Product Details

• Actors: Uma Thurman, Lorraine Bracco, Pat Morita, Angie Dickinson, Keanu Reeves
• Directors: Gus Van Sant
• Writers: Gus Van Sant, Tom Robbins
• Producers: Gus Van Sant, Eric McLeod, Laurie Parker, Lucy Phillips, Mary Ann Marino
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
• Language: English, German
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: New Line Home Video
• VHS Release Date: April 16, 1996
• Run Time: 96 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6303980422
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #228,183 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

If someone ever put together a what-were-they-thinking top 10, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues would surely make the list. Based on Tom Robbins's '70s ode to freedom, whooping cranes, and ambisexuality, this Gus Van Sant film sat on the shelf for almost a year before its brief release. More of a curiosity than anything else, it tells the convoluted story of Sissy Hankshaw (Uma Thurman), the world's greatest hitchhiker by virtue of her mammoth, um, thumbs. She falls in with a lesbian collective at a dude ranch and, well, the rest is kind of a mess. Kind of? Let's say it's a monumental mess, one of those films that's like a 25-car pileup on the interstate that you have to stop and look at, just to figure out what people like Keanu Reeves, Roseanne, John Hurt, and Angie Dickinson are doing there. A great score by k.d. lang, by the way. --Marshall Fine

From The New Yorker

After "Drugstore Cowboy" and "My Own Private Idaho," a real disappointment from Gus Van Sant. His imagination still wanders off in amiable and perplexing directions, but the picture, adapted from Tom Robbins' novel, gives him nothing much to discover. Uma Thurman stars as Sissy, the hitcher with the phallic thumbs. She's been everywhere and done everything, but there's enough wide-eyed expectation in Thurman's gaze to promise further adventures. They never come: the plot gets stuck on a women's ranch called the Rubber Rose, and the film dissipates in a flurry of consciously struck poses and cameo roles. It's a road movie going round in circles, and it ends without warning, completely out of gas. The cool, swooning soundtrack by k.d. lang hints at the trip it might have been. -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Van Sant's Bizarre Vision of the Plight of the Outsider, June 16, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Even Cowgirls Get the Blues [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Gus Van Sant explores deeper into his favorite theme of the plight of the outsider in this strange film.Not perfect, but it is a faithful adaptation of Robbins' classic novel.Some scenes tend to drag, but the overall effect of the film is mesmerising. Sissy Hankshaw joins Van Sant's gallery of outsiders alongside Bob,Mike,Suzanne Stone,Will Hunting and Norman Bates. Lots of cool movie star cameos and great acting from Uma Thurman and Rain Phoenix while Lorraine Bracco, John Hurt and Angie Dickinson camp it up.

16 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Too many saving graces, January 19, 2001

By 

Kelly EC (England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Even Cowgirls Get the Blues [VHS] (VHS Tape)

When people ask me to name my favourite novel "Even cowgirls get the Blues" always springs to mind. A film translation can never match the intimacy you feel reading the book, but it can bring those treasured characters and locations to life. This is where the film version really shines.

Gus Van Sant is my all time favourite director- his prevoius picture "My own private Idaho" broke my heart. It may have been over ambitious for him to bring this magical novel to the silver screen, but I find the fact that he did so, marvollously admirable. The storyline and ideals of this tale are truely unique and need to reach a wider audience.

Uma Thurman is perfectly cast as Sissy. She displays both innocence and enigma quite beautifully. Support is given by a whole host of interesting performers- John Hurt, Rain Phoenix, Crispin Glover, William Burroughs and many of the "Idaho" cast make breezy cameo's. Tom Robbins himself performs voice-over narration. Little known fact- River Phoenix (to whom the film is dedicated) makes his final screen appearence as a birdwatcher in the climatic scenes.

Read the book first- then give the film a chance!

19 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Re-Defines how bad a movie can be., March 26, 2002

By 

"tavison" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Even Cowgirls Get the Blues [VHS] (VHS Tape)

There are movies like "Plan 9" that are so bad they have a charm about them, there are some like "Waterworld" that have the same inexplicable draw as a car accident, and there are some like "Desperate living" that you hate to admit you love. Cowgirls have none of these redemptions. The cast assembled has enough talent to make almost any plot watchable, and from what I've been told, the book is enjoyable.

How then could this movie be so intolerably bad? To begin with, it seems the director brought together a cast of names with no other tie than what will bring in the 20 somethings. Then tell them to do their best Kevin Costner imitations. Open the book at random and start shooting whatever is on the page making sure to keep the wide expanses of America from being interesting in any way. Finally give the editing job to your brother-in-law, because the meat packing plant just laid him off. He does have twenty years of cutting experience.

This movie now defines the basement for me. It is so bad, it isn't even good for being bad.