I laughed my ass off at ANNE HATHAWAY's hair in BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN!- Page 3

[Jane2]

Posted: 12/26/05 at 10:28am

yep-it is. You posted right after mine. That's how people decipher things on message boards when you aren't with the poster in person.

[Luscious]

Posted: 12/26/05 at 10:35am

Sorry Janey. Next time I'll make sure that I wait a respectable amount of time before posting after you, so as not to confuse or offend you.

Updated On: 12/26/05 at 10:35 AM

[Jane2]

Posted: 12/26/05 at 10:42am

Oh please, this whole thing is ridiculous and I've got things to do. Do whatever you want.

[Luscious]

Posted: 12/26/05 at 10:49am

Posted: 12/26/05 at 11:09am

I thought that Hathaway's changing looks communicated the change in her character and personality from a young and fresh hell-on-wheels to a hardened mask of a woman hiding the little girl underneath. The scene on the phone at the end was particularly evocative of this change. That close-up on her face and hands as she spoke on the phone. I was fixated on the fact that despite her attempt at being "made-up," she still had a smidge of nail polish on the side of her figure. Nothing was as neat as it was supposed to appear.

[roquat]

Posted: 12/26/05 at 1:05pm

From "Movie Love" by Pauline Kael (a real movie critic). She was talking about the Vietnam film "Casualties of War", but she nailed my reaction to "Brokeback Mountain":

"Some movies can affect us in more direct, emotional ways than simple entertainment movies. They have more imagination, more poetry, more intensity than the usual fare; they have large themes, and a vision. They can leave us feeling simultaneously elated and wiped out. Overwhelmed, we may experience a helpless anger if we hear people mock them or poke holes in them in order to dismiss them. If you meet people who are bored by movies you love...chances are you can brush it off and think it's their loss. But this new film is the kind that makes you feel protective. When you leave the theatre you'll probably find that you're not ready to talk about it. You may also find it hard to talk lightly about anything."

I hope that there are movies (plays, books, etc.) you feel that way about, FindingNamo and Jane2. If not, I REALLY feel sorry for you.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 12/26/05 at 1:16pm

Oh yes, it's true. If Jane and I haven't had such experiences then our lives are empty and sad. As I have said repeatedly, I'm glad people found a movie they liked. But right now I wish I were in the scene in Annie Hall where Alvy pulls Marshall McLuhan from behind a movie poster to berate somebody who has been quoting him in the movie line.

I'm imagining Pauline would say, "I've been listening to what you've been saying. And you know nothing of my work."

I believe that the other side of the coin Kael is describing is that when something calls up a response in us, by pushing whatever vulnerable buttons we have exposed at the time, we basically surrender our ability to look at it critically. And we have a tendency to get a titch defensive about obvious flaws in the work in question.

Anne Hathaway's hair for instance.

[Luscious]

Posted: 12/26/05 at 2:55pm

Thanks for that quote from Kael, roquat. I've always admired her worked, and it precisely sums up how I feel about BROKEBACK.

[roquat]

Posted: 12/26/05 at 5:21pm

Luscious, I think I love you.

FindingNamo, I own every word Pauline Kael ever wrote (for publication). Do you?

She did scorn people who only reacted to movies in terms of their own emotional vulnerabilities (example--the millions who responded to the manipulative "The Sound of Music.") Yet she also scorned the cold, academic, "objective" style of movie criticism practiced by her colleagues John Simon and Stanley Kauffman. Strictly formal analysis of movies, she wrote, was "worthless" and "a disguised form of subjective reaction."

Example (in addition to "Casualties of War"--she speaks of a time she saw the movie "Shoeshine" and staggered out of the theatre in tears. On the way out, she overheard a whiny schoolgirl (take note) "saying petulantly to her boyfriend, 'I don't see what was so special about that movie.' I walked up the street crying blindly...If people cannot feel 'Shoeshine', what CAN they feel?" Doesn't sound "objective" to me.

I barely noticed Anne Hathaway's hair in "Brokeback Mountain." If that's what you consider a "major flaw" in this brilliant movie--well, I've already made it pretty clear what I think of that.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 12/27/05 at 4:20pm

Actually, I listed several other things that I thought were flawed, for example it always starts with a BJ (to which you replied with an example of why these guys would start with sodomy instead of kissing, which I wasn't talking about at all), and people don't put return addresses on post cards.

I also agree with other people's criticsms, we were told about Jake falling in love but I don't believe we were shown Jake falling in love. All of a sudden out of nowhere (and years later) he's back talking about how it "could always be like theeeyus."

I also think that the mumbling, though a character choice Heath obviously had the gonads to carry to its logical conclusion, was a flaw of the film.

[Love4Cheno]

Posted: 12/27/05 at 4:26pm

Well, I didn't love this film as much as i thought i would, but I definitely laughed at Anne's ridiculous hairstyles!

They were clear demonstrations of the time periods, and by the end of the film, she was chanelling Crystal Carrington!

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 12/27/05 at 4:41pm

No, she was channeling a drag queen channeling Crystal Carrington, which is much, much worse.

[robbiej]

Posted: 12/27/05 at 4:55pm

You saw DIE-NASTY in Provincetown, didn't you Namo? Starring Hedda Lettuce and Scarbie!

[Jane2]

Posted: 12/27/05 at 5:05pm

Roquat, I just deleted this post and pm'd you. It was too personal.

Updated On: 12/27/05 at 05:05 PM

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 12/27/05 at 5:06pm

No, I didn't make it to that, but I DID see Hedda's Talk Back to the Screen Showing of "Mommie Dearest." Every time Joan was abusing that poor child, Hedda would intone:

"Once again welcome to Family Week here in Provincetown."

Now, Hedda, SHE would have some fun with the daddy peeing on the poor abused boy scene had been left in the Brokeback film.

[robbiej]

Posted: 12/27/05 at 5:09pm

Hedda is one quick bitch. Love her.