Cannibal! The Musical!
It's embarrassing that it took me this long to see this piece of cinematic wonder. For those of
you who don't know, CTM is one historical retelling of the Alfred Packer story. Alfred Packer
was accused of cannibalism in 1874 while venturing from Provo, Utah to Brekenridge in the
Colorado Territory, as Colorado was not yet a state. (Yet another pathetic attempt to get this
site to be part of mandated public school curriculum.)
Obviously a musical about such subject matter is going to be funny and, especially, when
Matt Stone and Trey Parker- the creators of South Park, Baseketball, Orgazmo, and Team
America: World Police- are involved. Matt and Trey, along with many of their equally funny
film-school friends made this movie over a summer break from college on money they
probably raised by selling weed. Honestly I don't know where they got the $70,000.00 they
used to cover production cost but they obviously put it to good use as there are like three
hundred people in the third act of the film. And, of course, all the songs are original as well.
Now, I make no claim that this is a 'good' movie. It was released on the Troma Film label, who
are famous for such films as Tromeo and Juliet and the Toxic Avenger series. And don't we
all love those? It's plagued by the normal stuff that fucks up low budget movies, such as poor
sound, bad acting and far-too liberal editing (the exact opposite of what's wrong with George
Lucas) but it has some really funny moments and needs to be watched, in its entirety, to get to
the awesome part. So, the lamest part of this film is the film itself, without the commentary
track playing over it.
CTM's commentary track is absolute genius and, frankly, hysterical. It's not a boring - okay,
when we did scene X we used Y filter on the lens - tour of the film. It's an audio recording of
Matt, Trey and the other key players in the movie getting WASTED and talking a bunch of shit
about their first movie. I can't urge you enough to buy this DVD, trudge through the initial
screening (which seems to take hours) and then immediately watch it again, with the
commentary on (which seems to take minutes because it's so entertaining). You'll thank me.
By the way, if the commentary track turns off for a while during the viewing, just ignore it, it
comes back. Apparently they said something they thought was a little too juicy for us to hear
or just got too drunk and screwed up the equipment. CTM rocks.
It's embarrassing that it took me this long to see this piece of cinematic wonder. For those of
you who don't know, CTM is one historical retelling of the Alfred Packer story. Alfred Packer
was accused of cannibalism in 1874 while venturing from Provo, Utah to Brekenridge in the
Colorado Territory, as Colorado was not yet a state. (Yet another pathetic attempt to get this
site to be part of mandated public school curriculum.)
Obviously a musical about such subject matter is going to be funny and, especially, when
Matt Stone and Trey Parker- the creators of South Park, Baseketball, Orgazmo, and Team
America: World Police- are involved. Matt and Trey, along with many of their equally funny
film-school friends made this movie over a summer break from college on money they
probably raised by selling weed. Honestly I don't know where they got the $70,000.00 they
used to cover production cost but they obviously put it to good use as there are like three
hundred people in the third act of the film. And, of course, all the songs are original as well.
Now, I make no claim that this is a 'good' movie. It was released on the Troma Film label, who
are famous for such films as Tromeo and Juliet and the Toxic Avenger series. And don't we
all love those? It's plagued by the normal stuff that fucks up low budget movies, such as poor
sound, bad acting and far-too liberal editing (the exact opposite of what's wrong with George
Lucas) but it has some really funny moments and needs to be watched, in its entirety, to get to
the awesome part. So, the lamest part of this film is the film itself, without the commentary
track playing over it.
CTM's commentary track is absolute genius and, frankly, hysterical. It's not a boring - okay,
when we did scene X we used Y filter on the lens - tour of the film. It's an audio recording of
Matt, Trey and the other key players in the movie getting WASTED and talking a bunch of shit
about their first movie. I can't urge you enough to buy this DVD, trudge through the initial
screening (which seems to take hours) and then immediately watch it again, with the
commentary on (which seems to take minutes because it's so entertaining). You'll thank me.
By the way, if the commentary track turns off for a while during the viewing, just ignore it, it
comes back. Apparently they said something they thought was a little too juicy for us to hear
or just got too drunk and screwed up the equipment. CTM rocks.
