| Clip joint: cattle stampedes Lyle Lovett, look away now, as we present cinema's craziest scenes of cow chaos. No bull"There are 9m bicycles in Beijing," sang Katie Melua. "That's a fact." What she neglected to mention was the even more mind-boggling statistic that there are currently estimated to be 1.3bn cows roaming the face of the planet. That's roughly one cow for every person in China, and sobering news for anyone suffering from bovinophobia, otherwise known as the irrational fear of cows. Give this a quick Google and you'll find two key facts recurring: that a phobia of cows is no laughing matter and that Julia Roberts's ex-husband, Lyle Lovett, suffers from it. Just how "irrational" is Lovett's fear, though, given that he suffered a messy multiple leg fracture after being slammed up against a fence by an angry bull on his uncle's farm? Alfred Hitchcock (whose phobias included policemen and boiled eggs) believed that actors "should be treated like cattle", but the cattle driving scenes which crop up throughout classic westerns should have made Hitchcock think twice: cows are easily spooked, and hard to calm down. From the unambiguously titled Cattle Stampede in 1943, through to this year's Tamara Drewe, cows can kick up quite a cloud of cinematic dust. So here are five scenes which prove that just one bovine can curdle blood, while a stampeding herd of panicking livestock can add up to hell on hooves.1) A nattily be-jodphured Nicole Kidman proves she can keep up withhirsute hunk Hugh Jackman, but it takes a touch of Aboriginal magic tosteer the spooked cattle away from the cliff edge, in Australia.2) Probably the only conventionally comedic scene in Withnail and I."A coward you are, Withnail, an expert on bulls you are not!"3) A nervous cowpoke causes a rattling cascade of pots and pans,triggering one of cinema's greatest stampede scenes, in Red River.4) The cows will follow shortly, but first it's a herd of cowboys, stampeding through the fourth wall in Blazing Saddles.5) From blazing saddles to flaming cattle: stampeding cows are scarier still when they're on fire, in Tim Burton's neglected sci-fi shenanigan, Mars Attacks.Last week on Clip joint, we tuned in and dropped out with Ahmed Peerbux to the best phoney commercials in cinema. Here are his top picks from your suggestions: 1) SaintLan - Robocop. Just apply a pint and you're good for hours … 2) Tess Morris - Wayne's World product placement scene3) leasko - Morrie's Wigs from Goodfellas4) HmmWellYes - Fruity Oaty Bars in Serenity5) secretcinema - GhostbustersAnimalsguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Cole warns duo to behave on 'X Factor' Cheryl Cole has warned Katie Waissel and Cher Lloyd to show the public their "softer sides". feeds.breakingnews.ie |
Drag queens getting into `Boardwalk Empire' spirit By WAYNE PARRY 2010-10-20T20:55:24ZATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) -- How big is "Boardwalk Empire," the HBO hit series about Prohibition-era Atlantic City?... hosted.ap.org |
Africa United – film review This co-production between the United Kingdom, Rwanda and South Africa is a cheerful, good-natured road movie in which three Rwandan school kids take a wrong turning when heading to Kigali to audition for a warm-up act at the 2010 World Cup. They are an 11-year-old Aids orphan who lectures on condoms and safe sex to his peers, his younger sister who wants to be a doctor, and a middle-class soccer star. They end up in war-torn Congo, escape from an orphanage with a tough, traumatised fugitive child soldier and push on to South Africa for the opening match. On the way they're joined by a resilient young prostitute, and the quintet bond on the hazardous journey. The middle-class lad throws his mobile into Lake Tanganyika to break away from his censorious mother; the child soldier casts his revolver into a river to signal his rejection of tribal violence.This somewhat ramshackle affair is packed with action, is handsomely photographed, and has enough realism and danger to keep the lurking sentimentality at bay. It makes an interesting comparison with Alexander Mackendrick's 1963 movie Sammy Going South, recently released on DVD, in which a 10-year-old British lad orphaned in the 1956 bombing during the Suez invasion makes his way to relatives in South Africa across a very different Dark Continent.World cinemaDramaPhilip Frenchguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
The New Harry Potter: A Hollow Hallows The first film in the Harry Potter finale gets lost in the woods feedproxy.google.com |