Paul King, 2009
Well, the title gives you high hopes for cattle, doesn't it?
However, this Withnailesque blend of comedy underscored poignant melancholy is shot in a dreamlike magical style so, for example, horses appear yet they're cartoons.
There is an actual live dog called Cow, and there's a full size live bull made of cogs and assorted other metalwork.
And then there is, briefly but significantly, a big black bull.
Result!
Saturday 28 November 2009
Tuesday 24 November 2009
Coffy
Jack Hill, 1973
No cows.
Possibly the most pronounced cows:gratuitous tits ratio discrepancy of any movie that's any good.
No cows.
Possibly the most pronounced cows:gratuitous tits ratio discrepancy of any movie that's any good.
Monday 23 November 2009
Capturing the Friedmans
Andrew Jarecki, 2003
In this absolutely extraordinary documentary - how can you manage to deal with an issue like child sex abuse without making an audience jump to conclusions? - when Peter Panaro talks of driving upstate to visit Arnold Friedman in jail, the sequence starts with a great close-up of a cow pushing its big square nose towards the camera in a sunny field.
In this absolutely extraordinary documentary - how can you manage to deal with an issue like child sex abuse without making an audience jump to conclusions? - when Peter Panaro talks of driving upstate to visit Arnold Friedman in jail, the sequence starts with a great close-up of a cow pushing its big square nose towards the camera in a sunny field.
Friday 20 November 2009
Chocolat
Lasse Hallström, 2000
This is a halfling, a bovine twilight film, an undefined double-agent of teasing confusion. Several times you hear cows in the background, but you never get to see them. I think that means it counts as a no-cow film.
This is a halfling, a bovine twilight film, an undefined double-agent of teasing confusion. Several times you hear cows in the background, but you never get to see them. I think that means it counts as a no-cow film.
Wednesday 18 November 2009
Sleeper
Woody Allen, 1973
No cows. But an eight foot chicken is something of a commendable mitigating factor.
No cows. But an eight foot chicken is something of a commendable mitigating factor.
Monday 16 November 2009
Confessions of A Dangerous Mind
George Clooney, 2002
What's not to love about this criminally overlooked movie?
A rattling good tale taken from the 'unauthorised autobiography' of game show host and CIA hitman Chuck Barris, turned into a characteristically sparky screenplay by Charlie Kaufman, directed by George Clooney, a great lead performance from Moon's brilliant leading (almost solo) man Sam Rockwell, and even hilariously underplayed cameos from Brad Pitt and Matt Damon.
I'll tell you what's not to love. Not a cow in sight.
Worse, for the third time in only eleven movies so far logged here - Amelie and Very Annie Mary being the others - there are goats but no cows.
In the Helsinki scene a truckful of goats goes by. Later, in East Berlin, Chuck gets into the back of a truck with a load of blokes and a goat. It looks a lot like the same truck and leads me to the conclusion that they shot all the 'icy European cities' scenes in one swift go, recycling the goat truck.
Cheapskate production values? Or bovophobia?
What's not to love about this criminally overlooked movie?
A rattling good tale taken from the 'unauthorised autobiography' of game show host and CIA hitman Chuck Barris, turned into a characteristically sparky screenplay by Charlie Kaufman, directed by George Clooney, a great lead performance from Moon's brilliant leading (almost solo) man Sam Rockwell, and even hilariously underplayed cameos from Brad Pitt and Matt Damon.
I'll tell you what's not to love. Not a cow in sight.
Worse, for the third time in only eleven movies so far logged here - Amelie and Very Annie Mary being the others - there are goats but no cows.
In the Helsinki scene a truckful of goats goes by. Later, in East Berlin, Chuck gets into the back of a truck with a load of blokes and a goat. It looks a lot like the same truck and leads me to the conclusion that they shot all the 'icy European cities' scenes in one swift go, recycling the goat truck.
Cheapskate production values? Or bovophobia?
Friday 13 November 2009
Tuesday 10 November 2009
Very Annie Mary
Sara Sugarman, 2001
No cows.
Despite Annie Mary wearing something that looks like cow-print chaps, and despite the extensive use of rural location and the inclusion of quality close-ups of more unusual livestock like geese and goats, this is nonetheless a bovine free zone.
No cows.
Despite Annie Mary wearing something that looks like cow-print chaps, and despite the extensive use of rural location and the inclusion of quality close-ups of more unusual livestock like geese and goats, this is nonetheless a bovine free zone.
Human Nature
Michel Gondry, 2001
From the writer/director partnership of Charlie Kaufman and Michel Gondry, whose follow-up was the incomparable Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind, comes this tale of human pretence, artifice, neurosis and the way we value what we idealise at the cost of what we actually have. As Nathan Bronfman advises Puff, a man raised as an ape as he struggles to become civilised, 'remember, when in doubt, don't ever do what you really want to do'.
And at the end, as Puff marches proudly back to the forest, he nods to two cows in a field by the road. It's not just a passing touch but a clear symbolic comment that civilisation has turned us all into domestic cattle. Moo.
From the writer/director partnership of Charlie Kaufman and Michel Gondry, whose follow-up was the incomparable Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind, comes this tale of human pretence, artifice, neurosis and the way we value what we idealise at the cost of what we actually have. As Nathan Bronfman advises Puff, a man raised as an ape as he struggles to become civilised, 'remember, when in doubt, don't ever do what you really want to do'.
And at the end, as Puff marches proudly back to the forest, he nods to two cows in a field by the road. It's not just a passing touch but a clear symbolic comment that civilisation has turned us all into domestic cattle. Moo.
Monday 9 November 2009
The Omen
Richard Donner, 1976
No cows.
What kind of diabolical film could be set in modern England with a herd of giraffes and a troop of baboons, yet no cows? Truly satanic.
No cows.
What kind of diabolical film could be set in modern England with a herd of giraffes and a troop of baboons, yet no cows? Truly satanic.
Sunday 8 November 2009
The Man in the White Suit
Alexander Mackendrick, 1951
No cows.
A model horse and a painting of a stag in Mr Birnley's study are as close as it gets.
No cows.
A model horse and a painting of a stag in Mr Birnley's study are as close as it gets.
Saturday 7 November 2009
Friday 6 November 2009
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