The defence The Auteur Devotee
“Patience is part of the point.”
Duration becomes texture. The film asks you to inhabit its world instead of merely processing its plot.
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A Cock and Bull Story
Comedy · History · 2005
Steve Coogan, an arrogant actor with low self-esteem and a complicated love life, is playing the eponymous role in an adaptation of "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman" being filmed at a stately home. He constantly spars with actor Rob Brydon, who is playing Uncle Toby and believes his role to be of equal importance to Coogan's.
Movie details
A Cock and Bull Story
“Because everyone loves an accurate period piece.”
2005 Comedy · History 1h 34m
Critical arithmetic
The consensus, allegedly.
Scores change. Arguments endure.
IMDb
6.7 / 10
13.3K votes
Rotten Tomatoes
88 %
Tomatometer
Metacritic
80 / 100
Metascore
TMDB
6.1 / 10
Community rating
External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.
Steve Coogan, an arrogant actor with low self-esteem and a complicated love life, is playing the eponymous role in an adaptation of "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman" being filmed at a stately home. He constantly spars with actor Rob Brydon, who is playing Uncle Toby and believes his role to be of equal importance to Coogan's.
CriticWise case file
What this film says about your taste.
Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.
The archetype split
Who fights over A Cock and Bull Story?
For the defence
The Auteur Devotee
“You watch the director, not the movie.”
Read their case For the prosecution
The Adrenaline Seeker
“If it slows down, you check your phone.”
Read their objectionThe split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.
Taste neighbourhood
Nearby on the taste map.
TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.
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Driver's Ed
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A group of teens hit the road in a stolen driver's ed car, racing against time to help a lovesick high school senior track down his college-freshman girlfriend and win her back.
Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical
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From an ominous Lecturer, a small 1930s middle American community learns of the Harper Affair, in which young Jimmy Harper finds his life of promise turn into a life of debauchery and murder thanks to the new drug menace marijuana. Along the way, he receives help from his girlfriend Mary and Jesus Himself, but always finds himself in the arms of the Reefer Man and the rest of the denizens of the Reefer Den.
How High
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Jamal and Silas, two ordinary guys who smoke something magical, pass their college entrance exams with flying colors and end up at Harvard. Ivy League ways are strange but Silas and Jamal take it in a stride -- until their supply of supernatural smoke runs dry. That's when they have to start living by their wits and rely on their natural resources to make the grade.
A Bad Moms Christmas
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Amy, Kiki and Carla – three under-appreciated and over-burdened women – rebel against the challenges and expectations of the Super Bowl for mothers: Christmas. And if creating a more perfect holiday for their families wasn’t hard enough, they have to do all of that while hosting and entertaining their own mothers.
The People We Hate at the Wedding
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A dysfunctional family that can't seem to get along and get it together reluctantly reunites for a family wedding. As their many skeletons are wrenched from the closet, it turns out to be just what this singular family needs to reconnect.
Where it lives
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Names above the title
The people responsible.
Cast & crew
Directed by
Michael Winterbottom
Written by
Frank Cottrell Boyce
Steve Coogan
Tristram Shandy / Walter Shandy / Steve Coogan
Rob Brydon
Toby Shandy / Rob Brydon
Keeley Hawes
Elizabeth Shandy / Keeley Hawes
Shirley Henderson
Susannah / Shirley Henderson
Raymond Waring
Trim
C
Conal Murphy
Six-Year-Old Tristam
J
Joe Williams
Nine-Year-Old Tristam
Court is in session
Put A Cock and Bull Story on trial.
Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.
The prosecution The Adrenaline Seeker
“A test of endurance, your honour.”
Stillness keeps submitting itself as meaning. At some point, contemplation needs something worth contemplating.