I saw the movie "Cold Mountain" on Saturday and really liked it. The characters played by Nicole Kidman and Rene Zelweger had some pretty neat looking gardens (of course it wasn't just a hobby to them, they needed them to eat).

Especially of note:
1. The two of them forking manure out of the stable into a wheelbarrow for the garden.

2. Rene telling Nicole she needed to put in some cold weather crops at the end of the summer for eating over the winter.

3. Rene comparing her scalawag father to manure -- "Bury him in the ground and another one would pop up just like him".

While I would have noticed the garden-related items anyway, I am especially sensitive to it at this time of year, when the only thing even remotely green is the pepper growing in a bucket under a florescent light in our laundry room!

I noticed the garden scenes and they made me jealous!

I thought they were the best part of the movie which I did not like because of every kind of violence: institutional violence, man against man, man against woman, human against animal.

ellen

Hey Ellenr!
I read that book years ago and had that very same reaction to the book as you did to the movie! It was very violent: beast against beast,man against beast,man against man... on and on....Not one review that I read at the time talked about the violence.
However, I would love to see the movie,especially the acting by Kidman and Zellweger. But I am a coward with viewing violence.

Haven't seen the movie or read the book - would never guess by the trailers shown that it was a violent movie. It aggravates me when a movie is pushed as something other than it really is. From the trailers it looks like nothing but a romantic love story set during war time, with more focus on the romance than the war.

I'd like to go see it and will take special note of the garden scenes when I do. Thanks for the heads-up Walleye.

There is a lot of everything in this movie. The violence is appropriate (if you can truly ever call violence appropriate) to the time period in history that the movie covers. The actual battle scene is about 5 minutes. The killing of animals is not flauted, but yes, it is shown on several occaisions. Violence between men/women/men is constant, but appropriate for the time period. Some sex and nudity also.

There are also long periods of pure "love story" stuff.

I'd be hard pressed to define the movie one way or another. Can't help but feel it was an attempt to make a "chick movie that guys will like" or some such idea.

And don't forget the mention Ruby makes of putting up gourds to attract the purple martins, and the later scene of a dozen or so gourds hanging from a high crossbar, each with a little hole for the beneficial birds.

And I know we all noticed the beautiful plowing scene, where that hunky Jude Law was clearing Sally's top field...mmm, mmm!

Most years there are always a few top films with a direct or indirect appeal to gardeners. Maybe OG should give an award for "Best Performance By a Plant or Garden"

The first LORD OF THE RINGS film had a lot of amazing production detail for the shire cottage gardens.

Of course, the script for ADAPTATION grew out of(heehee) a book THE ORCHID THIEF.

CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON had a plot revolving around the fate of a sword called the "GREEN DESTINY" with one pivotal scene in from of a window framing a view of intensely green bamboo and anotherfeaturing a fight which plays out under, over and through a forest of giant bamboo.