The Real Cancun is clichéd, pop culture nonsense at its finest. Should be a big success.
For those wondering what happens to cute twentysomethings unable to make the cast of The Bachelor, look no further than The Real Cancun, a reality feature film coming to theatres April 25.
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This is exactly what movie franchising is all about. Think 11 seasons of the interminable The Real World series is too much? Well get ready for The Real Key West opening summer 2015.
What's basically a 90-minute TV show with uncensored debauchery, the set up goes like this: six camera crews follow 16 American college students, as they drink themselves silly and try to bang everything in sight during Spring Break in Cancun, Mexico.
Captured 24/7 over the course of a week, the co-eds romp n' roll all over the beach town, while allowing us a special peek into their deepest mind-set via the always-mesmerizing private interviews and assorted group activities. No doubt whip cream will have a supporting role.
The film, and I use the word loosely, comes via Mary-Ellis Bunim and Jonathan Murray, producers of the celebrated, (much too) long-running MTV series, The Real World and Road Rules and production/finance company FilmEngine.
If releasing the hackneyed A Man Apart and past drivel like Body Shots and the let's-try-to-wreck-Robert Deniro's-career entry Fifteen Minutes wasn't bad enough, the once proud New line Cinema has the honor of releasing this celluloid gem of tits and ass right in time for summer. With a cast made up of an Abercrombie & Fitch marketing team's wet dream, box office should no doubt be boffo.
And why shouldn't it? This is precisely the formula movie execs have been craving since they saw the overnights for the Joe Millionaire finale.
If you don't think right now there's a paranoid creative development team at Universal Pictures thinking about how to get Brad Pitt and wife Jennifer Aniston on a vacation trip to be filmed for a movie than you are living in Wonderland.
Before long we'll have Russell Crowe's home movies and Nicole Kidman's night out with the girls playing at the local movie theatre.
Of course, it was only a matter of time before the reality craze that has swept through the TV industry finally landed on Hollywood's shores. Years from now we will look back and realize how The Real Cancun changed Hollywood forever. Sure, other theatrically released, “reality” documentaries like Dogtown and Z-Boys and Unzipped had their moment in the sun, but this is different. Those films were niche-specific, whereas The Real Cancun has its sight set on a mainstream (see: young) audience.
With MTV, US Weekly and other media outlets ready to milk this baby for all it's worth, the film is a perfect hook to catch the much sought-after teen and tween market (plus gobs of college students) that should delight in watching scantily clad collegians frolicking in the sand in Cancun. And lets not forget the droves of movie fans who pushed Jackass to the top of the box office chart.
At this point I should note that I have not seen this film, but as a hopeless cinema snob, I feel all too comfortable opining on said film. I did, however, peruse the literature on www.therealcancun.com, which is pretty much all you need to figure it out. It's not Fellini's Nights of Cabiria for goodness sakes. Not a bad-looking official movie site, I might add.
Truthfully, I look forward to its arrival on HBO, so I can relax on the couch and gaze at countless boob shots and the cinematic suggestion of casual sex amongst strangers.
Look, there's a corner of my heart (or is that another body part?) for all-things voyeurism. I dig watching the Girls Gone Wild commercials and checking the latest installment of Bang Bus (www.bangbus.com). So it is possible for me to drop my minor-in-film theory pretension, chill out and enjoy a taste of summertime fun.
I've been to Cancun. Spring Break 93' I seem to recall. That's ten years ago when I was doing the frolicking. Now, perhaps, I'm bitter. Watching sexy college gals flaunt their way through Cancun in skimpy bikinis, fending off the drunken advances of Sigma Phi Epsilon frat brothers is way too painful a reminder of how simple and wonderful life was way back when.
But something disturbs me. I feel a chill in the air as American Idol: The Movie is probably being developed on a movie studio lot somewhere in Hollywood. If an entire generation of TV execs have saved their careers by trumpeting every conceivable idea for reality shows then it goes without saying that obsessed movie execs would follow suit. The lines between TV and film have always been a bit blurry (though Hollywood elites have always snubbed their noses at television), but now it seems the Gods of Synergy have decided the distance between our living room and the local movie theatre is about to get a lot closer.
Is The Real Cancun harmless entertainment? Obviously. Will it be better than anything Ashton Kutcher puts out in the next five years? Probably. I just think it would be better served on cable.
But what the hell do I know? I guess that's why I don't work at New Line anymore.
Thoughts, opinions, cheap shots, love letters, haranguing, personalized erotica? How about a cool site I should know about? Drop me a note at [email protected].
