Love In the Time of Call Her Up
A matchmaking entrepreneur redefines a border in Cowboy del Amor.
BY GREGORY WEINKAUF
Quoth Ivan Thompson, “In this business, there are more horse's asses than there are horses.” Of what business does
he speak? Satellite radio? Automobile marketing? “Alternative” journalism? Neigh. Thompson, a sixtyish, self-styled
“Cupid Cowboy,” grew up dealing with horses, but has parlayed that experience into what he very twangingly calls “the
wahmahn business.” In director Michèle Ohayon’s deft and ebullient Cowboy del Amor, Thompson serves as our guide
through his own uniquely developed process of leading romantically-challenged American men toward matrimonial
splendor with hopeful Mexican women. Thompson is a character -- and apparently fully aware of it -- but moreover he
serves as a lightning rod within the storm of socio-political, spiritual and economic crises quietly raging through the
emotionally tumultuous context he himself cannot escape. The resulting, aptly defined Documentary Comedy brings
abundant laughs, but it also makes ya thank.
Every couple of years, I attend a David Byrne concert somewhere, and after conspicuously grooving, I always make it a
point to approach him, and I always say this: “Hello, Mr. Byrne. I really loved True Stories. When are you going to make
another movie?” (Mr. Byrne always says the same thing, too: He shrugs and good-naturedly coos, “I’m tryin’!” --
leaving me to wonder, after twenty years and counting, what is really going on in Manhattan.) Well, fans of that film
(along with Slacker, one of about two that make Texas seem interesting -- three if you count Logan’s Run) may now
breathe a collective sah, for Cowboy del Amor, while in no way an official sequel, nonetheless delivers the same essence
of quirky, freakish, lovelorn Southwestern-ness, further enhanced by being a whole mess of real true stories.
After the brief, opening Tex-Mex montage, the sense of Why-The-Hell-Am-I-Watching-This? quickly subsides and we
find ourselves in the company of Thompson, literally, who collects $3,000 from a love-starved but ostensibly cheerful
late-forties divorcé named Rick (or, in Spanish, “Reek”) and, crossing the border just south of tiny Columbus, New
Mexico, sets up shop in a Mexican hotel. Singles ads are placed, calls are made, a translator named Carmen is hired, and
pretty soon the giggles are good: Rick -- a well-mannered trucker by the look of things (he refers to his mother as
“Ma’am”) -- attempts to sell himself, casually blurts assorted faux pas (including referencing that terrific ice-breaker,
“The Change of Life”) and nervy Thompson leaps to the rescue. A misstep or two later, we meet toothy, effervescent
young Francis, a separated love-junkie who wants to know why Rick wants a Mexican woman. Responds Rick,
“Because American women…too much problemas.” (Tough to argue that.)
Francis is also linguistically-challenged (“The house is mine, I am work, I am study.”) but we soon see that her
achievements in English grammar, in a matter of weeks, easily surpass Thompson’s six decades of crackerbarrel
parlance. Rick and Francis happily hit it off, and Ohayon expands her picture, affording us attentive glimpses into
Francis' Earthy family in Mexico, Rick's more antiseptic family in their Barcoloungers, her bridal shower (which includes
mysterious feminine rituals involving clothes-pins and symbolically crapping a pencil into a soda-bottle) and eventually
their wedding (which proves curious, as the preacher’s syntax clearly objectifies Francis). The director and/or her
talented editor Kate Amend also have an obvious adoration for “dog-segues,” and may perhaps cut loose with their
passion and release a canine documentary next.
Although this movie is mainly frothy fun (El Norte it is not), Ohayon wisely includes a flip-side to the instantaneous
romantic bliss, in the form of Mexican dermatologist Veronica and her blind-date client, James. Both are smokers.
Happy people do not smoke. Ergo, Veronica and James are clearly not happy people. (Notably, the movie also features a
woman releasing what may be the most horrifying smoker's laugh-cough ever recorded -- suck it up, pack-a-day
faithful.) James, twice Veronica's age and divorced three times (Thompson encourages him to omit mention of one ex-
wife), looks like the kind of guy who really enjoys killing and skinning things. We don’t actually learn much about him,
and on the movie’s official website, he is credited as “client.” Veronica, however, inadvertently gives the movie
significant depth and pathos: Her “nervyous” cackle and lame attempts at humor eventually lead to her overall disdain for
Mexican men and to the story of her rancher father being kidnapped and murdered by bandits.
The movie conscientiously sidesteps violent passions in its presentation, but one definitely gets the sense that these people
had a rough ride prior to shooting. None more than Thompson himself, whose twice-ex-wife Chayo shows up with her
four kids (of whom he knew not upon their first marriage) “to shrink his finances and enrich hers.” Later on, an elderly
white man (presumably with some money) marries a Mexican woman simply because he does not wish to die alone.
Nobody in the movie is so blatantly honest as to say, “Panocha sin locura, por favor,” or “If I’m going to be raped,
I’d at least like my own cell-phone,” however one does emerge with the sense that Francis and Rick find humble
happiness through honestly stating what they really want. This concept seems alien to our host Thompson, who states,
dubiously, that he’s “still being fixed up pretty first class” with very young Latinas even as his life is obviously falling
apart around him (a subject usually dear to documentarians, however compassionate they claim to be).
Born in Casablanca and educated in Tel Aviv, Oscar-nominated Ohayon is -- like most people in America -- a stranger in
a strange land, and the very gracious Morgan Freeman introduced her at a recent screening as “a woman with a real gift
for filmmaking.” Indeed. I don’t like the Southwest at all, and I enjoyed her movie twice. She herself speaks of
“windows into another world” and “exercises in tolerance,” but these pleasantries would mean nothing if she lacked the
chops. She’s good. It’s also a treat to see her working again with co-producer and superb veteran cinematographer Theo
Van de Sande (Blade, and with whom she made the Oscar-nommed Colors Straight UP!). And talk about your weird
evenings. Morgan Freeman walks into a room and owns it, that’s a given. Then, however, Robert Patrick showed up. I
haven’t seen Patrick in person since I was in charge of getting him paid for his afternoon of working on Wayne’s World
(which I quit; it was a horrid shoot if nepotism wasn’t on your side). Wayne’s World, of course, was lensed by Theo
Van de Sande. Small world.
And getting smaller, in the culture-swapping worldview of Cowboy del Amor. Here we have a deceptively simple,
genuinely funny and smartly provocative movie which should please everyone except pretentious idiots. The humble
project satisfies, and once it’s over, it has asked of its viewers many more questions than it has answered -- which is, I
believe, the mark of any good documentary.
(Term-paper suggestion for Sociology, Women's Studies and/or Film students: Write about this in tandem with
Lourdes Portillo's Señorita Extraviada.)
Cowboy del Amor
Entertainment Value: 11/13
Style: 10/13
Philosophical Insight: 11/13
-Gregory Weinkauf, 8 February, 2006
Fledgling grammarians: "Horse's asses" was selected over "horses' asses" due to the logic of a "horse's ass" being an
individual entity, thus pluralizing only "asses," to create the plural of the term. Thanks to past editors for this inspiration.
A matchmaking entrepreneur redefines a border in Cowboy del Amor.
BY GREGORY WEINKAUF
Quoth Ivan Thompson, “In this business, there are more horse's asses than there are horses.” Of what business does
he speak? Satellite radio? Automobile marketing? “Alternative” journalism? Neigh. Thompson, a sixtyish, self-styled
“Cupid Cowboy,” grew up dealing with horses, but has parlayed that experience into what he very twangingly calls “the
wahmahn business.” In director Michèle Ohayon’s deft and ebullient Cowboy del Amor, Thompson serves as our guide
through his own uniquely developed process of leading romantically-challenged American men toward matrimonial
splendor with hopeful Mexican women. Thompson is a character -- and apparently fully aware of it -- but moreover he
serves as a lightning rod within the storm of socio-political, spiritual and economic crises quietly raging through the
emotionally tumultuous context he himself cannot escape. The resulting, aptly defined Documentary Comedy brings
abundant laughs, but it also makes ya thank.
Every couple of years, I attend a David Byrne concert somewhere, and after conspicuously grooving, I always make it a
point to approach him, and I always say this: “Hello, Mr. Byrne. I really loved True Stories. When are you going to make
another movie?” (Mr. Byrne always says the same thing, too: He shrugs and good-naturedly coos, “I’m tryin’!” --
leaving me to wonder, after twenty years and counting, what is really going on in Manhattan.) Well, fans of that film
(along with Slacker, one of about two that make Texas seem interesting -- three if you count Logan’s Run) may now
breathe a collective sah, for Cowboy del Amor, while in no way an official sequel, nonetheless delivers the same essence
of quirky, freakish, lovelorn Southwestern-ness, further enhanced by being a whole mess of real true stories.
After the brief, opening Tex-Mex montage, the sense of Why-The-Hell-Am-I-Watching-This? quickly subsides and we
find ourselves in the company of Thompson, literally, who collects $3,000 from a love-starved but ostensibly cheerful
late-forties divorcé named Rick (or, in Spanish, “Reek”) and, crossing the border just south of tiny Columbus, New
Mexico, sets up shop in a Mexican hotel. Singles ads are placed, calls are made, a translator named Carmen is hired, and
pretty soon the giggles are good: Rick -- a well-mannered trucker by the look of things (he refers to his mother as
“Ma’am”) -- attempts to sell himself, casually blurts assorted faux pas (including referencing that terrific ice-breaker,
“The Change of Life”) and nervy Thompson leaps to the rescue. A misstep or two later, we meet toothy, effervescent
young Francis, a separated love-junkie who wants to know why Rick wants a Mexican woman. Responds Rick,
“Because American women…too much problemas.” (Tough to argue that.)
Francis is also linguistically-challenged (“The house is mine, I am work, I am study.”) but we soon see that her
achievements in English grammar, in a matter of weeks, easily surpass Thompson’s six decades of crackerbarrel
parlance. Rick and Francis happily hit it off, and Ohayon expands her picture, affording us attentive glimpses into
Francis' Earthy family in Mexico, Rick's more antiseptic family in their Barcoloungers, her bridal shower (which includes
mysterious feminine rituals involving clothes-pins and symbolically crapping a pencil into a soda-bottle) and eventually
their wedding (which proves curious, as the preacher’s syntax clearly objectifies Francis). The director and/or her
talented editor Kate Amend also have an obvious adoration for “dog-segues,” and may perhaps cut loose with their
passion and release a canine documentary next.
Although this movie is mainly frothy fun (El Norte it is not), Ohayon wisely includes a flip-side to the instantaneous
romantic bliss, in the form of Mexican dermatologist Veronica and her blind-date client, James. Both are smokers.
Happy people do not smoke. Ergo, Veronica and James are clearly not happy people. (Notably, the movie also features a
woman releasing what may be the most horrifying smoker's laugh-cough ever recorded -- suck it up, pack-a-day
faithful.) James, twice Veronica's age and divorced three times (Thompson encourages him to omit mention of one ex-
wife), looks like the kind of guy who really enjoys killing and skinning things. We don’t actually learn much about him,
and on the movie’s official website, he is credited as “client.” Veronica, however, inadvertently gives the movie
significant depth and pathos: Her “nervyous” cackle and lame attempts at humor eventually lead to her overall disdain for
Mexican men and to the story of her rancher father being kidnapped and murdered by bandits.
The movie conscientiously sidesteps violent passions in its presentation, but one definitely gets the sense that these people
had a rough ride prior to shooting. None more than Thompson himself, whose twice-ex-wife Chayo shows up with her
four kids (of whom he knew not upon their first marriage) “to shrink his finances and enrich hers.” Later on, an elderly
white man (presumably with some money) marries a Mexican woman simply because he does not wish to die alone.
Nobody in the movie is so blatantly honest as to say, “Panocha sin locura, por favor,” or “If I’m going to be raped,
I’d at least like my own cell-phone,” however one does emerge with the sense that Francis and Rick find humble
happiness through honestly stating what they really want. This concept seems alien to our host Thompson, who states,
dubiously, that he’s “still being fixed up pretty first class” with very young Latinas even as his life is obviously falling
apart around him (a subject usually dear to documentarians, however compassionate they claim to be).
Born in Casablanca and educated in Tel Aviv, Oscar-nominated Ohayon is -- like most people in America -- a stranger in
a strange land, and the very gracious Morgan Freeman introduced her at a recent screening as “a woman with a real gift
for filmmaking.” Indeed. I don’t like the Southwest at all, and I enjoyed her movie twice. She herself speaks of
“windows into another world” and “exercises in tolerance,” but these pleasantries would mean nothing if she lacked the
chops. She’s good. It’s also a treat to see her working again with co-producer and superb veteran cinematographer Theo
Van de Sande (Blade, and with whom she made the Oscar-nommed Colors Straight UP!). And talk about your weird
evenings. Morgan Freeman walks into a room and owns it, that’s a given. Then, however, Robert Patrick showed up. I
haven’t seen Patrick in person since I was in charge of getting him paid for his afternoon of working on Wayne’s World
(which I quit; it was a horrid shoot if nepotism wasn’t on your side). Wayne’s World, of course, was lensed by Theo
Van de Sande. Small world.
And getting smaller, in the culture-swapping worldview of Cowboy del Amor. Here we have a deceptively simple,
genuinely funny and smartly provocative movie which should please everyone except pretentious idiots. The humble
project satisfies, and once it’s over, it has asked of its viewers many more questions than it has answered -- which is, I
believe, the mark of any good documentary.
(Term-paper suggestion for Sociology, Women's Studies and/or Film students: Write about this in tandem with
Lourdes Portillo's Señorita Extraviada.)
Cowboy del Amor
Entertainment Value: 11/13
Style: 10/13
Philosophical Insight: 11/13
-Gregory Weinkauf, 8 February, 2006
Fledgling grammarians: "Horse's asses" was selected over "horses' asses" due to the logic of a "horse's ass" being an
individual entity, thus pluralizing only "asses," to create the plural of the term. Thanks to past editors for this inspiration.
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