How a movie about a cow became an Oscar contender

No Content for Old Men

with Matt Craig

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In this week's newsletter: A24 is at it again with a nuanced little drama about a cow. Then I give you a hot tip on one of my favorite half-hours of television of the year, remind you about my all-time favorite movie, and a brand new streaming service.

Word Count: 752 words
Reading time: 4 minutes

First Cow

The irony is not lost on me that in a year in which the movie business may be cratering, the most critically acclaimed film of the year is ostensibly about capitalism. Or that, like the fattened calf which gives the movie its name, Kelly Reichart's First Cow was the final movie to open into theaters in mid-March before the great pandemic slaughter.

Remember movie theaters? Come 2021, they will either be euthanized, indentured, or at the very least neutered, beginning this week with the "agreement" -- if you want to call it that -- between AMC theaters and Universal to shorten the theater-only window from 75 days to just 17. Studios aren't in much better shape. Tenet, the industry's white knight, has finally been pulled off the calendar, bringing executives closer to the cliff's edge of dumping their prized holdings onto video-on-demand for a fraction of previous projected profits (in an interview this week, AT&T CEO John Stankey maintained that Tenet and Warner's other blockbusters will not go digital).

Way way WAY down the list of concerns, the Academy is panicking. How far back can you realistically push the Oscars ceremony before we're not talking about 2020 movies anymore. April? May? And if that's not long enough, do you dare hold an incestuous awards show for the Hollywood in-crowd that features only the work of outsiders?

Because as of this moment, the front runner for the statue would probably be a movie about a cow.

Well, not technically about the cow, I guess. "It's very metaphorical," the son from Parasite might say. The beast is the first sign of civilization in the 1820's Oregon Territory, where a fur trapper makes an unlikely friend in a Chinese immigrant. The trapper is mild-mannered and gentle, not suited for his harsh surroundings. He's an excellent maker of baked goods, but cannot realize his potential until he's convinced by his entrepreneurial friend to steal some milk from the aforementioned cow, owned by the town's haughty mayor.

I'd love to say that from this point "hijinks ensue," but the movie plays its cards very close to the chest. The pacing is slow, painfully so at times, and chooses historical and logical accuracy over cheap thrills. All of its most insightful messages are told beneath the surface, subtle and nuanced, making this the type of thing that gets better the more you think about it afterwards.

One could not be blamed for disliking this movie on the grounds that it has no stakes, telling the story of two pretty insignificant people striving to elevate beyond a mostly meaningless existence. Sure. Another person could be just as justified in loving the movie for themes no less significant than race relations, financial disparity, nature conservation and The American Dream.

Therein lies the main difference between independent and studio movies (I include "super indies" in the latter category). Indies like First Cow are absolutely 100% not for everybody, yet they are absolutely 100% for somebody. Over the past decade A24 has made a name -- and thanks to hits like Moonlight, Lady Bird and Hereditary, a fortune -- on movies that earn a small yet ultra-passionate fanbase. They make movies for the people who love movies, even if some of their projects (including this one) may be inaccessible to a broader audience.

Give studio execs truth serum and they'll admit their jobs have nothing to do with making movies. They want to make money. That means appealing to four quadrants -- old men and young girls alike. In a post COVID-19 landscape, that reality is going to become even more obvious. More giant IP-driven movies, more sequels, more superheroes, more cash to dig these big conglomerates out of the pandemic-sized hole.

These things are cyclical. The excess of musicals and westerns in the '60s led to the "new Hollywood" renaissance of the '70s, giving us Spielberg, Scorcese, Lucas and Coppola, which ballooned into the thoughtless blockbusters of the '80s and then gave way to the independent boom of the '90s with Tarintino, Soderbergh and the like. Point being, if you don't like it, just wait a few years.

And lest we forget, there are a "best of both worlds" movies waiting for a post-pandemic world: David Fincher's "Mank," Wes Anderson's "The French Dispatch" and Sophia Coppola's "On the Rocks," to name a few.

Until then, consider this story about a gentle fur trapper and a Chinese entrepreneur stealing cow milk a litmus test for you. Do you love movies? Or do you love capitalism?

Streaming Suggestions!

Something New

Room 104 (HBO Max): I can't think of anyone I admire more in the movie business than Mark Duplass. Rather than taking the tradition route through the Hollywood dream machine, Mark and his brother Jay decided to bet on themselves and make only projects for which they retained ownership and control, coining the motto "the calvary is not coming." At first that meant shoestring budgets, but through force of will and considerable talent the brothers became some of the most powerful independent producers in the world, all while Mark popped up as a supporting character in big ticket movies and shows like Zero Dark Thirty, Bombshell, "The League," and "The Morning Show." Incredibly, Mark now disowns his famous "calvary is not coming" speech from 2015. Or least he wants to alter it, after recognizing his blind spot of privilege that his philosophy took for granted.

Over the last few years, he's used this high concept HBO half-hour anthology as a launching pad for minority voices, in front of and behind the camera. Each episode is its own story set in the same hotel room, some comedy, some horror, and everything in between. The first episode of the fourth and final season is Mark's first appearance in front of the camera in the show, and it's one of my favorite television episodes of 2020. He plays a rock star who disappeared for decades until he's invited to the hotel room to perform for some hipsters who mythologized his career. Things take a crazy turn. I won't spoil any more, but go watch this episode NOW.

Something Old

The Third Man (1949): Quarantine makes you do funny things. For some that means attempting to make sourdough bread, and for others it's going online shopping for a rare 4K restoration print of your favorite movie of all time. What more can I say about this 1949 classic, one of the greatest movies ever made. It's a noir mystery that's funny and romantic, yet intense and dramatic at the same time, and paced quickly enough to engage modern audiences. Every frame is a piece of art, and the tones of the zither make for one of the most memorable film scores ever. All that doesn't even mention the greatest character reveal in cinema history, and the towering performance of the one and only Orson Welles. Please, friends, if you've never watched a black and white or golden era movie before, make it this one. They don't make 'em like this anymore.

Something to Stream

Do the Right Thing (Peacock): NBC finally launched its streaming service this past week, and I applaud the strategy they're taking in these streaming wars. The basic plan for Peacock is free. All you need is an email login, they don't even ask for your credit card information. That gets you access, with intermittent ad breaks, to the vast majority of programming that NBC/Viacom owns, including the 1989 Spike Lee masterpiece that I finally checked off my "movies I've been meaning to watch" list. The other Peacock feature I really enjoy is their "channels," where instead of getting stuck in the infinite scroll of Netflix selections you can click on some pre-selected "live" programming. Hmm...channels? Ads? This is starting to sounds a lot like...oh I don't know...cable?