Tristram Shandy - A Cock and Bull Story (2005)

Garbage dressed up as postmodernism

This film is dire, self-satisfied, pretentious and - more importantly -dull. A 90 minute examination of Steve Coogan's (fictionalized?) ego is only clever and postmodern if you happen to be Steve Coogan or a member of his immediate family. Is he a bigger star than Rob Brydon? Will he cheat on his wife with the pretty assistant? I don't care and neither should you. The only question I am interested in is why Michael Winterbottom saw fit to touch this steaming pile of smug middle class turd when he could have been making another film with a point and a social conscience, qualities with which he is more usually associated. Shame on you Michael, you let your famous friends turn your head. March 9, 2008

good flick about a flick about a visonary book

this is a good movie. avoid it if you: 1. Have no real sense of humor, 2. haven't read the novel itself, 3. dont like movies and how they are shot, or 4. can't sit still. th movie is slow to develop and has no real ending, but that is point. it is a modern day vison of the novel, and how something so enjoyable will turn many off because it fails to meet some standardized norms about what a movie should be, or do. overall, very enjoyable movie. one of th best!!!!!! February 17, 2008

Is it Tristram Shandy or Steve Coogan?

The book Tristram Shandy was thought to be un-filmable. Now I have not read the book, but I understand it to be incredibly non-liner. So despite mixed reviews I gave the DVD a try. I mean "Pulp Fiction" made non-liner movies work, why not a period piece? Immediately I was captivated by the film. It freely bounced back and forth between the actor playing Shandy and the character Shandy himself. So that the actor (or is it the actor as Shandy) constantly broke the fourth wall of the film as he took the audience along on the ride of his life. Back and forth we went through time to, Shandy's accidental circumcision, birth, then conception, then birth again. Occasionally the actor, Steve Coogan, would drop the Shandy character all together and walk off set to give an interview about the movie he was in, which of course was Tristram Shandy. All very clever, all very fun and witty.

Then at one point, not quite a third of the way through the film, Coogan drops his Shandy character and never goes back to it. The Tristram Shandy movie is placed far into the background and suddenly the audience is brought completely into the present as an egotistical Coogan struggles with the sorted relationships in his life, his new son, a movie that seems to be losing direction, and the many journalist that follow him. I kept waiting to go completely back Shandy the movie but it never really arrives except for a small bit of closer at the end. "Why is this movie called Tristram Shandy?", I thought. It's a bit more than misleading. It didn't help that the press promoted this movie as a novelization; all the sound bites and previews relied solely on the first third of the movie. I could not help but feel as if I had been had.

So how does the remaining two thirds of the movie work? Slow but slightly amusing; however, the comedy is as dry as a dusty martini. Steve Coogan has made a name for himself in the U.K. as a talent comic actor, but his attempt to distance himself from his TV persona may not be fully understood across the Atlantic. If Jerry Seinfeld played Shandy I think the audience would of "gotten it" here in the U.S. You could say that's sad or crass, but the film is basically flawed in the fact that it relies way to heavily on Steve Coogan as an established British actor. It also doesn't help that most of the movie is not what it necessarily claims to be. In it's attempt to find a wider audience with this ambitious film, it instead further alienates itself. There are those out there, I'm sure, who would just love this film. I'm just not one of them.
January 10, 2008

A film about making films

This film starts off as an 18th romp and just when you are getting tired of it veers off into a film about the MAKING of an 18th century romp.

It has many sly comments to make about film-making - vain actors, cheapskate producers, crazy technical consultants...

Like many of these types of films it is amusing but leaves one ultimately unsatisfied as you have the carpet pulled out from you too many times.

Another interesting film from the hardworking Michael Winterbottom. April 23, 2007

THE BEST ADVICE YOU WILL RECEIVE TODAY (EXCEPT FOR NO ONE OVER THE AGE OF 5 SHOULD WEAR A STRIPED TEE SHIRT)

This is my good deed for the day. Save your money, increase your pleasureable hours...do not buy, watch or rent this movie. Please understand, I love movies. My favorites range from Olivia De Haviland in The Heiress to Love Actually and everything in between (ie: Harry Potter, Star Wars, John Wayne, Clint Eastwood etc etc etc). Tristam Shandy a cock and bull story was an incomprehensible mess. It was not funny, it was not interesting, it was not touching, amusing, warm or anything one wants from a movie. Even a nice scare (watch Julie Harris in the original The Haunting for a 1st class scare) is worth ones time but not this disaster of a movie.
Anyway, forgive me for the aformentioned striped tee shirt warning, I could not help myself. This might be the worst movie I have seen in quite a while. It was even worse than Eragon and that was BAD. April 20, 2007

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