Cowboys and Ice Cream Men

City Slickers, 2/2/13, Best Supporting Actor, 1991

I had a good feeling about this movie as it opened in Spain for the running of the bulls and there is Mitch (Billy Crystal) in his Mets ball cap, scrambling to evade and avoid the bulls and their horns. I think I had more laughs in the opening 10 minutes than I have had in most ‘funny’ movies. If you don’t know the premise of the movie, three friends go on adventures or trips together and for Mitch’s 40^th birthday, they go out on a cattle drive. They are joined by several other ‘city slickers’, including a father/son dentist team; two brothers who make ice cream (similar to Ben & Jerry’s); and a single woman whose friend backed out of the trip at the last minute. They are going to be whipped into shape on this adventure by the very frightening Curly, played by Jack Palance (who won for Best Supporting Actor). Palance may be most familiar as the voice of Ripley’s Believe it or Not (although I didn't remember this role, but his part in Shane as the baddie). And he is great here, adding a certain gravitas to the silliness of Mitch and his friends (Daniel Stern and Bruno Kirby). What I liked most about the movie is the mix of thigh-slapping humor, heart-warming humor, and just the kind of laughs you find every day when you’re joking with your friends. There are also some ‘serious’ moments, like the birth of Norman, a calf, who almost steals the show, and the result of Cookie's runaway wagon. If you closed your eyes and just listened to the movie and the soundtrack, you would swear you were listening to the score How the West Was Won or Rio Bravo or Gunsmoke; it really captures the feeling of an old time Western. I’m glad they didn't mess around and try to be cutesy and put in strictly contemporary music; it would have taken something away from the feeling. The movie was written by Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel who wrote A League of Their Own and Parenthood (and many others) two movies I like a lot, especially A League of their Own. The movie is rated PG-13, I’m assuming it’s because of the occasional locker room humor, mild sexual references and some swearing; I think that’s probably pretty accurate, there are things you probably don’t want to be explaining to your 8 year old (or your friend’s 8 year old). But if you don’t have kids, don’t be turned off because the movie isn't rated R, the grown-ups I was watching it with were laughing as hard as the 13 year old. A trivia note (I had to do some extra research, so I totally missed this), Jake Gyllenhaal plays Billy Crystal’s son in his first movie role (thank you Wikipedia and Netflix). Just a note to my friends: if you get me a cattle drive for any milestone birthday, I will disown you.