Hip Help

What’s the difference between house music and acid house music? Are tattoos passe? Is it even hip to say “hip”?

Trivial questions for most people, certainly, but not for producers, directors and writers trying to fill theaters. And for those tempted to say, “Who cares of kids don’t really say, ‘This blows chunks’? Who’s gonna notice?” Guy Brand, 26, above, and Matthew Grim, 28, right, have some advice: The very viewers you’re trying to attract will notice, and they’ll laugh their heads off.

Enter Reality Inc., Grim and Brand’s fledgling West L.A. consulting firm. Its goal is to set Hollywood straight about anything youth-related--from music to computer hacking to body piercing. They are almost certainly the only by-twentysomething-about-twentysomething show-biz consultants in town.

Grim and Brand, who previously owned a succession of nightclubs, can cite endless examples of media cluelessness. Take drugs, for example. “Being in the club life we’ve had friends who OD’ed,” says Grim. “If you see what a real addict is like, and then you see an addict on ‘90210,’ you’re like, ‘Oh, my God.’ They’re not even close.”

“Beverly Hills, 90210” may be unrealistic, you could argue, but it’s still successful. (Brand credits the show’s ratings to its campiness.) Not so with last year’s disappointing “Reality Bites,” which “was just such a plethora of suckiness,” says Grim, who hated the film’s portrayal of young people as misdirected whiners.

The guys have worked on a Slayer music video and Gen X-ized scripts for several independent producers (“when in doubt, use profanity”). Brand provided slang for “Caged Heat 3000,” an upcoming Roger Corman gem. “He’s great,” says Aaron Osborne, the director. “I think he’s a hipster.”

That, naturally, is the point. “This is basically our life,” says Grim. “Why not get paid for it?”