Soup of the Day (2006)

Director:

Scott Zakarin

Writers:

Rob Cesternino (writer)
Scott Zakarin (writer)

Release Date:

8 May 2006 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Romance

Tagline:

One Man, Three Girlfriends, Once Favorite Soup

Plot:

Brandon Craig is a regular guy who loves split pea soup and happens to be in monogamous relationships with three amazing women: Monique...

Plot Keywords:

Soup | Love | Pea | Internet | Split Pea Soup

Cast

Jon Crowley	...	Brandon Craig
Catherine Reitman	...	Monique
Patty Wortham	...	Wendy
Rebecca Cardon	...	Zoe
Tina Molina	...	Franki
Brian Palermo	...	Todd
Rob Cesternino	...	Rob
Levin O'Connor	...	Dr. Mitch
E.J. Scott	...	Gene
Scott Long	...	Detective Ferrari
John Palyok	...	Detective Kozlowski
Michael Loprete	...	Bob
Jim Wise	...	Dave
Rich Tackenberg	...	Jerry
Paul Camuso	...	Cameron Campbell

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Company:

Iron Sink Media

Goofs:

Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Brandon and his friends are discussing the women over the pea soup they ask the waitress for advice. She sits down to give them advice and her words do not match up with the way she is speaking.

Overdone old plot ideas done badly.

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Soup of the Day has a braggadocio self-proclaimed Internet phenomenon, having received over nine million downloads in its original, web-distributed form. The main reason I decided to watch this film was because, I was fooled by all the Internet hype I read. I fear this DVD film does not live up to it's press IN ANY WAY. Now, this Internet download subject been imported over to DVD. The producers case implies that the film is completely different than it's original web episodes, however **it's not**. All they've really did is stick all 19 episodes together, plus a few minutes of additional trivial transitional footage, then called it a standard feature-length film.

This Internet transition isn't done well. For starters, serial web episodes work under completely different rules than DVD. Webepisodes each have to be the same length, and there doesn't have to be any real continuity between them. Since there's a gap of time for the Internet viewers, they can accept the sudden gaps of time in the show's plot itself. When these plot gaps are removed due to being stuffed into a DVD format, the DVD audience is left with a horribly stilted and jumpy viewing experience, jumping from mini-story to mini-story, predictably in every seven minutes(the length of web episodes). This whole DVD film has more problems. First of all the plot is very dull and very predictable. The message of the film was also very dated. The premise is a group of nerds who have probably never actually spoken to a girl in real life. This film plot has been done 'to death' by many other better films. We already have a surplus of gung-ho male sex comedies made by filmmakers. Maybe I'm expecting too much, considering this film is an experiment with total improvised performances from their actors. Improv acting really only works live, and improv rarely holds up to multiple viewings in film. On the DVD format, it's a major uncomfortable problem. The Internet demonstrates great potential for dabbling filmmakers, but if they want to show the world that they deserve a chance, they need to offer something genuinely new, interesting and unforeseen. I do understand what the creators of this series were trying to accomplish, but it never comes together in the way they should on the DVD. To conclude, if you watch this movie as I plainly did, you will say at the end of the day that it was an unfortunate waste of my DVD viewing time.