed special edition Blu-ray from Altered Innocence. Focused on two decades of, mostly, American films that dealt with rapidly advancing technology So Unreal is all image, music and voice with none of the talking head trappings that bog down most modern film documentaries.

A captivating work, So Unreal strikes me as one of the most personal documentaries of the decade, as it certainly isn’t a coincidence that it essentially covers the first two decades of its director’s life. This is Amanda Kramer’s youth, the first twenty years of the life of a supremely talented artist, filmmaker, musician and writer. Viewers certainly don’t have to know anything about Kramer to enjoy watching this but there is something intensely private about So Unreal and it adds extra dreamscape layers to an already nocturnal watch.

While Tron (1982) is the film that offers So Unreal its introduction, it is Kramer favorite Looker (1981) that stands as the film’s true ground-zero production. Released just over a month after Kramer’s birth in the fall of 1981, Looker was visionary author/director Michael Crichton’s eerie look at our own twisted ideas of physical perfection and is, as mentioned on So Unreal’s excellent commentary track, a favorite of Kramer’s. While So Unreal certainly covers the more well-known computer based films of the eighties and nineties, it is the inclusion of more obscure films (like Looker) that give it its heart.

Scripted by Kramer, along with Britt Brown, So Unreal might be centered on the way Hollywood has treated our online worlds but is also a super philosophical look at just why we’ve moved so far away from our concrete reality into something so much more synthetic and…well…unreal. Dozens of films are discussed throughout So Unreal…some brilliant, some ridiculous. Some have aged well, some have aged as poorly as imaginable but Kramer and her team treat each title with a certain level of importance making for some surprising outcomes. Take the section on The Net (1995), Irwin Winkler’s sometimes silly Sandra Bullock vehicle that gives So Unreal one of its most chilling moments as Kramer allows Harry’s powerful narration a moment to let up, giving the floor to Bullock as she details exactly how we’re all going to lose any sense of privacy and security in our new online lives. I recall very clearly seeing The Net in theaters thirty years ago and the film’s warnings felt hysterically insane. Now every seemingly clueless moment of the film feels chillingly prophetic. So Unreal really shines in these moments, and I so appreciated Kramer’s creative choices throughout. Everyone knows how great The Matrix is but at the end of the day we aren’t living in a simulation…we’re living in the world Sandra Bullock warned us not to order a pizza online in and it’s terrifying.

Powerfully scored by a selection of tracks from the influential 100% Silk Record label, that Kramer was so connected to, So Unreal reminded me a bit of a work like Terror in the Aisles (1984) as it allows the audience to experience recognizable images with a new score, at times completely altering their appeal and power. Kramer could have easily utilized an expected more Dreamwave like score for So Unreal but the 100% Silk compiled soundtrack is perfectly chosen, curated and is one of the film’s many highlights. It is also the basis for one of the key extras on Altered Innocence’s excellent new release, which I’ll get to in a bit.

Amongst the most striking aspects of So Unreal is that its shows the ‘better’ CGI has gotten through the years, the less interesting and prophetic it seems. Far and away the most visually interesting and thought provoking films in So Unreal are from the eighties making the films from the early 2000s Kramer’s film closes on seem far more antiquated and dull. CGI’s goal at becoming more lifelike and seamless was its undoing. Now we are stuck in a world where reality is increasingly becoming blurred as is our history, as one AI clip after another confuses our timeline. The future we have left will be attempting to discern what is real and what isn’t…for the people who still care.

Kramer is a really special artist. Initially she had her sight on the stage as a youth but after becoming disillusioned with the Los Angeles theater scene, she switched her attention initially to music. After working with 100% Silk in the early to mid 2000s, Kramer began her fantastic filmmaking career with a series of acclaimed shorts and music videos before her first feature, Paris Window (2018) opened. More films followed, including Please Baby Please (2022) before So Unreal. A real visionary and iconoclast, Kramer admits during the commentary that it isn’t really computers she is into but it is the films and that love of cinema really comes out in So Unreal. This is a rich history of American cinema from 1981 to just after 9/11 and it is Kramer’s relative un-allegiance to tech that gives it a lot of its power. Kramer isn’t even on social media and there is a healthy paranoia at the heart of So Unreal…why are we so obsessed with escaping into something literally not there?

Like earlier works such as the aforementioned Terror in the Aisles, So Unreal is a triumphant example of licensing and the number of film clips Kramer is able to explore is incredible. The booklet that is included with Altered Innocence’s Blu-ray is an essential part of this package, as its exhaustive list includes not only the films Kramer highlights but also dozens upon dozens of others that didn’t quite make the cut. Kramer recalls during the commentary how many times festival attendees came up to her mentioning works that were left out of the film, but there is only so much that could be included in a 90 film. While I do wish So Unreal had stretched it attention more outside the American film industry, that one aspect didn’t stop any of my own personal enjoyment and I can’t imagine it will any others.

This excellent little printed addition also includes an insightful Brian Miller essay and a full run-down of the 100% Silk tracks that make up its incredible soundtrack. One of my favorite extras on the Blu-ray is that the entire music track can be listened to on its own as an extra. I’ve actually been enjoying it as I’ve been writing this!

While some critical commentary is given, So Unreal for the most part treats all of the films it covers equally. It is one of the film’s biggest attributes, as it allows the audience to see the importance of not just certified classics like The Matrix but also often maligned and sometimes forgotten works like Kramer’s personal favorite D.A.R.Y.L. (1985) or even later films like the noirish The Thirteenth Floor (1999). It is Kramer’s willingness to look outside any sort of canonical reading of the period that gives So Unreal its major power. It allows viewers to perhaps find great things in films most of us have never thought of as being anything all that special.

Kramer mentions in this awesome hour long chat with Debbie that’s included as a supplement how much she loves old media like VHS. Kramer could have in fact created an entirely strange and unique experience with So Unreal by just utilizing the original SD home video formats many of these films were initially discovered on. Understandably though, Kramer’s film is made up of restored HD scans of each work she is exploring which, again, shows us just how beautiful cinema used to be. By the time we end at the nearly unwatchable Matrix sequels we are treated with film clips that have, at least to my eyes, lost all of their visual appeal. So Unreal is both a look into imagined futures and a a requiem for a past we didn’t recognize we were living in.

So Unreal is broken up into chapters, ranging from cyberpunk’s literary influence, to droids, to AI’s frightening rise. Throughout Debbie Harry’s legendary voice guides us with the kind of calm cool authority only the GOAT can manage. She is the absolute perfect person to narrate this and the moment she briefly appears onscreen via Videodrome is just wonderful. It makes me want to go back and listen to her audiobook version of her incredible memoir again.

So Unreal has been given a great home video release via Altered Innocence’s Blu-ray. Containing hours of extras, So Unreal has been treated royally here and it is great to see. The audio commentary with Kramer, Brown, Editor/Producer Benjamin Shearn and Executive Producer Brian Miller is a super fun and rewarding listen. Informative, funny, insightful and lively, this is one of the best commentary tracks in recent memory and I must admit to crushing hard on Kramer as she trash talks filmmakers like Christopher Nolan.

More focused on Debbie Harry is the incredible conversation between her and Kramer recorded live at the 2024 Rotterdam Film Festival. What a great talk this is, both informative and warm. I especially love that Kramer is a fellow Koo-Koo head!!! I fanboyed out when she started talking about Giger’s videos for “Now I Know You Know” and “Backfired.”

Other more standard extras are included like the trailer, but maybe the most exciting is an entire extra feature-length film in the form of Silk (2013), Benjamin Shearn’s exciting behind the scenes look at the 100% Silk’s roster touring Europe in the early 2010s. It’s a fascinating inside look at the company and some of its main creators that Kramer helped produce. Packed with infectious music, beautiful young artists and dance, Silk is a valuable work on its own and its inclusion here is a very welcome one.

So Unreal is a terrific film and the Blu-ray from Altered Innocence is smashing. Amanda Kramer’s film is entertaining, insightful and moving. I think perhaps especially moving for fellow Gen-Xer’s who experienced all of these films and rapidly evolving tech in real time. As I was watching So Unreal, I was struck by just how many of these films I saw in a theater. Watching her film reminded me of some of my own memories…some really vague like a strange all-night school event where a VHS of Tron was playing to clear-ones like driving home with my girlfriend Jennifer after seeing The Net that opening weekend in Lexington. No computer waiting for us, no cell-phones to check. If we wanted a pizza we’d have to call on a landline to order it. So Unreal made me both a little sad and a lot nostalgic. Watching this film and all the extras gathered on this Blu-ray made me want to consume everything Amanda Kramer has ever released. I must track down her Magdalena Bay film!!!
So Unreal is highly recommended.

-Jeremy Richey, November, 2025-

A special slipcover edition of So Unreal can be ordered from Diabolic.

And the standard edition can be purchased from MVD as well.

All of the vintage clippings I gathered together for this piece are from various Kentucky newspapers from my youth.