Movie Review:Artois the Goat

Once in awhile you run across a low budget flick that you never heard of, and it turns out to be better and more poignant than 99% of those that get the hype and huge production budgets.

That does me good for a couple of reasons. One is that it proves a good movie can be made simply and relatively cheaply. I forgot the other reason. Maybe that I got my movie fix without contributing to what I think is a relatively closed shop.

Artois the goat is about the love. To know what that means, I suppose you have to have been there.

I won't tell the story. It is not actually about a goat. If it were Disney, I suppose Artois would be off on an adventure, possibly in the Yukon, befriending grizzly bears, narrowly escaping an avalanche, saving the dumb ass kid from the mean oil men, then leading him home to a ticker tape parade in Mayville. OK. You saw that one, too.

This is not that.

Some of it is almost surreal. And some of the more surreal parts are way too close to real life. It has great humor, especially if you are on the outside of the controversy about making it illegal to sell fresh dairy products and such. It has great humor otherwise as well. Never a dull moment and even I could follow the story without asking my imaginary friends what was going on.

In some respects this is almost up there with El Mariachi. Totally different, but both independent low cost flicks which were stellar.

For an uplifting film, and a little reinforcement if you wonder at your tendency to travel to the beat of a different drum, this is the mojo for you.

I watched it free on HULU. Of course they play ads but that's no big deal. Many were the world's most interesting man doling out sage advice. He always has marvelous senoritas hanging about. And he is always right, I suppose. However he did not mention the movie. Sponsoring it must have been enough.