I have three random movie observations to make today.
First, while viewing “Cold Mountain” at a press screening this morning, I was reminded once again that if a movie character coughs without an obvious reason (he’s in a burning building, someone has lit a cigarette in his face, etc.), then it means that character is going to die. The coughing, it turns out, will have been an early indication he or she is fatally ill. Non-dying people do not cough in movies.
Second, Donald Sutherland’s head is at least twice the size of Nicole Kidman’s.
Third, I was watching “Dancer in the Dark,” a film I had problems with when it was released, but which I decided to have another go at. Early in the film, Bjork’s character is at the movies with a friend, who is describing the action to Bjork, because Bjork is going bjlind. They do not whisper; they speak in normal tones. A man in the theater tells them to be quiet, but they refuse, and continue to talk, not just to describe the film, but to make comments like, “I love it when they dance!” And yet, for the rest of the movie, we’re supposed to sympathize with Bjork’s character? I don’t think so! Whatever happens to her after that, she deserves, up to and including being hanged. She’s lucky the man in the theater didn’t kill her right there, as was his legal right.
