lookingland

10 lame clichés you often see in Civil War fiction:

1.) women in britches and rumpled hair running around in public.

2.) women who can do the job better'n a man (and spit and curse like a sailors too).

3.) sweaty old bad guys who mash on the beautiful heroine.

4.) showing "men of color" fighting for the South.

5.) sensitive book-readin' soldiers spiritually ravaged by war.

6.) creepy pretty-boy sidekick to the bad guy who has some "trick" or gimmick.

7.) young kid not old enough for soldierin' gets it in a bad way.

8.) random act of kindness from a coarse old stranger.

9.) hammered metaphors about crows and flying and death and whatnot.

10.) babies carrying on the memory of dead loved ones (wretch).

pecentage of these clichés found in Ride with the Devil: 20% (we'll allow 5% for the baby in this one since it's not a point of interest dropped on the viewer at the end, and 5% for the creepy sidekick since Pitt doesn't actually have a specific gimmick)

percentage of these clichés found in Cold Mountain: 100%

it also gets plus percentage for gratuitous "everybody who is not the hero is just a pig and needs to die" scenes (i.e. random rape, murder, and depredation).

watching these films back to back, the differences are especially striking.

i wonder, if Cold Mountain had been more appropriately cast (nicole kidman is just all sorts of wrong wrong wrong for it), whether i might have been more forgiving. it has some nice bits here and there ~ but gad, the story is just stupid. frazier is a wonderful craftsman with words ~ but he's a lousy storyteller.

anyway, random thoughts this evening.

: D