Even Cowgirls Get the Blues | |
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Directed by | Gus Van Sant |
Screenplay by | Gus Van Sant |
Based on | Even Cowgirls Get the Blues by Tom Robbins |
Produced by |
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Starring | |
Cinematography |
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Edited by |
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Music by | |
Production company | Fourth Vision |
Distributed by | Fine Line Features |
Release dates |
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Running time | 96 minutes [1] |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $8.5 million [2] |
Box office | $1.7 million [3] |
Even Cowgirls Get the Blues is a 1993 American romantic comedy-drama western film based on Tom Robbins' 1976 novel of the same title. The film was written and directed by Gus Van Sant (credited as Gus Van Sant Jr.) and starred an ensemble cast led by Uma Thurman, Lorraine Bracco, Angie Dickinson, Noriyuki "Pat" Morita, Keanu Reeves, John Hurt, and Rain Phoenix. Robbins himself was the narrator. The soundtrack was sung entirely by k.d. lang. The film was dedicated to the late River Phoenix.
Sissy Hankshaw is a woman born with a mutation (she would not call it a defect) giving her enormously large thumbs. Sissy makes the most of her thumbs by becoming a hitchhiker. Her travels eventually take her to New York City, where she becomes a model for a homosexual feminine hygiene products mogul, known as "The Countess". A few years later, he introduces her to his "beauty ranch", the Rubber Rose Ranch. The main plot revolves around the cowgirls who work at the ranch after they violently take over and drug the endangered whooping cranes that nest along the lake on their land, making the once migratory birds stay. The cowgirls end up in a showdown with government agencies because the cranes will not leave the ranch and the cowgirls refuse to allow the men on the ranch to take the cranes. Sissy and the ranch leader, Bonanza Jellybean, have a brief love affair. After a fatal shootout between the cowgirls and the various agencies, the cranes leave, and Sissy takes over running the ranch. [4] [5]
Even Cowgirls Get the Blues was shot throughout Oregon: Portland, Terrebonne, Sisters, and Bend.
Though some viewers claim that River Phoenix is visible in a brief cameo near the end of the film, director Gus Van Sant, costar Udo Kier, and Phoenix's own assistant at the time, Sue Solgot, have all asserted that Phoenix was not in the film. Van Sant further states, "River wasn't even in the desert when we shot. That is Jim Baldwin in the beekeeper's hat." [6]
The film was set to be released in the fall of 1993, but was delayed for post-production edits after Van Sant was dissatisfied with the cut screened at the 1993 Toronto International Film Festival. [7] [8] [9] Among the changes Van Sant made were cuts to the New York-set scenes and scenes showing Sissy's relationship with Julian Gitche (the character played by Keanu Reeves), in favor of featuring more ranch scenes and focusing more attention on the relationship between Sissy and Bonanza Jellybean. [7] A subplot about the Clock People, who are keepers of the keys to cosmic consciousness and whose presence in the story is signified by the image of the clock on the film’s poster, was also excised from the final film. [7]
The film was a critical and commercial failure. The picture opened in wide release on May 20, 1994, and grossed a mere $1,708,873 [3] against an estimated $8.5 million budget. [2] On Rotten Tomatoes, it has an 17% approval rating based on 30 reviews, with an average score of 3.5/10. On Metacritic the film has a score of 28% based on reviews from 16 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". [10]
Film historian and critic Leonard Maltin said "The novel was hopelessly dated, and there is not enough peyote in the entire American Southwest to render this movie comprehensible or endurable...K.D. Lang's [sic] score is the picture's sole worthy component." [11] Nathan Rabin of The A.V. Club called it "forgettable" and "tedious", and "It was god-awful. Unwatchable, almost." [5]
Richard F. Weingroff of Federal Highway Administration said "Forget it - skip this lousy movie and read the novel by Tom Robbins." [12]
The film was released on Region 1 DVD on November 2, 2004, [21] containing its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1 and on NTSC LaserDisc by Image Entertainment in late 1994, also in its original aspect ratio. It received a second DVD release in the United States from UCA on April 6, 2010, now in a new cropped 1.78:1 widescreen version.
In 2007, the film received its first DVD release in the UK from Universal Pictures Home Entertainment in a 1.33:1 full frame version.
Even Cowgirls Get the Blues | ||||
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Soundtrack album by | ||||
Released | November 2, 1993 | |||
Genre | Country | |||
Label | Sire | |||
K.d. lang chronology | ||||
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Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [22] |
Robert Christgau | [23] |
Entertainment Weekly | B [24] |
Los Angeles Times | [25] |
Music Week | [26] |
NME | (8/10) [27] |
Philadelphia Inquirer | [28] |
Q | [27] |
Rolling Stone | [29] |
The soundtrack was released on November 2, 1993 by Sire Records. k.d. lang performed the music. The album was composed by lang and Ben Mink. [30] The soundtrack went top 10 in Australia and top five in New Zealand (numbers 10 and four, respectively), and also peaked at number 82 on the Billboard 200 in the United States. [31]
Chart (1993) | Peak position |
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Canadian RPM Country Albums | 6 |
Canadian RPM Top Albums | 47 |
U.S. Billboard 200 | 82 |
Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
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Australia (ARIA) [32] | Platinum | 70,000^ |
^ Shipments figures based on certification alone. |
Victoria Williams is an American singer, songwriter and musician, originally from Shreveport, Louisiana, United States, although she has resided in Southern California throughout her musical career. Diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in the early 1990s, Williams was the catalyst for the Sweet Relief Musicians Fund.
Speed is a 1994 American action thriller film directed by Jan de Bont in his feature directorial debut, with a screenplay by Graham Yost. The film stars Keanu Reeves, Dennis Hopper, and Sandra Bullock in lead roles, with Joe Morton and Jeff Daniels in supporting roles.
River Jude Phoenix was an American actor. Phoenix was known as a teen actor before taking on leading roles in critically acclaimed films. He received numerous accolades including the Volpi Cup and the Independent Spirit Award as well as nominations for an Academy Award and Golden Globe Award.
Gus Green Van Sant Jr. is an American filmmaker, photographer, painter, and musician who has earned acclaim as an independent filmmaker. His films typically deal with themes of marginalized subcultures.
Kathryn Dawn Lang, known by her stage name k.d. lang, is a Canadian pop and country singer-songwriter and occasional actress. Lang has won Juno Awards and Grammy Awards for her musical performances. Her hits include the songs "Constant Craving" and "Miss Chatelaine".
Thomas Eugene Robbins is an American novelist. His most notable works are "seriocomedies". Tom Robbins has lived in La Conner, Washington since 1970, where he has written nine books. His 1976 novel Even Cowgirls Get the Blues was adapted into the 1993 film version by Gus Van Sant. His latest work, published in 2014, is Tibetan Peach Pie, which is a self-declared "un-memoir".
My Own Private Idaho is a 1991 American independent adventure drama film written and directed by Gus Van Sant, loosely based on Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 1, Henry IV, Part 2, and Henry V. The story follows two friends, Mike Waters and Scott Favor, played by River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves respectively, as they embark on a journey of personal discovery that takes them from Portland, Oregon, to Mike's hometown in Idaho, and then to Rome in search of Mike's mother.
Rain Joan of Arc Phoenix is an American actress, musician, and singer. She is the older sister of Joaquin, Liberty and Summer Phoenix and younger sister of River Phoenix.
Even Cowgirls Get the Blues is a 1976 novel by Tom Robbins.
Aleka's Attic was an alternative folk/rock band from Gainesville, Florida, formed by River Phoenix and Josh Greenbaum in April 1987.
Psycho is a 1998 American psychological horror film produced and directed by Gus Van Sant, and starring Vince Vaughn, Julianne Moore, Viggo Mortensen, William H. Macy, and Anne Heche. It is a modern remake of Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 film of the same name, in which an embezzler arrives at an old motel run by a mysterious man named Norman Bates; both films are adapted from Robert Bloch's 1959 novel.
The Juno Awards of 1994, representing Canadian music industry achievements of the previous year, were awarded on 20 March 1994 in Toronto at a ceremony in the O'Keefe Centre. Roch Voisine was the host for the ceremonies, which were taped that afternoon for broadcast that evening on CBC Television.
Chel White is an American film director, composer, screenwriter and visual effects artist. In his independent films and music videos, White is known for his stylized, often experimental use of images, unusual animation and narratives depicting an outsider's perspective. He often adopts darkly humorous and poetic sensibilities to explore topics of love, obsession and alienation; with dreams and the subconscious being his greatest influences. He describes his own work as “stories and images that reside on the brink of dreams, or linger on the periphery of distorted memories.” A Rockefeller Fellow, Chel White has made three films based on the work of Peabody Award-winning writer and radio personality Joe Frank.
Even Cowgirls Get the Blues may refer to:
Trading Mom is a 1994 American fantasy comedy film written and directed by Tia Brelis, based on her mother Nancy Brelis' 1966 book The Mummy Market. It stars Sissy Spacek, Anna Chlumsky, Aaron Michael Metchik, Maureen Stapleton, and André the Giant in his final film appearance. It grossed $319,123 at the box office and received mostly negative reviews from critics.
"Lifted by Love" is a song performed by Canadian singer-songwriter k.d. lang, co-written with Ben Mink. It was featured in the 1993 film Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, as well as the soundtrack album. It was the first of two number one singles on the US dance chart for lang, remaining on the chart for a total of thirteen weeks.
My Own Private River is a re-contextualized adventure drama film of My Own Private Idaho (1991). Using footage shot and directed by Gus Van Sant in 1990, the new edit gives James Franco and Van Sant a shared director credit. The project is in tribute to Franco's favorite actor, River Phoenix. Franco called My Own Private Idaho one of his favorite movies and praised River's performance as the actor's best.
The 17th Stinkers Bad Movie Awards were released by the Hastings Bad Cinema Society in 1995 to honour the worst films the film industry had to offer in 1994. Founder Mike Lancaster put Ready to Wear as the one 1994 film among his five worst movies of the 1990s, alongside It's Pat, Kids, Lost in Space, and Nothing but Trouble. Listed as follows are the different categories with their respective winners and nominees, including Worst Picture and its dishonourable mentions, which are films that were considered for Worst Picture but ultimately failed to make the final ballot. All winners are highlighted.
"Even Cowgirls Get the Blues" is a song written by Rodney Crowell. It has since been covered by several artists, notably La Costa, Emmylou Harris and Lynn Anderson. Crowell claims to have written "Even Cowgirls Get The Blues" about Harris and her pal Susanna Clark. The title of the song is taken from the then-popular novel of the same name by author Tom Robbins. The song has been released as a single twice and has also appeared on albums of various artists.
"Just Keep Me Moving" is a song by Canadian singer-songwriter k.d. lang, co-written with Ben Mink. It was featured in the 1993 film Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, starring Uma Thurman, as well as the soundtrack album. The single was released in November 1993 by Warner Bros. and Sire, and reached number six on the US Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart and number seven on the Canadian RPM Adult Contemporary chart. In Europe, it peaked at number 59 on the UK Singles Chart, but was more successful on the Music Week Airplay and Dance Singles charts, peaking at numbers 26 and 35. A music video was also produced to promote the single.
Issue No: Vol. 60 No. 1