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Title: Mad Cowgirl (Special Edition) (2006) Starring: Sarah Lassez, James Duval, Walter Koenig, Devon Odessa, and Vic Chao Director: Gregory Hatanaka Rating: Unrated Runtime: 89 minutes Avg. Score: 4 Avg Score: Submit Comment Hits: 65

Review of Mad Cowgirl (Special Edition)

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Comments for Mad Cowgirl (Special Edition)

• Posted on 2008-07-23
  Meaty, Beaty, Big, And Bouncy...
  
  A kung-fu loving, incestuous, preacher-dating, meat-inspector named Therese (Sarah Lassez) goes on a long descent into madness. To me, this sounded like the premise for a true classic! I couldn't wait to see it! Alas, I sat there waiting for the actual story / plot to kick in, until It finally dawned on me about half way through that I too have mad cow disease! Yep, the viewing of this film causes CJD (the human varient of mad cow). This is what it is to have your brain rot within your skull! I watched the whole disjointed mess unfold, feeling the holes develop inside my cranium. I gave MAD COWGIRL an extra star due to it's disease-mimicking effects. Otherwise, this mind-vaporizing movie is just too lethal to recommend. That Walter Koenig (Star Trek, Babylon 5) sure does make a good preacher though! I think I actually got saved during this film! I have also become quite enamored w/ all things kung-fu, and will never eat chicken again. Nope, it's big, fat beefsteaks from now on! Meat. Lots and lots of red, juicey meat...
  Score: 2
• Posted on 2008-07-17
  The new standard bearer for brilliantly unique and disturbing indie cult films
  
  When you're talking about the most avant-garde, uniquely unconventional, and surreal of films, you can often tell how brilliant that film is not so much by the glowing reviews as by the tenor of the critical reviews, as greatness tends to be hated by some as much as it is loved by others. Mad Cowgirl invokes plenty of venomous negative criticism. For example, Jeff Shannon of The Seattle Times wrote that this film would "appeal primarily to 20-something psychos-in-training and women who hate men." The New York Times critic basically dismissed it altogether as a film of "aggressive pointlessness." Even some horror fans bemoan some of the more perplexing aspects of the film. Of course, it's easy to throw out charges of incomprehensibility when a truly creative film comes along, especially if some blood and gore (not to mention sexual perversion, blasphemy, etc.) are involved - especially since almost everyone who subsists on a steady diet of Hollywood big studio movies has already been programmed not to have to think at all about any story that comes his/her way. For my money, though, Mad Cowgirl is nothing short of envelope-pushing brilliance and deserves more awards than the two it has received (best experimental film and best performance at the Los Angeles Silver Lake Film Festival). I freakin' love this movie.
  
  Only a rare breed of frighteningly talented actress could have conceivably carried this film on her shoulders, and Sarah Lassez (who's praises I will continue to sing until she receives the kind of recognition she deserves) proves to be the perfect (perhaps only) choice for the lead role in this film. Her character Therese is a most complicated person to begin with, and then all of her unique qualities begin to increase exponentially once she is diagnosed with what her doctor initially identifies as a brain tumor but is actually - or so we have every reason to believe - a tell-tale symptom of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease aka bovine spongiform encephalopathy aka Mad Cow Disease. It's exceedingly ironic because Therese works as a health inspector on the front lines of the fight against tainted meat, and her brother Thierry (James Duval) is a butcher.
  
  Therese is pretty messed up to begin with, so her advancing slide into insanity (for lack of a better word) is a little on the disturbing side. At this point, I would like to welcome any and all Star Trek fans who have wandered into Mad Cowgirl territory after learning that Trek's very own Chekov (Walter Koenig) appears in this film as, of all things, a televangelist who doesn't exactly practice what he preaches - not when Therese comes calling, anyway. Believe it or not, this isn't Therese's most disturbing sexual relationship, though - not by a long shot - and her sexual needs seem to increase exponentially as her hold on reality continues to slip away. The end result is something akin to a blood orgy of death and destruction inspired by her kung fu hero The Girl With the Thunderbolt Kick.
  
  It's best not to ask why too often as this film unfolds, as that just takes away from your enjoyment of all the weirdness. I was never even quite sure where all of this was taking place. It's supposedly in Los Angeles, but you have Japanese news reports about Mad Cow found in Canadian beef; Therese's Sri Lankan doctor speaks to her in his native Sinhales, while she speaks English, and yet both understand one another perfectly; and Therese's mother speaks her own native Vietnamese to her only daughter, who clearly doesn't seem to have a drop of Vietnamese blood in her. And guess what? I haven't even talked about the really strange parts of this film.
  
  Writer/director Gregory Hatanaka has earned himself a permanent place on my watch list with this brilliantly innovative film, but Mad Cowgirl is really all about Sarah Lassez. Quite frankly, the image on the DVD cover doesn't begin to do the girl justice. I could go on about how hot and talented she is, but I think Phil Hall says it best in his review of this film for Film Threat: "she is clearly the rare woman who can maintain a state of drop-dead glamour while disemboweling men with chainsaws." My friends, you can't beat that with a fistful of hickory sticks.
  Score: 5
• Posted on 2008-03-16
  weird
  
  I've rated this movie at 3 stars but this is only because it features Sarah Lassez. She's beautiful and talented. As to the movie itself I've no clue what it is about. The menu has as a background a blood spilled Sarah Lassez and a piece of bloody meat. I guess this sums it up.
  
  My main gripe with this DVD is that picture quality could have been a lot better. It's not really bad but the picture suffers from bad scaling artefacts. This probably could have been easily avoided. The deleted scenes are non anamorphic and they do not have this problem.
  Score: 3
• Posted on 2008-02-05
  A Real Rarity
  
  
  What's up with all of these great reviews?!
  
  There have only been two movies in my life that I couldn't finish. The first being "Moulin Rouge" with Kidman and the second is "Mad Cowgirl." I'm starting to think that I should avoid movies with beautiful women in the lead role. It looks like that's a recipe for disaster in my book.
  
  I almost purchased this movie at a local retailer when I saw it was on sale for a good price, but I decided to rent it first and man, was that close! I definitely saved myself $10.
  
  I can't figure out if this movie is really that bad, or if I've had some kind of epiphany or another sudden realization that I'm finally growing too old (late 30's) to enjoy "cutting-edge" cinema by today's younger generation of directors. I like to think that it's just that bad of a movie. In fact...it is.
  
  Talk about trying WAY too hard to shock me. I was more shocked by the Teletubbies than this movie, and I'm not joking. The Teletubbies are far more disturbing than this. I'll finally get to the point.
  
  Anybody who knows me will tell you that I am the first to sit in front of a film that challenges my mind and values, even if it offends me. I'm a big boy, I can take it. As a matter of fact, I think art SHOULD offend you in most cases. But during this film I was never offended, shocked, challenged, or interested. The story is so convoluted (coming from a David Lynch fan, mind you) that after about an hour I just gave up. The only reason I made it that far is Sarah Lassez is quite attractive, on that point I will agree with the other reviewers, and I hope to see her again in something much better than this load.
  
  Rent it and make up your own mind. I'm just some guy with an opinion. Let the negative votes begin.
  Score: 1
• Posted on 2007-04-14
  No middle ground here.
  
  You are either going to love this movie or despise it. I really enjoyed it, but it's not for everyone. I'll spare you the plot summary since Amazon already has it, but I will tell you that words cannot describe this movie. The grindhouse influence on this movie makes Tarantino and Rodriguez's effort look like a mainstream blockbuster. This movie is basically a mind-trip through 70's kung-fu, sexploitation, and gore flicks with a modern-day headline thrown in to pull it all together. It's almost like Cronenberg decided to film an artsy homage to the grindhouse era. Sarah Lassez is a super talented actress (not to mention that she's SMOKING hot). If you're into trippy movies like Requiem for a Dream or Donnie Darko and you liked 70's grindhouse films, this is for you. However, the mainstream movie or horror viewer will likely hate this.
  Score: 4