Cold Mountain

Cold Mountain is an okay film with all the ear marks for an Academy Best Picture Award. By that I mean it contains elite A-list Hollywood stars, its historical - set during the American civil war, its adapted from a best selling book and it was almost two and a half hours long. Cold Mountain would not be the first flawed film to win Best Picture and it won't be the last I'm sure. Cold Mountain tries real hard to be an epic adventure, but its major down fall is in the screenplay. For example I found it hard to believe that there was any chemistry between the Kidman and Jude Law characters. Nothing I saw in this picture said these two people should have been together. Also we get no explanation as to why the Southerners were so willing to go to war with the North. The film asks that question but provides no answers. That being said, I think Cold Mountain will win a Best Picture award for the simple reason that 2003 was a poor year for film and there was nothing better out there and because this film has some major Hollywood players behind it.