BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN - 9/10 (A)

An excellent film that is easily one of the year's best. The story is captivating, involving and touching - brought to the screen brilliantly by director Ang Lee. The cinematography is some of the best of the year so far and the performances themselves are absolutely brilliant. Heath Ledger really became his character and his portrayl was raw and emotional. This is easily the best performance of his career thus far. Jake Gyllenhaal is also excellent, delivering his third great performance this year. The standout, however, was Michelle Williams. Although she appears in just a few scenes, she easily steals the show and I absolutely adored her performance. Anne Hathaway was very underused and I was disappointed that she wasn't featured in a more prominent role. Anyways, highly recommended.

A

I just saw it today, and I must say... I think it is the best movie of 2005 by far. Atleast of what I have seen. The awards and accolades the movie is receiving is more than deserved. The movie was just.. spectacular. Ledger was wonderful as Ennis, capturing his quite ways and bottled emotions. Words just weren't needed for him to convey how Ennis felt. Michelle Williams, although not in the movie very much, was just amazing as Elma (I believe that was her name). It was just crazy to see her pulling off that role with perfection and then remembering the days when I watched her on Dawson's Creek. I was surprised by Jake Gyllenhaal. Besides being an attractive guy, I never thought that much of his acting. However, this movie really made me appreciate him as an actor. I actually wish there was more about him and his background, as well as more on his marriage. Hathaway was underused, although she did well in her few scenes she was in. I knew the movie would be good, but I never expected it to be anything like this. Needless to say, I am rooting for it to win big at the Oscars this year.

C+. I was disappointed in this movie. The basic idea of the movie could have been executed a lot better, I'm not sure if it's Ang Lee's fault (who did such a great job with The Wedding Banquet) or just the source material by Anne Proulx (who wrote The Shipping News, one of my least favorite novels ever). My reaction to this movie is similar to what I had against The Hulk, in the sense that I'm seeing an overlong, tedious movie where the emotional performances try to compensate for the lack of good story development shown onscreen.

Perhaps I would be less disappointed with the movie if they simply excised most of the first 40 minutes of the movie that the two main characters spend on Brokeback Mountain. There are good moments here and there, but none that made me feel a sense of love that is prerequisite for the rest of the movie (This is the same problem I had with Before Sunrise after loving Before Sunset, which I had seen first). Perhaps we are to think that it is just the sense of identity, not love, that causes the dread that follows, but even so, again, this movie doesn't do a particularly meaningful job addressing that complicated issue.

The emotional performances by Ledger, Williams and Hathaway are done very well, and the movie does a good job showing the aftermath of emotional repression, but they come off as forced because I had not accepted the legitimacy of the situations that caused them.

I am disappointed you didn't like it but applaud oyu for being perhaps the first person to provide valid reasons!

Hopefully, like with most, the movie's emotional factor will hit you later.

Or, like with others, you'll enjoy it even less as time goes by.

Or, maybe like still others, you will have experienced the film directly and honestly the first time you viewed it...

I'm pretty sure I'll be seeing this tomorrow. I really want to put some effort in not letting some of my biases seep into the way I'll view the movie and appreciate it for what it is.

I'll be seeing either this or Capote on Monday; not sure which one yet.

I saw Glory Road yesterday, but while I was in line waiting for tickets, two guys bought tickets for Brokeback Mountain. Upon saying the words " Two for Brokeback Mountain" the entire line of people started laughing at them. The two of them quickly left. I thought it was a pretty sad scene and I wouldn't be surprised if other people buy tickets for other movies to avoid this embarrassment.

OK, as promised to dar, a few (incoherent) initial thoughts.

I wasn't particularly looking forward to seeing Brokeback, i still haven't figured out quite why, but for some reasons i had reservations. I needn't have worried, it was good. Sometimes bordering on great. I was surprised that at least 80% of the audience was female, and i'd say about 50% were aged 40+.

Positives: First of all it looked great, fantastic cinematography. Heath Ledger#s performance was subtle and utterly believable and he outshone (dare i say a slightly miscast?) Jake Gylllanhaallll or however you spell it. Heath deserves the best actor oscar for this performance, and i think he might just get it. Supporting actresses were wonderful as well.
Scenes i really liked: I loved the reunion after 4 years, with Ennis' wife seeing them. The phonecall where Ennis found out about Jack's death and the scene that followed with his parents. Ennis in Jack's bedroom was the most touching scene. Jack and Ennis' last argument, this is where Heath was at his best.

Negatives: I didn't feel the love of Jack and Ennis as i thought i could have, somehow there was a spark missing, i can't quite describe why. Jack's character fet rushed at times, it could have done with being a little more fleshed out and i believe that his death should have been shown.

For someone who had no real expectations for the film i came away happy from the experience and somewhat moved. I've asked myself a few questions:
Do i think its the best film of the year? yes. But i should say it's a 2006 release here and the only other film i have seen is The Producers Do i think it's a film that should be seen by a wide audience? yes.

Do i think its the best film eligible for the oscars? probably not, and that's where i'm slighty torn. Winning big at the oscars is Brokeback's real chance to be seen by the audience i think it deserves. I certainly wouldn't be upset if it won big, and i will be keeping my fingers crossed for a few wins on the night. Oh, and a grade! for now A- until i have thought about it some more.

Big deal - who cares what a buncha rednecks in line for a movie with a very gay title - I mean Glory Road - could it be any more obvious?!?

Fucking pathetic.

Yeah, it's nice to live in a "liberal" society eh?

Anyway, I just got back from seeing it. I loved Ang Lee's direction, and how he handled the sotry with such eloquence. I suppose it could have been easy to get frazzled or lose site of the main foccus, but he kept his eye on the prize and it came out beautifully. Great performances by Heath Ledger and Jake G as well.

Personally, I found that the main point the movie conveyed (at least about the subject matter) was how deeply rooted social norms are in human behaviour. If one's own genetic dispositions go against those norms or values, the results could be downright haunting. The fact that their relationship was literaly displaced into the wilderness demonstrates the need for some sort of creative privacy, since it couldn't even be accounted for in a modern world. It also reminded me of Thoreau's Walden Pond experiment, and how he stated that social confines only serve to impede our spiritual development.

Brokeback Mountain

The Pros:
Great movie that tackled an issue that in a way that I have not seen in a movie. The acting was great, especially that of Jake Gyllenhaal and Michelle Williams. The soundtrack, while quite simplistic and not close to the greatness of the soundtrack for Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, was nonetheless quite effective. The last scene with Heath Ledger was quite good as well.

The Cons:
The editing was horrible; the movie felt really really choppy to me. There were many scenes that I believe could have been omitted in order to make the movie not feel as stretched out as it did. The way in which they handled the death of Jake's character was also not satisfactory.. I don't like being left to wonder what happened...or maybe i just didnt get it

The worst thing by far in this movie that greatly greatly greatly greatly irritated me was Heath and Jake's accents! At times throughout the movie I could not understand them as they kept mumbling all the time. I don't know if this is some sort of American accent, but there were many times where i couldn't grasp what was happening. I had no problem understanding what was happening in Memoirs of a Geisha, yet I had a lot of difficulty with the dialogue in this movie.

Conclusion:
Despite the cons, this movie was really good despite it feeling a tad long and not understandable at times.

7.4/10

Hey Andrew! Thanks Your review actually makes me look forward to the movie even more.

So if you hate this movie if makes you a redneck homophobe.

But if you love this movie it makes you gay.

Hmmm.

After seeing the movie last night, I can now say with no shame that that is not true. At least from my own perspective.

...and don't forget, most homophobes are secretly gay...

Yep. And if you are scared/not interested in seeing it, you are probably a closeted redneck homophobe.

Your pick

Then again, the two people had to know that with a long line of people there was bound to be some morons among them so it would have been smarter to just buy a ticket to another movie and sneak in, at least then they would have avoided the ridicule, warranted or not.

some comments from another post

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one thing about Brokeback, it never went far enough, I agree that it had nice pictures and a nice basic story but ....

it never went far enough.....................

- after Michelle Williams sees them kissing and after one small fight about her working, they get divorced - no fight about the gay thing.

- they had no problems with the gay stuff with any people.

- Health gets a girl and time with the daughter and then they disappear.

- even the Randy Q scene, you boyes cheated me, now get out.

- never see any time with Jake and his family - especially since they had issues

etc.

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Maybe alittle style over substance or another Dances with Wolves

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Ok, time for me to “spur my guts out”

I gave it an A-, but it could possibly be a B+.

This *is* a great movie. The acting and directing are fantastic. The scenery is incredible. It’s something new, fresh, and different, and that makes the movie truly an ‘experience’.

But-

I agree with some others, that there is something “missing”. The development of their ‘love’ is really not shown to us. Even Jake admitted on Leno that people have said ‘the movie is not gay enough’. Well, the movie certainly is gay, and deals with gay themes, but, I think people are referring to this problem with the movie when they say that. Later in the movie, we get scenes of Ennis and Alma playing in the snow, and sitting at the drive in with his arm around her and the baby starts kicking and such. But what we get from the cowboys are just one quick make out scene, a little rastlin’ around seen through binoculars, a cute thing with the rope where Jack lassos Ennis, (but that scene eventually turns into something else important with the story), and then we have to wait until 3/4ths through the movie to get the ‘flashback’ scene of Ennis coming up behind Jack and holding him (the ‘sleeping on your feet like a horse’ scene). Yeah, the lack of intimacy does hold up the creditability of the rest of the movie in that way.

Now some have said “well they’re 19 year old cowboys with undeveloped emotions, and they’re not supposed to be all touchy feely when they were first up on the mountain”. I don’t buy that, because they *were* touchy feely as seen in the ‘flashback’ scene. And we needed a touchy feely scene like that to happen in the first part of the movie when they’re up on the mountain, to show that they were ‘falling in love’ and make it believable and the rest of the movie believable, not have that quick scene happen later on in the movie, during another different difficult emotional scene!

All we would have needed was one small 15 second scene, of them holding each other by a campfire or something, maybe even sharing a cigarette. They wouldn’t have needed to talk or anything. Just an image of them two together like that in the first part of the movie WOULD HAVE MADE ALL THE DIFFERENCE. I don’t know if any additional scenes like this were left out, and if they were, I would be suspect of the reason why they were left out. But if there is any additional scenes that portray them a little more ‘falling in love’ up on the mountain, I certainly hope they’re included in a ‘directors cut’ re-release or DVD release. It truly would have been ‘sweeping’ (as the ads say) if we had just had a little bit more development of their ‘love’.

Many people have complained about this issue with the movie. Ang, Focus, Screenwriters, are you listening?

(Imagine what an “extended director’s cut” re-released in theatres might do for the already good business for this movie. Hmmm.)

That's my point.

Where do you live? If you lived in some suburban small-town area, that wouldn't surprise me. Either way, that shows how sad some of humanity has come to be.

I don't know. I thought it was well-made. But... I don't know. I can't possibly see me in a situation where I'll ever want to see it again, and not because it's one of "those" movies (that really don't need a second viewing), it's more like that nothing about this film is memorable enough to witness a second time. The fact that it's a gay love story is the only reason this film is good at all (but, then again, there wouldn't be a successful movie if it wasn't a gay love story, so why should I use that as reasoning against it?). I think the acting is great all around, but not award-worthy. Award-worthy is the definitive best in my eyes (and, that's not always the way, either).

And I hate that the actors don't really age at all. We know it's so many years in the future, but Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal just end up looking like Hathaway in a wig and Gyllenhaal with a 'stache. Heath Ledger looks just a bit older, but he really only scrunches up his face a bit more for that effect.

The pacing is tough, because it jumps so many years ahead without warning.

Ultimately, I didn't feel as much as I would have liked for this film. And trust me, I wanted to believe the hype. But now it just bothers me to no end that Brokeback Mountain will end up beating out "Crash" and "Walk the Line" at the Oscars for Best Picture (more anger at the latter, since that is shaping up to be my favorite of the year). This is a good movie. Possibly even a very good movie. But in my eyes, it's not great. Perhaps when this award season is over, and the DVD is released, I'll give it a second shot... but it's not high on my to-do list.

Grade: B