THE REAL CANCUN
Rick de Oliviera directed this supposedly orgiastic Big Brother-style experiment in the Mexican resort town of Cancun. Take sixteen generic (yes, very generic) American uni students and chuck them into a big house. Let the camera run '24/7' and eight days later, you have yourself the material.
It's an interesting concept, which could potentially deliver us many insights into the human condition. However, what we have instead is a thoroughly heterosexual, pseudo-raunchy school excursion that should really have been on TV, preferably after midnight. I interviewed one of the male 'characters', twenty-year-old Texas Tech student Alan Taylor.
Andrew Staker: What kind of place does Cancun have in the American college mind? When you mention Cancun in America, what do students think of?
Alan Taylor: Kids grow up in these conservative American families and by the time they get to college, their first spring break is really their first time to vacation without their parents there with them. They usually go to Cancun, which is out of the country, and it's the first time to drink, for a lot of them, 'cause the drinking age is lower. They just completely become uninhibited.
AS: I notice you're very involved with the film: you seemed to have a lot of screen-time and you're basically the only one who comes close to a traditional storyline. Would you agree with that?
AT: Yeah, there was a definite arc in the character when you watch the movie. That was not intentional on my part... it just kind of happened. They had footage for every single person in the movie: there were sixteen people in the movie; they could've made sixteen different movies. They just decided on one of them. It all kind of took place in the editing room; they did a good job about it.
AS: How accurately does it represent you throughout? I mean, there's a transition.
AT: Well the transition is accurate, but there are some parts... I mean, I wasn't that much of a loser, you know! It's not like I'd never seen a girl before! I wasn't that extreme. When I first sat down and watched myself on a twenty-foot screen, I thought, I really look like a dork, you know. I didn't realise how nerdy I was. For the most part it was accurate, but there was some stuff that was manufactured.
AS: What was the best part of the eight days?
AT: For me, it was watching the faces of the losers at the hot body competition. It was a snowy day in hell the day I won. I guess it was sympathy or something.
AS: And the worst moment?
AT: The fact that I couldn't really contact anybody at home or anybody else. We had a phone, but every time you called somebody, they recorded your phone calls. My mom knew the call was being recorded so she got a bit weird.
AS: Were people putting on an act during their time in the house?
AT: Not that I know of. They might have been. Nobody was a professional actor.
AS: People have a belief that if you put a camera in front of them, they'll start acting differently. Do you think there was any of that going on?
AT: I didn't see a big change in most of the people. There might have been a subconscious change.
AS: Were the crew overbearing?
AT: At first, it was so incredibly annoying to have the camera and the boom-mike and the lights... after a couple of days you got so fed up with it, you just kind of put it at the back of your head and move on.
AS: Was there any makeup?
AT: No, there was no makeup... as you could tell if you saw me in the movie!
___________
Andrew Staker
========== X-RAMR-ID: 35294 X-Language: en X-RT-AuthorID: 8666
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews