Brokeback Mountain

Aside from the obvious jokes I can come up with, "It's the beans that made them gay", I thought Brokeback was a very good but not great film. Heath Ledger was terrific as well as Michelle Williams, Anne Hathaway, and Linda Cardellini (Jake Gyllenhall was just okay - he didn't suck - or maybe he did - but I don't think he was completely up to the task.). The sex scenes weren't too uncomfortable for me although the female heavy audience at the NuWilshire kind of giggled at some of the jokes and gay inferences.

Ang Lee has very deftly handled the material and it is well photographed. But in the end, I didn't have an emotional or intellectual reaction to it. Am I blocking because it is a gay love story? Maybe. But I have to agree with my acting coach Cliff Osmond in his review that brooding is akin to whining where a character suffers rather than solve. Ennis Del Mar is obligated to his daughters but I didn't feel the trauma that he had as a young boy was so damaging as to keep him from happiness. Characters that are desperate and that do something about it are interesting. Those that are desperate and do nothing we see in every day life.