Coming on the heels of the tremendous critical success of The English Patient, Anthony Minghella's Cold Mountain seemed to have found critics suffering from a surfeit of Miramax "special" movies and the film didn't do as well as (I think) it should have. One objection to the story line that was often raised by critics was that the lovers Ada & Inman simply didn't know each other that well, and thus the journeys both face (in very different ways) to be reunited lacked the resonance that it would otherwise have. Have none of these critics read Romeo & Juliet? Or maybe seen one of the more or less faithful adaptations thereof? It's not the quantity, folks, it's the quality. I had seen this movie back after its initial release, but recently re-watched it and realized that it's a very good movie indeed.
Yes, it is. Really.
(I'm a sucker for those female-bonding flicks anyway ...)
The box office returns this year have been pretty putrid -- Hollywood is fatuously blaming things like dvd rentals and so forth for the slump, rather than taking a good long look at the disastrous effect the Bush regime's foreign policies are having here in the States (& especially at the gas pumps). When you start to feel that you can't afford to buy gas, things like going to the movies tend to fall by the wayside. A domino effect that I can see gathering much momentum in the coming months, especially as winter starts to take its toll in the north. I'm disgusted with what's been allowed to happen to democracy in this country and only see a grim outlook for the future.
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