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Quote:

Originally Posted by Jaysin (Post 13491961)

wtf is the American Cannibal about anyway?

http://www.mtv.com/movies/news/artic...16/story.jhtml

'American Cannibal': Reality Check, By Kurt Loder

Leading us down into the lowest depths of the reality-TV industry, that bog of veiled sadism and voyeuristic obsession into which it seems our entire entertainment culture is being sucked, this 91-minute documentary is by turns funny, pathetic and appalling. The picture is mesmerizing, in a crash-on-the-highway sense; but the fact that your worst suspicions about the people who cook up some of this stuff are confirmed is in no way gratifying.

The movie follows the meandering career of a pair of young TV writers, Gil Ripley and Dave Roberts, as they knock around New York pitching their sitcom concepts to Comedy Central, IFC and A&E. Channel executives are universally indifferent to their ideas (one of which ? a show to be cast with a quartet of hot grannies ? they describe as "a combination of 'Sex and the City' and 'Golden Girls' "). Nobody wants sitcoms anymore. Those shows require stars, and they're expensive to produce. Everybody wants "reality" programming, which is cheap, and wildly popular. And as one of the film's many interviewees, John Lehr, host of "I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here," says, "Anybody can come up with a reality show. 'Let's dip people in gasoline and put them near a fire!' 'Yes! That's a hilarious idea!' You hire a producer, shoot that sucker, and it gets huge ratings."

Gil and Dave consider themselves to be above the reality business. But they need to start making money, especially Roberts, who has a wife and kids. So they reluctantly come up with a concept for a reality show ? one that's so "edgy," they figure it's a sure sell. After all, the reality industry is all about continually pushing the envelope of acceptability. As producer Phil Gurin, of "Candid Camera," says, "In television, the viewer is always going to look for a bigger high. There's no boundaries that are gonna be too far." In this regard, he says, the 1976 movie "Network" was remarkably prescient: "At some point, you're going to see executions on television."

Why not? Another TV writer, Jill Boniske, suggests how it might work. "You'd have some sort of reality show within the prison system," she says, "where you have all the guys who are on death row. And one by one, they get [pardoned]. And the last one is the public execution."

Gil and Dave's reality concept is called "Virgin Territory." The setup: Eight "medically certified" male virgins are confined in a house for two weeks with nothing to read or watch but pornography. They're monitored at all times, and, uh, sexual release is prohibited ? it results in "premature ejection" from the show. The last virgin left gets to finally have sex, with a porn star. The show's promo line: "When you win it, you lose it."

The two writers start shopping this idea around, but most of the cable execs they pitch are put off. "Where exactly do you see this playing?" asks one. Finally, after flying to L.A. and making the rounds of Universal, Fox and MTV, Gil and Dave wind up at the door of porn entrepreneur Kevin Blatt, whose office is in the back of a mini-mall strip club. Blatt, a fast-talking operator who's not without a certain rancid charm, is the Internet hustler who promoted the Paris Hilton sex tape. Not the first one, with the night-vision lighting; that was illegally obtained, and got squashed. Blatt's "baby," as he calls it, was the second tape, the full-color "One Night in Paris" (which presumably had model releases, which would seem to mean ... well, let's not get into that).

Blatt sees reality TV as a logical extension of his porn business. After all, what's realer than pornography? And he loves the "Virgin Territory" concept. Even more, though, he loves a second concept that Roberts and Ripley have mentioned in passing. This one is called "American Cannibal," and it involves stranding a group of people on a remote island with nothing to eat or drink, and ... seeing what happens. Blatt agrees to put $100,000 into a pilot. He also has a colleague, a ponytailed bruiser named Myles, who runs a little production company back in New York ? perfect. Myles turns out to love the "Cannibal" concept, too. "This is a revolutionary piece of TV history," he says. Gil and Dave are still dubious about the whole reality-TV thing, but they're getting drawn in. As Dave says, "Hey, the money's green."

The next step is casting contestants. Tapes are solicited from around the country. Auditions are held. The aspirants are pretty much the sort of people you might expect. "I started eatin' bugs because I heard about this," says one. Another numbers among his pastimes "picking the heads off of birds and rats and things like that. But just for fun, you know?" A third is asked, "Would you be willing, in order to save one of your teammates, to eat one of their fingers or toes?" His reply: "I would be kind of morally opposed to it, but I would do it if it had to be done."

Finally, six contestants are selected, among them a "self-proclaimed ladies' man," a girl whose goal is to become a Playboy Playmate, an abrasive guy who "likes to push buttons" and another girl who's both a singer and a kickboxer. Now it's time to shoot the show, and Blatt has come up with an island ? a dot of land in the Caribbean, not far from Puerto Rico, called British New Gambia. "And it has a history of cannibalism," he says. "Do you love that?"

The cast and crew fly off to San Juan, where the night before the first day of shooting the contestants are treated to a huge dinner ? their last for a while ? and plenty of alcohol. This cruelly calculated revel runs long into the night. Then, at 3 a.m., just as some of them are getting ready to topple into bed, they're all rousted out and herded into a boat for the long, rocky trip to the island. One of the girls throws up six times along the way. Talk about good television.

The shoot turns into an all-around disaster. There are union problems, permit problems, weather problems. One of the girls turns out not to have told anyone she was hypoglycemic ? which means she has to eat every four hours or ... go into a coma, or something. Very soon, she does in fact collapse, and sustains some sort of bloody chest laceration. She has to be helicoptered out on a stretcher, and is never seen or heard from again.

The picture is a survey of a complete moral wasteland, a place where the hapless targets of American celebrity culture ? the people who read the gossip columns and watch the tabloid TV shows ? willingly put themselves at the mercy of television producers whose only object is to publicly humiliate them in the most painful possible way. The film has one central problem: Gil and Dave's "American Cannibal" concept is improbably vague. How exactly would it work? Even the most debased producers couldn't seriously entertain the idea of having a group of famished contestants eat one of their number on TV. Could they?

Not yet. Until that more permissive day, though, there are still a few cultural taboos left that cry out to be smashed. Another one of the movie's talking heads, Lizz Winstead, a co-creator of "The Daily Show," has a wry idea for a new reality series. It's called "Is She 14 or 18?" The show would feature a randy young guy and a hot young woman of indeterminate age, and the challenge would involve a major gamble. As Winstead says, "Here she is, ready to go. But if you f--- her, you could go to jail."

Sounds like excellent television.