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"FacebookPinterest\n\n Forget Brad Pitt's baseball drama or dapper Frenchman Jean Dujardin; Bullhead is the Oscar nominee you should be obsessing over. This Belgian dark horse with bite is tucked away in the Best Foreign Film category, but it might be one of the best films of the year.\n\n So what is it? Bullhead is a tightly wound tale of the bovine hormone mafia\u2014yes, the bovine hormone mafia\u2014centered around Jacky (Matthias Schoenaerts), a farmer who pumps himself full of what might be the same juice he injects in his cattle. Though ostensibly a crime flick, it quickly becomes clear that the mobsters who want a lock on his deliciously fattened-up cattle are the least of Jacky's worries. As Bullhead uncoils, we find out just why he has the bleak outlook on life he describes in the Bullhead's searing opening monologue. While the camera pans over the beautiful, misty Belgian fields, a voice warns us, \"Because no matter what you do or think, one thing is for sure: You're always fucked. Now, tomorrow, next week or next year, until the end of time, fucked.\"\n\n Jacky is, indeed, fucked. Like the mythical minotaur, he's trapped in a terrible maze that he can't find his way out of. He's jacked out of his right mind and liable to break any fragile things nearby. Worse still, the police that are circling the hormone ring are a danger to all involved.\n\n Want to impress the guests at your Oscar party next week with esoteric arthouse knowledge? Or maybe just know what you're in for when you go to see Bullhead, which opens this weekend? Here's the rundown:\n\n 1. The Bovine Mafia Is Real\n\n This is writer/director Michael Roskam's feature-length debut. Roskam, named one of Variety's 2011's Directors to Watch, was inspired by a '90s news story about a meat inspector and vet who was killed because of his investigations into a far-reaching group of meat mobsters. Like most prohibitions, the EU's ban on cattle hormones created a thriving black market\u2014speakeasies for cows.\n\n 2. Jacky Is Big. Like, Very Big\n\n Schoenaerts gained a whopping 60 pounds for muscle for the role, which he did the old-fashioned way: \"A diet of 3,000 tins of tuna, several hundred chickens, and plenty of oats, rice and pasta combined with an exhausting iron-pumping workout regimen.\" He said he \"was so obsessed that at a certain point, I still felt skinny. There was no end.\" Anyone who watches him can see his muscles have muscles. While the path to Oscar glory is paved with distorted bodies (Robert De Niro, Christian Bale, and Charlize Theron are the oft-mentioned examples), Schoenaerts's transformation was integral to the character. Jacky's addiction has changed his body and his mind, and the symbolism of steroids are crucial to the story's heft. So to speak.\n\n 3. The Buzz Has Been Completely Viral\n\n Bullhead has racked up quite a few fancy festival screenings and awards. It debuted at the Berlin International Film Festival, jetted over to La Croisette at Cannes, then picked up two awards at AFI Fest, best actor for Schoenaerts at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, and multiple awards at Austin's Fantastic Fest. That's where it was nabbed by distributor Drafthouse Films, the same company whose CEO and founder Tim League is also the mind behind Fantastic Fest. He and wife Karrie founded Austin's famed Alamo Drafthouse, the seed of multimedia madness that's grown around the film thanks to web sites like Badass Digest and Mondo (which creates awesome limited edition posters and other collectibles), and a chain of Drafthouse and Drafthouse-inspired cinema experiences around the country. This is Drafthouse Films's second acquisition; its first was 2010's hilarious British terrorism satire Four Lions. Other recent pick-ups include Comin' At Ya! 3D, The FP, and Klown.\n\n 4. Despite the Premise, Bullhead Is Animal-Friendly\n\n Animal lovers might be worried that Bullhead could wreak havoc on their tummies and consciences. (I queried my Twitter buds to see if I should wait to watch Bullhead before or after my taco dinner. The verdict: All clear either way. And I was.) Other than a short scene that features a calf birth, almost all of the violence is human-on-human. That's sort of a relief for those of us who've sat through other recent portrayals of human misery like the lauded Tyrannosaur.\n\n 5. Ultimately, This Is a Story About a Tortured Man\n\n At first it seems like the meat mob is the heart of this story. It's often difficult to keep track of who's who and who's zooming who, except for the wonky Flemish dudes who steal and strip cars. (They're a sort of C-3P0 and R2-D2 of the story or, if you're fancy, the peasants in The Hidden Fortress.) The crimes are the catalyst for Jacky's undoing, but the dark heart of Bullhead is Jacky's struggle with what it means to be a man. Everywhere you look in Bullhead, you'll see big, bloody slabs of meat, and the rippling flesh of cows. What makes Jacky so different from his herd? With the body of a monster and the heart of a child, Jacky tries to understand that ineffable thing that separates an animal from a human. Muscles? Testosterone? Sex, love, and violence? It has nothing and everything to do with the drugs he pumps into his body."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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