Review of A Cock and Bull Story (2005) by Jesse J — 18 Jul 2006

[color=magenta]What a weird movie.[/color].

[color=#ff00ff]I mean that in the best possible way. [/color].

[color=#ff00ff]It blurs the lines of reality, documentary, Brit humour, mockumentary and fiction. The whole premise of the film, is infact the filming of a most unfilmable book called [i]The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman[/i] by Laurence Sterne. Steve Coogan plays Tristram, Tristram's father and himself. At the same time, Jeremy Northam doesn't play himself, rather the director Michael Winterbottom, who infact doesn't play himself.[/color].

[color=#ff00ff]Woah, I am talking in circles.[/color].

[color=#ff00ff]Naomie Harris and Kelly MacDonald don't play themselves, either. The former is Jennie and the latter is Jenny.[/color].

[color=#ff00ff]It really is an inventive little movie that is somewhere a mash-up of [i]This Is Spinal Tap[/i] and [i]Monty Python's Flying Circus[/i]. Especially the scenes where Tristam is being born and the doctor unsucessfully demonstrates the forceps on someone's hands (and taking the skin off) and on a melon (which implodes from the pressure) and they still decide to use the new technology on the baby's head--and then when Steve Coogan is trying out the giant, fake womb he is supposed to film a scene in and they have him hanging upside down and he is fiilaling about. I cracked up.[/color].

[color=#ff00ff]It is a film for people with a certain kind of sense of humor. If you like Brit humor and irreverence, then watch away.[/color].

[color=#ff00ff]Will be back soon, so I will leave you with my favorite quote from the film.[/color].

[color=#ff00ff]"[i]Tristram Shandy[/i] was a postmodern classic written before there was any modernism to be post about"--Steve Coogan, as himself.[/color].

[color=#ff00ff]--Court[/color].