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by pat

Man, I was pulling for this movie. I had hopes for it to be something that was just so amazing that when RETURN OF THE KING won Best Picture, you'd feel like it had really beaten some solid competition. Instead, I was disappointed to get simply a really damn good movie. When one wants something spectacular, very impressive just doesn't cut it. I mean, who wants to tolerate something simply emotionally involving, when life-changing was what you set aside a night for. Maybe I had my hopes up too high, but is that my fault?

I will have to give credit where credit is due for making this movie anything less than the biggest thing since sliced bread dipped in cinnamon, egg, milk, and vanilla (the only way to make French toast, in my mind). Renee Zellweger has done for me what she has done through almost her entire career. She's bugged the living hell out of me. Besides the fact that I still think it looks like she's making that face, and that it isn't just her face, and she's doing it on purpose just to bug me, she consistently gives performances that remind me of people I knew doing amateur high school theater. They were very precise, very clear, hit every mark every time, and never made you feel anything deeper.

Nicole Kidman, Jude Law, Brendan Gleeson, Natalie Portman, and Philip Seymour Hoffman have all been able, time after time, to sell me on who they were just by their presence in a scene, their reactions, their character elements that come off so natural it seems impossible to rehearse. I see them and I think they are who they are supposed to be, never doubting it for a minute. Renee I see as Renee. It just breaks the fiction for me. I feel like she's waiting for a line, and she's practiced that line all day, and she has the Huck Finn accent down and on the surface it's just fine, but I just don't feel it. I'm pulled out of the scene.

I know it seems like this review is basically bashing just her, but that's mainly out of resentment for her, to me, seriously dis-involving me from something I could have been absolutely absorbed into. She does that to me for a lot of movies. I know that I'm in the vast minority on this one, as was pointed out to me by every single other person I saw this movie with, many of whom thought she gave the best performance in it. Never let it be said that I would silence myself just to be popular, as was proven in the 7th grade Velcro belt experiment. I'm just saying that this is a damn good movie, and when I think of why it wasn't incredible, I can only think of one thing. Her.

By the way, it has the best Civil War battle scene I've ever seen, and Nicole gets nekkid (not in the battle scene).

SHRINKAGE

By Shawn

Well, it's December, so it's time for Miramax to haul out it's yearly Oscar contender (preferably starring Nicole Kidman). This year's scrappy newcomer is Cold Mountain, based on a prestigious novel, directed by Anthony Minghella (THE ENGLISH PATIENT), and starring... wait for it... Nicole Kidman. Kidman plays the daughter of a preacher (Donald Sutherland) who has come to a small mountain town for the fresh air (Sutherland has a medical problem of some sort). Because he is the only man in town that has killed Tom Hanks she immediately falls in love with Jude Law, a poor construction worker with a heart of gold. Did I mention that this all takes place in the south right before the Civil War? Oh yeah, better get that mantle cleared 'cause Harvey Weinstein is betting with GOLD... Mountain, that is.

Now of course with the Civil War impending Jude is going to have to leave his true love and fight for something that he doesn't believe in. Sort of like when Jackie Gleason made Smokey and The Bandit III and had to do all those reshoots. But I digress. Jude is out fighting, and don't get me wrong, the war scenes are nothing short of amazing. Really, the best Civil War stuff I've ever seen. Too bad this is just 10 minutes of the movie instead of the full length cause we really might have had something here. Not that what's left is terrible per-se, it's just serviceable.

Back home the war has hit hard on the mountainfolk. Ada has fallen upon hard times, and is forced to run her father's estate alone. Much like the real Nicole Kidman, she is not fit to fend for herself. Enter Renee Zellweger. Nothing special, she just helps Ada get her act together. Law raiders have been going through the land killing deserters and their families so they can gather the land for themselves. A friend of the gruesome twosome is caught and tortured by the raiders, so the girls take her in. Zellweger's pappy and his band (literally) of fools put the estate in danger by being crazy musician deserters. Jack White puts in a decent performance as one of the said fools that falls for Renee.

But what of Jude? What indeed. After being injured in battle, a letter from Ada sends him on the deserter path as well. The rest of the film is spent with him trying to get back to Cold Mountain and having wacky adventures along the way. He bumps into a variety show of celebrities, the highlights being Phillip Seymour Hoffman as a naughty preacher, and Natalie Portman as a war widow with child. Nothing is bad here, and his trip is suitably engrossing. It's just that very little really sticks with you after the film is done, not to mention it all comes together at the end with a conclusion that you could see a mile away.