All posts tagged: Sheep

‘The Sheep Detectives’ Is More Than Just Fluff

‘The Sheep Detectives’ Is More Than Just Fluff

Published by Daniella Wilson

Compared with cinema’s menagerie of big-city talking animals, the ovine stars of the movie The Sheep Detectives lead idyllic lives: They sleep among cozy bales of hay. They graze on the English countryside’s beautiful, grassy hills. Each has been thoughtfully named by their beloved shepherd, George (played by Hugh Jackman)—there’s Lily, Mopple, Sebastian, Cloud, Ronnie, Reggie, Wool Eyes, Sir Ritchfield, and Zora. And every night, George reads murder-mystery novels to them; the flock has come to appreciate what makes a good whodunit. At first glance, the movie they’re in seems like the kind of unassuming barnyard romp made mostly to amuse kids—until George is murdered one horrible evening, leaving his fluffy family unmoored. The sheep decide to investigate his death, but their choice to become gumshoes turns out to be the least unexpected development in the film. Based on the novel Three Bags Full, by Leonie Swann, The Sheep Detectives is an audacious fable about how joy and sorrow go hoof in hoof. Much of the mystery that unspools will seem familiar to anyone who’s …

Mysteries like THE SHEEP DETECTIVES

Mysteries like THE SHEEP DETECTIVES

Published by José Betancourt

When I first saw the film poster for The Sheep Detectives, I was filled with immense joy. I had read Leonie Swan’s Three Bags Full, which is the book the film is based on. But when I mentioned it elsewhere, folks were surprised that such a film (much less a book with a sequel) existed. It made me realize that the premise was a bit…unusual, maybe even bananas for a herd of sheep to solve their shepherd’s murder.  I decided I wanted to find other books involving animals that are a bit screwy…in a good way. Sometimes the premise at the beginning of the book may seem over the top, or the plot goes to truly unexpected places. It may mean an animal narrator who has to solve the case and/or protect their owner. Here’s a list of eight over-the-top books in honor of the movie The Sheep Detectives, out in theaters now. Pony Confidential by Christina Lynch The Sheep Detectives has sheep, so Pony Confidential has a pony, called Pony, as the sleuth. It’s …

Time to Sheep | Psychology Today

Time to Sheep | Psychology Today

Published by Jenni Sidey

“Time to sheep” may be the best metric that I’ve heard of for measuring the livability of a city. For a real outdoorsy person, the exact number of minutes it takes from their front door to livestock matters more than square footage, rent, crime rates, or the hundred other variables people look at when choosing a place to live. If you’re the kind of person who’s interested in improving your quality of life, you know what’s most important is to know what’s important. Because when we can reduce a complex decision to a single, well-constructed variable, we can transform a multi-dimensional puzzle of competing desires into a simple sorting problem. “Time to sheep” as a metric makes it easy to compare options by making the most important trade-offs more explicit, ultimately leading to better decisions. The rock band Van Halen used a somewhat similar idea while touring in the 1980s. Buried deep in their technical rider was a seemingly absurd requirement: a bowl of M&M’s with all the brown ones removed. To the technicians setting …