''Cook Off!'' is a 2007 American

mockumentary A mockumentary (a blend of ''mock'' and ''documentary''), fake documentary or docu-comedy is a type of film or television show depicting fictional events but presented as a documentary. These productions are often used to analyze or comment on c ...

comedy Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term o ...

film directed by

Cathryn Michon Cathryn Michon is a Los Angeles-based filmmaker, actress, writer, blogger and stand-up comic. She has been featured at the Montreal Comedy Festival, the Toyota Comedy Festival and the Marshall’s Women in Comedy Festival. Career Her touring s ...

and Guy Shalem. The film was released on November 17, 2017, after being shelved for 10 years.

Synopsis

A group of quirky people is competing in a famed cooking contest for the grand prize of one million dollars.

Cast

Production

The film was already finished by 2007, but was shelved without explanation for a decade. In September 2017, Lionsgate Premiere reportedly was to finally release the film. Lionsgate had reportedly edited the film prior to release by cutting 20 minutes of footage and adding 22 minutes of previously unused footage.

Release

The film made its worldwide premiere at the

US Comedy Arts Festival The Comedy Festival, formerly known as the US Comedy Arts Festival, was a comedy festival that ran from 1995 to 2008. The festival included stand-up comedy performances, appearances by the casts of television shows, and has a film component calle ...

in Aspen, Colorado, in February 2007. The film was released in theaters and on VOD on November 17, 2017.

Reception

On review aggregation website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film has an average rating of 25% based on eight reviews, with an average rating of 6.20/10. John DeFore of ''

The Hollywood Reporter ''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Cinema of the United States, Hollywood film industry, film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade pap ...

'' writes, "''Cook Off!'' piles some better-than-this comedians into a culinary competition whose dishes look as unpalatable as the film itself." Ben Kenigsberg of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' writes: "The movie tries to do for amateur cooking contests what '' Best in Show'' did for dog competitions, but the strained folksiness and tired stereotypes couldn’t be further from the snap and wit of prime Christopher Guest. Michael Rechtshaffen of the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

'' writes, "Wafting into theaters after sitting on the back burner for the last decade,'' Cook Off! ''is a shrill, gloppy mess of a mockumentary being served up well past its "best before" date — if there ever actually were one."

References

External links

* * 2007 films 2007 comedy films American mockumentary films Cooking films Films about food and drink Lionsgate films 2000s English-language films 2000s American films {{2000s-comedy-film-stub