Contradicting Popular Opinion:
A.K.A.
An Enquiry Concerning Why Your Favorite Movie Sucks: Cold Mountain
INTRO
You know how you can’t judge a book by its cover?
Bull.
I’m doing it right here with a VHS copy of Cold Mountain.
GET ON WITH IT!
First off we got the three stars on the front, the former Mrs. Tom Cruise, the former Mrs. Kenny Chesney, and Judiquitous Law. In theory this might be a good thing, but let’s stop and think. Kidman is a respectable actress and decent with accents, but hasn’t made a good movie since… well, some of her flicks haven’t entirely sucked the meat missile. Geez, I really don’t like any movie she has ever been in… weird.
And between Birth and Batman Forever, f*ck, that bitch owes me some money or something.
Zellweger, well, she isn’t really anybody I give a damn about. She gets points for being the star of The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and a having a bit part in the unloved and underappreciated My Boyfriend’s Back.
Law is a perfectly acceptable actor who has made a bunch of useless crap. He was in eXistenZ; because of this I will forgive him for remaking Alfie.
Anyway, back to the box. All three actors have the same look on their faces: kind of this Derek Zoolander runway gaze. I believe the kids call this look “fierce” on the “Top Model”. It approaches an unhealthy level of ridiculousness.
The back of the box doesn’t hold back on the ridiculousness any either. It contains this awesome sentence, “At war’s end, hearts will be dashed, dreams fulfilled and the strength of the human spirit tested… but not broken!”
I like to read that sentence with a good sized pause and then yell the BUT NOT BROKEN! part at the top of my lungs.
This movie box is really trying to warn me to stay away. After that is says it is directed by Anthony Minghella (The English Patient). God, what have I gotten myself into here?
My last warning on the box is this: 154 minutes. Fuck that shit.
As for the movie itself (yes, I am watching the damn thing), well the whole thing f*cking reeks of “Hallmark Hall of Fame” production values. It’s shot with relative indifference. There is a lot of sitting around, watching people speak slowly with fake southern accents.
It’s structure screams, “I’m based on a novel.” It doesn’t work terribly well for a movie. What is meaningful order in a book, isn’t always so in a film. There is a lot of clunky narration that also screams that same “novel” sentence. Goddamnit Cold Mountain! You are a movie now. You can show me some stuff; you don’t have to tell me everything.
There was some also some lame foreshadowing with a blind man saying he wouldn’t want to see for 10 minutes because it would hurt too much to lose his sight. Jude Law thinks it would be worth it. Way to give the end of the movie. I mean, c’mon, the flick is about Jude Law trying to get back to Kidman. If he out and out says that he would do all this stuff for just ten minutes with her, I’m gonna bet that he gets about ten minutes with her before he ends up eating a bullet.
I feel like I’ve been watching this damn movie for 3 days at this point, but it is more like 40 minutes. So far, Nicole Kidman got beat up by a chicken. That’s the only thing worth mentioning really. I’m gonna have to type and watch at the same time. If I just watch, I might want to kill myself. So, this is going to be running commentary. Said running commentary might only make sense to me. Just a warning. It will probably get less and less coherent if the movie keeps hurting me like it currently is.
Watch as CPO turns into the RABBLE!
The dialogue is pretty painful, full of shit like, “He won’t normally say “Boo” to a goose.”
and
“You’re as skinny as a whippet!”
Ugh…
Oh, wait, Nicole Kidman just saw the future by leaning backwards and looking into a well with a mirror. This being a movie, I’m sure it is really the future too. This can only mean one thing: She’s a witch. Burn her! Burn her!
Here comes Zellweger finally. What the f*ck is up with her performance? Is she playing Huck Finn? Did she just take a bite out of the set?
Blah, blah, blah, we’re still in the South during the “war of Northern aggression!”
Hey, horses are chasing Jude Law through a cornfield. Fuck this movie, let’s watch Planet of the Apes. YOU MANIACS!!!
It looks like Phillip Seymour Hoffman is having some fun at least. Good for him.
And hey look, it’s Giovanni Ribisi as Pheobe’s brother! And he lives at the Castle Anthrax!
What the f*ck is up with Zellweger’s face? She looks sillier than normal. Usually she just squints her way through the picture. In this thing, she looks a little like Wanda the ugly girl from “In Living Color.” Or maybe it is more like David Spade’s Tom Petty impression…
Maybe she looks like that because her nose is in Nicole Kidman’s butter. I’m not exactly sure what that means, though. Somebody just said that line in the movie. Where is my cornpone to English dictionary?
You know, normally, I’m all for a movie with a sadistic albino acrobat, but it just feels hollow here.
This movie certainly loves poop.
Jude Law better be nice to this old lady in the woods, or else she’ll send Pumpkinhead after him.
You know, I realize that the dialogue in this movie doesn’t bother me. There isn’t any dialogue, only monologue. Nobody seems to be talking to anybody else.
Hey, it’s Earl’s brother Randy! According to “Boy Meets World” he is also the son of Big Van Vader. “You dumb bastard! It’s a sailboat!”
Fucking Natalie Portman. Her baby’s head is twice the size of hers! Damn that is f*cking weird.
Fucking Natalie Portman. She’s Portmanning up the whole dang movie.
I’m digging the music. It doesn’t add terribly much to the flick. Jack White looks a little like Enid from Ghost World.
Fuck, more Natalie Portman. Here come some Yankees! They’re gonna eat her baby or something. One of the Yankees is Red Eye.
And now they’re dead. .
People sure are dying a lot in this flick.
There go Vader’s kid and Menelaus.
C’mon Ada. Shoot Inman. You know you want to! Do it because of his stupid name!
Oh f*ck. They’re reunited. What’s that feeling you have when two people you don’t really care about get back together in a moment that has all the passion and emotion of bread becoming toast?
Well he said, “I’ll marry you” three times so now, uhmm… Candyman should show up or something. Movie, shouldn’t you be over by now?! Damnit movie! Be over!
Oh wait here is a sex scene. Uhmm… Their bodies sure are smooth and hairless for the 1860s. God this is like watching androids do it. Maybe this is somehow moving for the Alt-Sex-Fetish-Robot crowd, but it really isn’t doing it for me.
Hey, Frank from 28 days later… is still alive!
Wait, might’s spoken too soon. More people are shot, I really can’t keep track. Wait no, Albino got killed, Teague is probably dead. Menelaus looks alive still.
I thought they killed off Ruby, but no. “Tell them my last word were: you had me at ‘hello!'”
Oh, and Kidman’s prophecy with the crows is coming true. Jude Law gets killed after his 10 minutes of sight, I mean being with Nicole Kidman.
Jeezus, Nicole Kidman’s kid looks like Eric Stoltz in Mask. Oh, she’s INMAN’S daughter. SHOCKING! Didn’t see that coming.
But seriously, either women in movies are Fertile Mertles or Jude Law has some super sperm or something. Kidman sure got pregnant easy is all I’m saying. Tom Cruise couldn’t manage it in the many years that those two were married. I’m just saying. Although, Tom Cruise might have been trying to get Kidman pregnant by having sex with men. I’m not insinuating that Cruise is gay here. He is far too litigious for me to say that thing. BUT you know how a cat shoots its ass up in the air when you pet it just right?
Oh, Jack White is getting Ruby cider. Earlier in the movie Jude Law took cider from Kidman. Wow, that’s f*cking deep. I can see why this thing was nominated for so many Oscars.
My daughter walked into the room just after Inman died. I think she had a good idea when she said, “Dad? Watch Doctor Oppopus? Spidowe-man?”
Mercifully this shit has ended. Man. I feel like I should be sporting a long white beard.
How to Fix Cold Mountain
The simplest way to fix this movie would be to replace Jude Law with Clint Eastwood, Zellweger with Lee Marvin, and Nicole Kidman with Clyde the orangutan.
And more Albinos.
