DONNIE DARKO CAUGHT IN ILLICIT LOVE AFFAIR WITH A BROTHER GRIMM!
a review of Brokeback Mountain by Keith on January 26th, 2006
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Cast and Crew | |
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Director | |
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Ennis Del Mar | |
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Jack Twist | |
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Joe Aguirre | |
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Alma Del Mar | |
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Lureen Twist | |
I will admit, the timing for the release of this movie was brilliant! Four Golden Globe wins with three other nominations not to mention over 50 other nominations (and many wins) at other awards ceremonies. No doubt this film will get a bunch of noms next Tuesday. However, the marketing genius who limited the release to only a dozen major cities for over a month (it's still not playing at the local Carmike/AMC/Regal theatres), probably hoped for some word of mouth to help build the box office numbers. I don't know if it worked or not, but I do know that I came away really disappointed.
I've been hearing a lot of hype, and was looking forward to a really good film. Maybe had I seen it when it opened December 9th I would have enjoyed it more. But seeing it this past weekend in a local, independent theatre--that was surprisingly packed--was nothing short of a letdown.
First, the movie opens without a word of dialogue. This silence feels like it goes on for about 40 minutes, but I'm sure it must have been longer than that. I'm not sure if Lee was attempting to direct here, but if he was it felt very heavy-handed.
Were these moments of silence/smokes/shaves/stares supposed to show that these two strangers already had some sexual tension between them? Holy alliteration, Batman! Or were we supposed to assume that it was the lonely conditions of their sheep-sitting atop the titular mountain that allowed this taboo affair to grow?
I'd say the two things this movie lacked the most were flow and diction (I said diction, you pervert!). After the boys come down off the mountain, the story seems to fly through more than two decades. The only clues given for this time travel is the amount of facial hair on our characters' faces or the height of their respective children. We get a short look into one of their lives post-Brokeback and are then vollied into the other one's life some indeterminate number of months/years later. Very hard to follow, and ultimately hurts the story.
Antoher thing that hurts the story--being completely unintelligible throughout 75% of the film! Ennis didn't have too many lines, but the few that he did Ledger mumbled through. I'm half-tempted to rent the DVD just to see if watching the film with subtitles will make it any better. Ledger wasn't the only incomprehensible one; Quaid and Williams each had several lines swallowed up in low moans and groans.
I don't want anyone to think the film was horrible. It had some pretty good acting (when you could understand them) and it made me want to read the original short story by E. Annie Proulx to see how well the story was translated to film. The overall story was decent, although I doubt such a film would be made without the homosexual "twist." The soundtrack was very good; the few chords played out by slide guitar & strings throughout the film were probably better at telling the story than our mumbling stars.
B Good, but far from great. If this is among the top movies of 2005, it's no wonder box office numbers are down.
KM~
P.S. It was Jacob Grimm.
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