For those of you who don't remember (or are too young too) Memorex used to have a commercial featuring Ella Fitzgerald. The commercial asked that you decide whether what you had just heard sung was a live performance or a taped one. Was it real or not? "Is it live or is it Memorex?" was the tag line of the commercial. I just watched a video that makes me wonder the same thing. Was this a documentary that was jazzed up and then marketed as a parody or was it all for fun? The name of the video in question is 20 Dates. It was written and directed by Miles Berkowitz who was also the lead actor.

Miles Berkowitz comes up with this concept for a film. As his romantic life has really been tanked, he will go looking for love. He will go on 20 dates in order to find true love. If after these 20 dates he hasn't found it, then maybe it just couldn't be found. He will tape all of the dates to use in the film.

He starts out by getting a backer for the film. There is this slightly shady guy named Elie that will finance the film for less than 100 thousand dollars. But Elie wants to see nudity and sex in the film. Right away this is a problem for Miles. He wants to maintain some dignity in his work and he really doesn't want some gratuitous sex scenes in the film just for Elie's pleasure.

Miles goes about trying to get dates. He tries to pick up women at various places. He has his friends set him up with women. He even tries to get an old girlfriend to fix him up with some dates.

As things progress Miles doesn't think he'll ever find true love. Some of the women are just plain weird. Others take offense to being filmed. Miles gets beaten up chased out of restaurants. He gets sued by a couple of the dates for invasion of privacy among other things.

Miles is about to give up hope, and the film, when he meets Elizabeth. This is a woman who has it all. She is beautiful, smart and actually likes Miles. She doesn't know about the film right away. When she finds out, Elizabeth is less than thrilled. How can you really find true love like that?

The story moves on with Miles becoming in love with Elizabeth but still having to finish his film and the 20 dates. Will Miles be able to go on the whole 20 dates? Will he have Elizabeth when it's all over? And what about those sex scenes that Elie wanted for the film?

To tell you the truth, what got me interested in watching the video was the description on it's cover. It mentioned the misadventures of a guy going on 20 dates. But then it mentioned that he has a date with a Playboy Bunny and Tia Carrere. That right away sold me on watching the video. And that's what they wanted you to do. The scene with the bunny was only a minute or so and Tia's involvement was minimal. She was one of the producers of the real film, so she might have stuck herself in there to add some name recognition and credibility,

20 Dates stars Miles Berkowitz as Miles, Elizabeth Wagner as Elizabeth, and Tia Carrere and Robert McKee as themselves. Elie Samaha plays the producer who wants the sex scenes. Richard Arlook plays Miles best friend and agent.

Was this a real film that was packaged as a parody? Or was this just an example of those psuedo films that keep popping up? Only Miles and company know for sure.

20 Dates is funny but has a serious undertone. You can look too hard for love and a lot of times in the wrong places. When you find true love, hang on to it and don't let go.

Copyright © 2000 Bruce E. Von Stiers