Sheep and Dogs

[captainsblog]

Let’s face it. Sheep can be funny.

 There’s the one in the icon named Shaun, who’s had any number of movies made about him. They make regular appearances on Monty Python. And then there was this the other day, which I decided to Stealer:

They can even be funny when you blow them up.  It led to the all-time funniest moment on Johnny Carson's show when he was doing his Carnac bit:
 

Watch on YouTube

 

Yet perhaps the weirdest incident of an exploding sheep being funny came in a 2010 film we caught up with the other night. Titled The Four Lions, it has quite a cast, including the future Nándor from the vampire film and TV series; Ali, the male half of the film named for him and Ava that we just enjoyed;  and even a pre-Marvel Benedict Cumberbunny in a small role.  And yes, at a key moment of the film, an exploding sheep. Which they not only make no apologies for but go out of their way to avoid the No Animals Were Harmed™  trope:



It is accurately described as a black comedy, and connection to the vampire shows is clearer when you see that future Shadows (and Succession) guy Jesse Armstrong was heavily involved in it. But the film lost a lot of its overall appeal not long after its release. While the 2010 film imagines a deadly-funny but hypothetical Jihadist attack on the London Marathon (where they blow up nobody but themselves), it wasn’t long before actual Jihadists made an actual and deadlier attack at the real Marathon in Boston. We still enjoyed it, for highlighting the stupidity of religious extremists whatever their stripe.

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As shown above, sheep are definitely safer around dogs, and we celebrated a probable occasion two days ago. Pepper was a rescue three times removed, who showed up at the city shelter in Buffalo in late 2017 with no identification other than a microchip dated October 15, 2015. That chip now has our name and phone numbers tied to it, but we’ve always assumed that was her birthday. When I went downtown for an errand on Friday, I passed the animal hospital closest to that shelter:



Fortunately, she hasn't had to experience the Cone of Shame in a long time. We're still working on keeping her calmer and quieter as we go about Eleanor's days and our combined nights here, and her whiny routines have shortened if not been altogether eliminated.

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Then there's one other dog who we wonder who will be caring for now: Fluffy from Hagrid's hut:



Hagrid's portrayer, Robbie Coltrane, passed away last week at the age of 72.  I'm not particularly interested in revisiting his Harry Potter work, since TERF-Toe Jo is basically dead to me now, so I found this piece listing some of Coltrane's other offerings. I can't find the Caravaggio one anywhere, which was also Tilda Swinton's first film, but we have a copy of the 1986 film Mona Lisa, which we oddly saw a movie poster for on a wall in something else we just watched.  So we settled in with Robbie and Bob Hoskins in that last night. Wow he was so young (as was Michael Caine 36 years ago). Lots of fun, and another film from the same director with Liam Neeson as Philip Marlowe is due out before the end of the year. Another Coltrane film  didn't make the list because it's really rather silly, but he also co-starred with Eric Idle in Nuns on the Run, which we also have queued to check again when we're in quite the right mood.  Though it's got a Python in it, we're hoping the sheep and the dog will be safe.

Comments

[sturgeonslawyer]

I am so stealing that Stealer's Wheel meme...

[thanatos_kalos]

I loved Four Lions, as did several of my Pakistani friends. Novak is fantastic in it. :) You might enjoy Peep Show if you can get hold of it. It's a bit uneven at times (and there is one ep that was just very poorly judged) but it's one of the few sitcoms of that time to have a male character who's not only explicitly bisexual but who also is shown in a relationship and making out with another male character. (Hence my great, probably misguided hope that Succession isn't queerbaiting...)