Casa Bonita Documentary Gets Trailer And Fall Releases
Casa Bonita Documentary Gets Trailer And Fall Releases
See the perils of 'South Park' creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone buying a legendary restaurant and getting it ready to reopen
Wow, big week for documentaries related to my interests, it seems. We’re now in September, still waiting for news on when South Park’s 27th season will finally arrive after three uninterrupted specials. But how about peripheral content? The closest thing to your next legitimate South Park movie being ¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor!, a new documentary about creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s journey to reopen Casa Bonita after they purchased it in 2021.
Casa Bonita is a truly decked out Mexican restaurant in suburban Denver, with features including an arcade, a waterfall, cliff divers, puppets and haunted caves. The restaurant was a childhood favorite of both Parker and Stone, so much that it became the focus of a seventh season South Park episode bearing its name which aired in 2003. Originally opening in 1974 at 6715 W. Colfax Ave. in Lakewood, it was declared a historic landmark in 2015 before running into troubles and a decline even the duo concedes, ultimately closing in 2020 with the pandemic as the finishing blow. The previous owners, Summit Family Restaurants filed for bankruptcy in April 2021, and Parker and Stone announced their plans to buy it in July 2021, and a deal was struck in either that August or September, and completed in November. “It’s just sitting there. It sucks,” Parker said at the time. “For a moment when it was like, ‘Casa Bonita is going to close down,’ we said, ‘We’re going to go buy it.’ And I felt like it was the crowning achievement of my life.” The doc chronicles their efforts to preserve the landmark running into numerous issues and question whether completing the project would even be possible due to heavy updates in necessary renovations. The reopening occurred on June 23, 2023, adding an Eric Cartman prop and a Manbearpig meet-and-greet.
¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor! is directed by Arthur Bradford and produced by Sweet Relief and MTV Documentary Films, and Jennifer Ollman. She had also produced 6 Days to Air: The Making of South Park, produced in 2011. ¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor! won the audience award at the Tribeca Festival earlier this year, and screens at the Telluride Film Festival on Sunday, where Saturday Night had its screening Saturday. The doc will open theatrically in Denver on September 6 and expand to New York, Los Angeles, Austin, Boston and other select cities a week later on September 13. It’s widest release so far will be when it streams on Paramount+ later in the fall, currently joining the seven exclusive specials, the movie, and the 25th Anniversary Concert.
