"Brokeback Mountain," the film, is all that you've heard, and more--- Page 5

[TheEnchantedHunter]

Posted: 12/12/05 at 7:49pm

"...It's ok, robbie--I'm also hoping after a second viewing I will love it more. I felt like the hype got me. I did think it was a good film..."

JRB, I don't understand why you feel the need to second-guess yourself. Why not accept your original impression instead of forcing yourself to 'love' it? It's a helluva lot more honest and refreshing than subscribing to received opinion like a desperate camp-follower.

Tilde Kooeck
Amsterdam, The Netherlands

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 12/13/05 at 2:03am

Well, Disenchanted Hunter, I am quite capable of forming my own opinions and sticking to my guns. I mean--I DID endure countless attacks a couple of weeks ago for liking the Rent film, and I stand by that.

My reasoning for hoping that my opinion of the film will improve the next time I see it is based on the VERY rational and mature understanding that sometimes HYPE can ruin something for you as well as one's hopes and desires for a film that deals with an issue that is both very personal and holds much at stake in our country's social and political landscapes. It is often in these instances that one can go back and assess the film (or play) for what it IS--not what YOU wanted it to *BE*.

So, that is my intention with this film. And as it is, I think it was a very good film and will be very pleased if it wins a million awards and box office. I was stunned by Ang Lee's brilliant ability to put across deep complexities in a straight forward, simplistic craft of story telling. The film was immediately placed at #3 on my current Top Ten Films of 2005.

And you, Mr. Kooeck, can stick that in your pipe and smoke it!

Updated On: 12/13/05 at 02:03 AM

[DAME]

Posted: 12/13/05 at 2:05am

Smoking? Did someone mention smoking?

[EponineThenardier]

Posted: 12/13/05 at 2:40am

I dunno. Jake and Heath are pretty smokin.

[TheEnchantedHunter]

Posted: 12/13/05 at 10:23am

"...And you, Mr. Kooeck, can stick that in your pipe and smoke it!"

Wow, such misplaced hostility when I was only supporting your opinion. Hmm, so much for 'rational and mature'.


Mayella Ewell
Maycomb, Alabama

[touchmeinthemorning]

Posted: 12/13/05 at 11:45am

I'm still not at a palce where I can talk intelligently about this film. I can say that it hits you in a place you don't expect. I expected to be moved, and I was...just not in the way I had expected. It is a deep and meaningful film -- #1 on my top ten of the year.

[pattifan2]

Posted: 1/7/06 at 5:32pm

The film just opened here nationwide so it's only now that I got to see it. Just wanted to add my two-penn'orth...I thought it was a beautifully crafted film. Lee did a brilliant job with his cast and presented us with a story that was as much about what was not said as what was said. This is no better illustrated than Ledgers performance of a man who for so many reasons is unable to be with the love of his life. It is that specific theme which makes this story universal. Gyllenhaal is perfectly cast, too; a favourite moment was when he drove away after Ennis tells him they can't be together that weekend as his daughters are with him. Gyllenhaal's tears are both heartfelt and heartbreaking.

The screenplay does a wonderful job of opening up the novella and in the writing of the female characters. I disagree with some comments I've read elsewhere that the female roles have been underwritten. They each have some key scenes - a couple spring easily to mind. Firstly Williams' stiffled devastation in the scene when she meets Jack for the first time after she has seen he and Ennis on the steps. It was a perfectly played scene by all three actors, but you could almost feel Williams' heart pounding in her chest as she battles to control herself. Hathaway is at her best in the scene when she takes Enis' phone call.

The visual images, too, in this film are stunning. How striking is the moment at the end of their summer on BBM when Jack drives off and Ennis breaks down where he thinks he's out of sight. Lee gives us a shot of Ennis totally boxed in - an image which is repeated a number of times in the film - which is in total contrast to the wilderness he's been so at ease in. Lee does a brilliant job, too, of presenting Ennis' domestic life in total discord; he is shown surrounded by chaos and noise. Lee immediately juxtaposes this with the beaty and stillness of the time he spends with Jack in the wildnerness where the two of them are totally as one with their environment. From the noise of the washing machine, the tv and the bawling babies, in the wildnerness Lee gives us a silence which is almost deafening.

OMG - there is so much to say about the film, but it's hard to come up with something which hasn't been said already either on this board or elsewhere. It's a powerful film with some wonderful 'small' moments. How clever is the shot when Ennis lifts the shirts from the closet (tearing-up writing this) and Lee gives us a shot of the coathanger hook in front of Ennis' face resembling a question mark (reminded me of George Emmerson's 'Eternal Why' in 'A Room With A View'). I loved Ennis catching the hailstones in his hat, Jack watching Ennis forever in the wing mirror of the truck. The haunting chords of the score - almost echoing round the mountain itself.....A beautiful, beautiful film.

Updated On: 1/7/06 at 05:32 PM

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 1/7/06 at 6:02pm

"[A]nd presented us with a story that was as much about what was not said as what was said."

This is a theme that just keeps coming up again and again in the heaps of praise that the fan boys and girls and queens and straight women are piling on this movie.

I've come to the conclusion that BBM is like a Rorshach ink blot that invites audience segments to project what they want to see, to fill in the blanks that are just there, gaping. In this way, people give the movie credit for saying all the right things when it hasn't said very much at all.

Updated On: 1/7/06 at 06:02 PM

[PalJoey]

Posted: 1/7/06 at 6:34pm

And what did the Rorshach ink blot look like to you, Namo?

Any work of art or entertainment is not simply the words the actors say. It is also how those words affect the prevailing Zeitgest of the time, and this film, like it or not, has captured the Zeitgeist.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 1/7/06 at 6:36pm

Which zeitgeist are you talking about?

[PalJoey]

Posted: 1/7/06 at 6:53pm

The one we're riding, baby!

[PalJoey]

Posted: 1/7/06 at 6:57pm

Or maybe the one this fella's riding!

[eslgr8]

Posted: 1/8/06 at 3:59am

Pattifan, I'm sorry you had to wait an extra month to see this masterpiece, but as you have so beautifully stated, it is a film worth waiting for. I agree with all that you have said about the movie. Michelle Williams is fulfilling the promise she showed on Dawson's Creek; this is an actress with many awards in her future. It's truly exciting to see this film expand across the country and to know how many hearts it is touching.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 1/8/06 at 11:38am

Oh, Pattifan, I would very much like to echo Steven Stanman's sentiments and to say that I am awash with tears of sorrow over the mere thought that you had to wait an extra month to see Brokeback Mountain. Just another sign of discrimination in this country, if you ask me.

As for the rest, it's not hard to imagine a great big jug of Astroglide and something that whirred and vibrated the minute Miss Paula Cole's theme song to Dawson's Creek kicked in every week and that in some Los Angeles bungalow emenated the gutteral refrain of "van der Beek, van der Beek...."

Updated On: 1/8/06 at 11:38 AM

[Thesbijean]

Posted: 1/8/06 at 1:25pm

I saw this movie a few nights ago. I thought it was very good, but a bit overrated.

THE GOOD
-Beautifully Shot
-Simple, but Effective Score
-Jake Gyllenhaal
-Michelle Williams
- Ang Lee
- Ang Lee
- Ang Lee

THE BAD
-I felt the film didn't really begin to be captivating until Jack came to Ennis for the first time at his home. Additionally, I don;t think Heath Ledger's performance really shined for me until this moment.
- The ending was a little random. Not random, but I would have liked to see a little more.

Overall, I felt it was a great movie. I feel that Gyllenhaal and Ang Lee are the film's best components. It was heartbreaking at times, and I was always really engrossed, but I felt at times there could have been a little more. For instance, The Constant Gardener affected me more as a whole than this did, cause from the moment the film started, you are in there with all of the characters. I felt Brokeback took a little while to do that, for me.

[Kringas]

Posted: 1/8/06 at 1:29pm

The ending wasn't random. Abrupt and predicatble, yes. Random, no.

[Thesbijean]

Posted: 1/8/06 at 1:33pm

Did you read the whole sentence? I didn't mean random like a green goblin popped out of nowhere, I meant it more like abrupt. More like they chose a random time to stop the film/action/make the shot go to black. Get it?
Updated On: 1/8/06 at 01:33 PM

[Kringas]

Posted: 1/8/06 at 1:35pm

I guess so. I think I just missed the whole boat on the word "random" being used as slang.

But it still seems like the word you were going for was "abrupt."

[Auggie27]

Posted: 1/8/06 at 1:41pm

I'm one of the perpetually wet-cheeked ones (!) about this film...saw it twice and blubbered till I looked like Jonathan Pryce in his MISS SAIGON make-up (London, anyway) ... but really, by January 10th or so, every year, every discussion is about how overrated every year end movie on the critics' lists is.

Last year we were all chewin' the fat about SIDEWAYS and BABY, both of which had major vocal detrators, both of which produced indifference at this board. I am personally relieved that we're not all discussing WALK THE LINE ad nauseum, to me the most overrated of this year's "Really-a-Lifetime-movie-pretending-to-be-a-feature."

And in the syrup is thicker than blood category, we have THE FAMILY STONE, notable mostly for revealing how much Sarah Jessica Parker, bunned, looks like a young Margaret Hamilton in profile. Do I smell an Elphaba? AWwwwwww-I-ya!

[Kringas]

Posted: 1/8/06 at 1:43pm

And in the syrup is thicker than blood category, we have THE FAMILY STONE, notable mostly for revealing how much Sarah Jessica Parker, bunned, looks like a young Margaret Hamilton in profile

I'm still laughing at this comment as I type. It's frightfully, true. I also noticed in later seasons of SATC that she began to bear an uncanny resemblance to Bette Midler - and not Bette at her best.

[JbaraFan1]

Posted: 1/8/06 at 11:36pm

Not really much to add that hasn't been said already. I saw the movie Sunday afternoon and thought it was excellent. I'm not much of a critic but I know when something has touched me, and this did. I understand better now a lot of the comments here about how strongly effecting Brokeback Mountain is ... when it ended and I was sitting there as the credits rolled by, listening to the soundtrack, I felt like I wanted to cry, but at the same time was too numb to do so. Don't know what else to say ...