Even by his standards, Sasha Frere-Jones has been on a bit of a roll lately - much to agree with or even to disagree with in a "hmmm, smart point but..." way. Highlights have included a response to this New Yorker piece of end-of-year 'Best Of...' lists (a piece which starts off a little stuffy and overblown but with some understandable points, yet ends with a statement that encapsulates almost everything I disagree with in pop criticism to the extent that it can be considered an anti-touchstone: "Pluralism and democracy are fine things, but they have no place in the evaluation and consumption of pop culture, especially today, when, all around us, the sea is rising."). SFJ also deserves thanks for drawing out attention here and here (subject matter includes nasty attitudes to hip hop, and nasty attitudes in hip hop - two phenomena equally necessary to find an accurate and workable approach to criticising).

But in a slightly childish manner, I think I am most gratified by SFJ's confirmation that Cold Mountain is shit, because I'm not going to go and see that film, and yet I reserve the right to speak often of its badness. I have sat through the trailer around three times now at the cinema, in addition to enduring radio, TV and print ads, and that's been ordeal enough. From Kidman's narration, interminable even for five minutes, what with the astonishingly poor accent and mawkish delivery, to the endless, endless shots of Jude Law walking over some hills (and people said LOTR was landscape porn), I'm amazed by the extent to which the trailer for Cold Mountain views like a parody of Oscar-begging, "serious" costume drama slop. Pile on the strings and the sobbing, cake your actors' faces in mud, make much of the "historical" setting, and hope nobody notices the lack of substance (it's not like I don't mind lack of substance, as long as it doesn't come complete with a giant hand-carved Ye Olde label that screams LOOK! LOOK AT THE SUBSTANCE!). Wild horses couldn't drag me. Oh, and it's got Jack White in it - see why I hate him?

Moreover, I thought everyone had figured out by now that Jude Law as slightly smug but mildly charismatic rich pretty boy who has some kind of homoerotic bond with the film's protagonist and then bad things happen to him (Gattaca, The Talented Mr Ripley) = great; Jude Law as anything else = shit, and highly punchable...