Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Binding: DVD
EAN: 0044004499323
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Full Screen, Letterboxed, Widescreen, NTSC
Label: Polygram USA Video
Manufacturer: Polygram USA Video
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Polygram USA Video
Region Code: 1
Release Date: November 16, 1999
Running Time: 118 minutes
Sales Rank: 31452
Studio: Polygram USA Video
Theatrical Release Date: April 02, 1999
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Editorial Review:
Amazon.com:
Dedicated fans of Robert Altman will want to check out this drowsy Southern comedy, which is shot through with the director's feel for location and his musical sense of storytelling. Non-Altman fanatics might want to tread more carefully. Cookie's Fortune begins beautifully, as handyman Willis (Charles S. Dutton) staggers home from a blues club in the small town of Holly Springs, Mississippi. In the wee hours of a warm night, he has an affectionate chat with elderly matriarch Jewel Mae 'Cookie' Orcutt (the grand Patricia Neal) and the gentle history of their friendship is sketched in a few brief exchanges. Soon enough, Cookie has checked out of this world to join her dear departed husband, prompting her nieces to make the suicide look like a murder---to protect the dubious family name, of course. They are the local drama diva (Glenn Close), a Scarlett O'Hara in her own mind, and her dreamy sister (Julianne Moore), who ain't quite right in the head. Will Willis be blamed for the murder? Will the inheritance go to the nieces? Will Liv Tyler and Chris O'Donnell find a place to express their lust? None of these questions is especially burning, and Altman doesn't seem terribly anxious about the answers. Instead, he aims for a particular kind of laid-back quirky southern comedy, unevenly filtered through his screen of sour irony. Like a jazzman blowing improv, some of this works and some of it doesn't. Speaking of music, the film boasts a nifty R&B soundscape devised by former Eurythmics man David Stewart, with a boost from blues belter Ruby Wilson. --Robert Horton
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating: - Altman and a fine ensemble cast make a memorable movie. Charles S. Dutton excels
Says lawyer Jack Palmer to Emma Duval, explaining the fate of her long gone father, a man she was told years ago had died while doing missionary work in Africa after he'd left his family. "He died alright, about four years later, somewhere down in Alabama in a button factory accident. Seems the hole poker machine broke loose and fell on him. They say he had 273 holes in him before they could get it off."
After all that Emma and her friend Willis Richland have experienced in Robert Altman's Cookie's Fortune, it seems perfectly natural when Emma cries out in exasperation, "Willis, what is wrong with all these people?"
The important point is that they all are part of a movie of great ease and geniality. Cookie's Fortune may be a little sentimental, perhaps, but it is so sweet-natured and natural, and so skillfully presented, that I think the film ranks among Altman's most accomplished works...even if what powers it is an old lady blowing her brains out.
Jewel Mae Orcutt -- Cookie (Patricia Neal) - is aging and increasingly infirm, and she longs for her deceased husband, Buck. When she decides to use one of Buck's pistols to join him, she sets off the avarice of her niece, Camille Dixon (Glenn Close), who pulls along her slow-witted sister, Cora Duval (Julianne Moore). Camille is determined that no hint of a suicide will scandalize the family name, so she makes things look like a burglary gone bad. And, unintentionally, makes it look as if Willis Richland (Charles ... Read More
Rating:  - Coulda been much better
3.5 stars
I like Altman a lot on occasion (Player, Nashville, a few others), and not so much at times, like here. This could have been tighter, and despite nice turns from Close, Tyler et al, it's too stagey, and too close to its theatrical source to be a great movie.
It got boring enough by halfway that I turned it off and watched the rest later.
Altman is trying to be Faulkneresque but never quite gets there. This is the South via Hollywood, and misses the real grit and nastiness behind the lace curtains.
Nice try, though.
Rating:  - Altman's COOKIE: I hated it in 1999, and I still hate it in 2007!
Meandering,lazy loafing screenplays with eccentric characters of which I am given no reason to care about or identify with put COOKIE'S FORTUNE, for my second lifetime viewing since 1999,nearly at the top of my (very small I might add) all-time most disliked films.
I can understand that certain people will like this film-especially those who enjoy small town "crazies" and director Robert Altman devotees.There is nothing wrong with that.I have enjoyed both small town "eccentrics" like in CRIMES OF THE HEART and loved Altman's GOSFORD PARK (one of my favorites).
So why did I truly hate this film? For me, eccentric characters still need to have some kind of human quality that causes me to either identify with or like or dislike.They need to have some "Raison d'etre" or "je ne sais quoi".This film had not one character that I believed for a minute.They all seemed to me to be mere caricatures.As much as I love Glenn Close and Julianne Moore, their characters I could not buy.I could have slapped Charles Dutton,Lyle Lovett,Patricia Neal,Chris O'Donnell and Liv Tyler.The whole story is so outlandish that there is nothing about it that I could begin to remotely take seriously.Even the most outlandish "Southern" screenplays that I can think of still had some character that was an anchor.This film was cut loose and set adrift into a land where lobotomies seemed to be the norm!If that was the point,then Altman succeed and it was wasted on me.
As far as giving god-like attributes ... Read More
Rating: - Southern eccentricity
Southern gothic is a pretty tough genre to tackle, especially in movies.
But Robert Altman gave it his best with "Cookie's Fortune," a little black comedy taking place over the Easter weekend. He crammed it with eccentricity, odd twists and likably atypical characters, but the second half gets a bit carried away by self-consciousness weirdess and melodrama.
It's the day before Easter in the Southern town of Holly Springs. Pushy, self-righteous spinster Camille Dixon (Glenn Close) and her mentally challenged sister Cora (Julianne Moore) are rehearsing the Easter play, "Salome." Cora's rebellious daughter Emma (Liv Tyler) has just come back to town, as her naive boyfriend (Chris O'Donnell) has become a cop.
Meanwhile, eccenric matriarch Cookie Orcutt (Patricia Neal) has become obsessed with joining her dead hubby, Buck. So she shoots herself, minutes before her Camille arrives. Fearful of the scandal a suicide would cause ("Suicide is a disgrace! Only crazy people commit suicide!"), Camille fakes a robbery and murder scene.
There's only really one suspect: Willis (Charles S. Dutton), Cookie's handyman/cook/best pal, who lives on the premises and was polishing the guns the night before. As Camille revels in her presumed inheritance, Willis and Emma help piece together the evidence left behind -- and unwittingly unearth some peculiar family secrets.
"Cookie's Fortune" isn't a typical murder mystery. Sure, the cops are ferreting out clues and motives, ... Read More
Rating:  - Thank you , Mr.Altman
Dear reader,
Please see this movie.
It glows with human warmth and sympathetic humor.
It will definitely touch your heart if you will let it.
I was raised in the south and this movie makes me weep with appreciation.
...Grew up surrounded by the wise innocence, requisite tolerance and careful humor ,that strange small town eccentrics require of others.
It is touching to see how big city values and expectations are out of place in a small town where everyone knows everyone else quite well.
There is a wonderfully wry depiction of the role of a certain brand of Southern Protestantism as an acceptable, necessary, but rather shallow and ridiculous source of moral values.
Altman shows there is virtue in the lives of those who just live respectfully while bewildered , affectionately loyal and playful with those they find around them.
It is my favorite movie, along with LOCAL HERO.
note:
There was a non-racist south that is seldom talked about and largely unknown to the the outside. Not the intellectual and moral heros
who served the underground railroad to help slaves escape.
That of course was noble and great.
There was also the texture of small rural outback communities where there was interbreeding of Native Americans and Afro-Americans with the
various Europeans. A mutual understanding , shared passages, and live- and -let- live, was more the character of this phenomena.
It is good to see an understated honoring of this ... Read More
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