Movie Review: Cold Mountain

Cold Mountain (2003) is a luscious Civil War era movie that keeps you engaged and invested in the characters.  The story begins by setting up the great love between Inman (Jude Law) and Ada (Nicole Kidman) in the beautiful southern countryside of Cold Mountain.  They have a few brief encounters before Inman goes off to fight for the Confederates.  He is badly injured and sneaks away from the infirmary to be with his love rather than die for a cause he doesn't believe in.  This is where his Odyssey-like journey begins.

Ada faces her own plight back in Cold Mountain when her father (Donald Sutherland) dies suddenly and she must run the farm lest it fall back into the greedy hands of Mr. Teague (Ray Winstone), the head of the town guard who, along with his blood-thirty muscle, Bosie (Charlie Hunnam), goes around terrorizing civilians and hunting deserters.

Barely surviving, a kind neighbor sends the strong-willed Ruby Thewes, played by Renée Zellweger (Chicago, the Bridget Jones movies), to help Ada take care of the farm.  The two opposites help each other learn and become good friends.  Ruby's wayfaring, fiddle-playing Dad, played by Brendan Gleeson (Harry Potter, Troy, Gangs of New York), turns up with music-playing mates Pangle (Ethan Suplee, from Remember the Titans) and Georgia (Jack White, from The White Stripes) and tries to earn back Ruby's trust.

Inman meets a number of colorful characters on his journey as well.  Philip Seymour Hoffman (The Big Lebowski, Almost Famous) plays a lecherous preacher, Giovanni Ribisi (Gone in 60 Seconds, Avatar) plays host to the Odyssey-required siren scene, Cillian Murphy (Red Eye, Chris Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy) is a desperate Union soldier, and Natalie Portman (V For Vendetta, the Star Wars prequels, Léon: The Professional) is fantastic as a grieving widow with a newborn baby.  Inman tries to do his best by all these people while trudging home to Ada.

It's really the supporting characters that steal the movie.  While Nicole Kidman and Jude Law play the yearning lovers well, it is their interactions with the people they meet along the way that keeps you interested.  And at two and a half hours, that is much needed.  The female characters are strong and smart, and show remarkable resolve in the trying times.  Zellweger even won an Oscar for her portrayal of Ruby.

While love is the overarching reason for the story, the kindness of strangers and doing what's right no matter the odds is what the story of Cold Mountain is really about, and why it is worth watching.  The beautiful locations and period outfits are worth a look as well.  If you've never seen this movie, or haven't in a while, I'd definitely recommend it.

(photos collected from fanpop, twitter, sky, googleimages, miramax, zimbio, and hotflick.net)

It's Kinda Earthy

Happy late Earth Day!  Did you stop and appreciate our glorious and mysterious natural surroundings yesterday?  I opened at work but stopped to look at the grey tree line behind the store.

Instagram was full of Earthy tributes and lush outdoor scenes.  I think this was my favorite though.

(photo by e.hunt, and collected from instagram.com/wildlifeplanet)

Summer in the Light and Winter in the Shade

I know this has been said before in the past few weeks, and then promptly proven wrong, but I think Spring is finally here!  At least, it is for the tree outside my window.

(photo by e.hunt)

Monoprint Test Run

A while ago someone donated a printing press to Mom's school for the art program.  She's kept it in the back room and we've slowly gathered all the missing pieces and gotten it ready for use.  Last Friday was that day.

I stopped by Home Depot to pick up some sheets of plexiglass in different sizes, grabbed some coffee from work, and headed over.  It was really just a day to test it out and make sure everything worked.  I picked a few colors from Mom's block printing supplies and started painting away.

I did a quick, outer space color splash, flipped it over on the paper and ran it through.

And voilà, it worked!  The only problem was that the ink dried too quickly so not much of it transferred to the paper.  For the second print, we spritzed water onto the plexi, which definitely helped, but gave it a weird, bubbly, almost watercolor-like texture.  And for the final print, I just added a bit of color really quickly over the top so it was still fairly wet.

Not a bad series for the first run-through!  After I left I went over to Artmart and got some ink retardant which will hopefully make it last long enough to transfer to the paper.  Stay tuned for test round two!

(photos by r.hunt, and e.hunt)

Welcome to the Third Annual No TV Week

No TV Week starts today, so turn off those television sets and look away from your phone!  No Netflix, Youtube, Gaming, Snapchat, Instagram Video, or Any Moving Image.  And most importantly, no cheating!!

(photo collected from google)

Baby Hail

Happy April!  I hope you all had a lovely Easter/April Fool's Day.  I got to turn the page on my Mom-made calendar to this delightfully southwestern image of cacti and desert animals.

Yesterday I went to work where we had little spurts of busyness throughout the day, then went home for Easter dinner.  Dad made chili, and a perfect chili day it was.  Want to know why?

It snowed!  Well, it was mostly little baby hail, followed by a brief shower of actual snowflakes, but it was quite pretty, and we enjoyed watching the activity out in the conservatory.  Animals still gotta eat!

(photos by e.hunt)