The Cannabis Cup is an annual festival (19 years in the running) held by High Times magazine in Amsterdam. The festival centers around the judging of marijuana strains, with awards handed out in a variety of categories. This High Times-produced documentary was filmed at the 2003 event (incidentally, the first year the festival operated at a net loss, and the event was scaled back in 2004).

The documentary features mock-television shows such as "Cannabis Castaways," a Survivor-rip-off. The premise of that show boggled me -- how can anyone reasonably smoke and compare strains of cannabis within a compressed two- or three-hour time period? Wine connoisseurs don't swallow the wine when they are in a tasting environment, so if you get a high off the taste testing, how can you strictly compare one strain to another?

Overall, this is an overly long view of American potheads descending on a European city for a festival traditionally held during the Thanksgiving holiday. It's a rotten entry in the documentary genre, lacking focus, structure or social/historical context. There are some gorgeous camera shots of the plant, but there's no need for an entire documentary to feature camera pans of botany (a coffeetable book could show plant life just as well, if not better).

This viewer has decided that the one time she won't visit The Netherlands is during the annual Cannabis Cup.