A month ago, I reviewed King Kong with a long list of adjectives that I would use as one-word reviews of that movie. Here's my one word review of Brokeback Mountain:
Yawn.
Seriously though. It's not that bad. As I expected it is quite well-written. As I expected it is very well acted. As I expected the cinematography was rather exceptional. In fact very little about the movie actually surprised me.
That said, there were four things that I did find to be quite a pleasant surprise.
#1 and #2 - Anne Hathaway's boobies
#3 and #4 - Michelle Williams' boobies
I conclude that Brokeback Mountain will not turn you gay. If I had one or two major complaints it would be that A) it's a sappy chick flick and B) there's way too much nothing going on. I mean I found myself waiting for something to happen far too often. Anything. Even if it was nekkid buttsecks at least that's SOMETHING. It's actually a fairly tame and veerrrrryyyy leisurely paced movie in which, not a whole lot happens.
My only other complaint is that because of the movie's restrained tone, there are a couple of opportunities to really grab the audience that I thought were passed on.
In closing, is it the Best Picture of the Year? I don't think so. I don't even think it is the best of the five films nominated for the Oscar in that category (those are in no particular order because they're all on the same level: Munich, Goodnight and Good Luck and Capote) but it is way better than Crash. My regret is that the REAL best picture A History of Violence isn't among the five nominees.
reggie [email] said at 10:58 PM 02-01-2006: Fargo. All 3 of David Gordon Green's movies. The Thin Red Line has grown on me over time. Slacker. Kieslowski's Blue. Lost in Translation. Nothing But a Man. Unforgiven. The Sixth Sense. Hard Eight.
I'm just looking at my DVD shelf, there are many others.
myriam [email] said at 12:07 AM 02-02-2006: Not only that, but, beyond the gimmick of the "surprise", what's the point? What else is there in this movie? Is there any substance? I found it to be a total one-liner. I was really let down.
reggie [email] said at 12:16 AM 02-02-2006: The "surprise" ending is irrelevant. The point of the movie is communication. As in Malcolm wasn't good at communicating with his wife, Cole needed to communicate with his mother. The Sixth Sense of the title doesn't refer to the kid's psychic ability but rather the ability within all of us to simply be aware of the needs of those we care for (and even those we don't.)
The reason the movie works so well is that if you cut the "twist" out of the plot completely the rest of the movie still stands up on its own accord.
reggie [email] said at 5:54 PM 02-02-2006: Maybe not slow but it's definitely not in any hurry to get anywhere. Especially the middle chunk of the movie where Munny gets deathly ill.
reggie [email] said at 12:03 AM 02-02-2006: Hey, you hardly like anything though Myriam. I don't know, I still like this movie. I watched it again for the first time in a long time about three years ago thinking maybe I overrated it when I first saw it. No I still liked it then and I liked it now.
More than anything I liked the Juliette Binoche subplot more than the Ralph Fiennes storyline.
myriam [email] said at 12:11 AM 02-02-2006: Hey, you hardly like anything though Myriam.
I actually like a ton of shit. Honestly. I guess I just come on here as a critic, mostly, and thus end up decrying other people's choices, so you never hear about the stuff I like.
...wait a minute, wasn't I supposed to make a "movies I like" post at some point? To address this very question?
reggie [email] said at 12:06 AM 02-02-2006: I just liked the way that the plot had no obvious machinations and didn't really try to explain anything. But I really just liked the kind of wandering camera work. I probably like Elephant for aesthetic reasons more than anything else.
milky [email] said at 12:36 AM 02-02-2006: In that aspect I liked it...the camerawork alone...saw parts of it over for that but as a movie it didn't do it for me.
rick [email] said at 6:32 PM 02-01-2006: When I saw the film, the lady who was sitting behind me, as soon as Ms. Hathaway's bosom tumbled out, gasped and said, "Now, I can never watch The Princess Diaries again!"
brandon [email] said at 8:03 PM 02-01-2006: Hathaway's breasts illuminated the Princess Diaries, much like rubric on old vellum. They needed no pointing out.
neilbert said at 6:37 PM 02-01-2006: My pick for best actor is not even nominated. Mickey Roarke fucking nailed "Marv" from Sin City. Yeah, I know, it's a comic book movie, based on a comic book, but it's "BLOOD FOR BLOOD, AND BY THE GALLONS!" :)
Funny that the Oscar producers are anticipating low ratings since bareback mountain is expected to sweep everything and a movie about gay cowboys headlining the Oscars ain't a hot seller, despite it's box office success.
The only movies I regret not being able to see due my move back home was "Good night" and "History of Violence."
andrew [email] said at 7:02 PM 02-01-2006: what were those opportunities?
i thought it was good, but also about what i expected. the relationship between jack and ennis is almost the same as between duane and sonny in
the last picture show" or call and gus in "lonesome dove", except its sexual in nature. seeing as its set in the sixties, that's not so illogical. in his movies macmurtty basically takes two characters and makes them into don quixote (the dreamer- jack, gus) and sanco panza (the realist- call, ennis) figures.
i thought it was more about the nature of love rather than debunking the taboo of homosexuality. its essentially two guys who would rather spend time together than deal with domestic life. the interesting part was how these guys had such messed up marraiges and love lives. the biggest gasp i heard in the audience was when they showed michelle williams after she got knocked up by the other dude, this lady next to me was really pissed.
anyway, its not a movie thats going to do well in rural areas. i never got bored though. it wasn't heavy-handed or didactic, or repetitive.
reggie [email] said at 11:44 PM 02-01-2006: First of all, you're absolutely right in your analysis. My main complaint is that I could tell all of that going into it, the movie lived up to my expectations for it and did not go above them in any way, shape or form.
Is that the movie's fault or is it my fault for reading too many reviews? That shouldn't matter. Match Point caught me completely off guard. Munich surprised me in that it didn't turn out to be the straight-forward political action thriller it looks like from the previews, it's a lot more contemplative.
What opportunities did they miss? Personally I would have liked to have seen Ennis' wife react a little bit sooner but that's just my own tastes.
I don't want to get too much into plot details because my other gripe centers around a very key incident towards the end.
I also think it would've added to the story if more than three main characters (Jack, Ennis and his wife) appeared to have any depth.
andrew [email] said at 12:12 AM 02-02-2006: It's hard to take Randy Quaid seriously under any circumstances. I liked the couple at the end with the woman who never stopped talking, bad news from the start. I thought it was cool the way Ennis's wife reacted though, instead of a big blow up. What a name, Ennis. Nobody plays it straight with him throughout the whole thing, except his daughter.
reggie [email] said at 12:34 AM 02-02-2006: It's hard to take Randy Quaid seriously under any circumstances.
That's funny!
Let me state that the Thanksgiving scene with Jack and his in-laws actually quite exceptional.
Right about the daughter (and is it just me or did she remind anyone else of Meredith?)
As far as Ennis's wife goes, I suppose I don't buy her repressing her feelings for so long when she saw them going at each other. Also, he already knew that after leaving BBM that he'd be going back to her but at no point during the movie does his relationship with Jack feel like he's cheating. Which,in reality, is what he was doing. I'm thinking that if we could have seen him and the missus BEFORE he went to herd sheep then the love between Jack and him appears to be that much stronger and that much more undeniable. Does that make any sense?
andrew [email] said at 12:46 AM 02-02-2006: People in Texas will do absolutely anything before talking about sex, much less homosexuality. I thought her reaction was realistic.
Its hard to say about the before and after stuff. The good thing about the movie is that it questions the ultra-romantic conventions of love.
carla [email] said at 7:03 PM 02-01-2006: Anne Hathaway's boobies get a 8 out of 10 stars.
Michelle William's boobies get an 7.5 out of 10 stars. The .5 difference is based simply on the fact that it's hard to check out Michelle Williams because of the lighting and angle in which her boobs are displayed, giving Anne Hathaway the advantage of claiming the number one spot.
brandon [email] said at 7:47 PM 02-01-2006: So, there's no actual buttsecks?
What a jap! This movie sucks. Or doesn't suck. Is there at least some limb-licking? Heath's head bobbing up and down in Jake's lap? Is there a bone to be thrown here to the Gay Cowboy voyeur crowd?
carly said at 8:49 PM 02-01-2006: this post pisses me off. what the hell "CHICK FLICK?" it wasn't senseless romance. it was meant to challenge, on many levels, and i see it definitely challenged you!
reggie [email] said at 10:39 PM 02-01-2006: It is a chick flick. There was nothing challenging at all about it because it is a pretty straight forward romance. To it's strength it could've very well been about an interracial relationship and would've worked just the same because the heart of the story is still the same, unrequited love. Funny, a similar theme was found in a movie released last month about a woman and a giant ape. Luckily for Jack and Ennis they were allowed to consummate their love.
You say it was meant to challenge on many levels but it didn't. At all. What bold and exciting new ideas were raised by it? None.
Really though, it wasn't meant to challenge on many levels unless the thought of two people of the same sex is somehow weird or foreign to you.
Transamerica does a much better job of "challenging" it's audience.
myriam [email] said at 11:40 PM 02-01-2006: Yeah, I was gonna say, I didn't know it was meant to challenge. I thought the whole point was that it was meant to be just another love story.
reggie [email] said at 11:55 PM 02-01-2006: It is. Like I said, it's only challenging if you're the type of person (and there are many) who don't believe that two men or two women can't fall in love with each other under completely normal or natural circumstances then yes, I suppose it is challenging.
However, if you're more open-minded and are quite used to seeing gay/lesbian couples who genuinely love each other then this movie doesn't really bring anything new to the table.
Is it refreshing to see a good old-fashioned love story featuring two men in love being accepted (for the most part) by mainstream society? Of course it is.
myriam [email] said at 11:30 PM 02-01-2006: ha, I just came online to make a little post about how I just got home from A History of Violence and was pretty much totally wowed. It's still absorbing my thoughts. Maybe it won't be in a few days, but still, that's one of the best films I've seen this year, by far.
Oddly for some reason I thought it had gotten panned (?) so I was gonna come on here and make my own little defense of it--and then I randomly caught the last line of your post! Good to know I'm not alone.
myriam [email] said at 11:04 AM 02-02-2006: Hey, I've never seen that site before--what is a typical rating number for a movie to get? Is this atypically high for a film, or about average...?
brandon [email] said at 12:18 AM 02-02-2006: Apparently there's a Hathaway vageena picture out there, too! And supposedly she has a well-groomed labia.
