(no subject)

[selenak]

So, I finally saw Brokeback Mountain, and....hm. Like The Icestorm by the same director, it's a film I can appreciate as well-acted and well-written, with good visuals, and which still leaves me without any desire to see it ever again. Whereas today I went and watched Capote for the second time (after having read In Cold Blood and Gerald Clarke's biography in the meantime).

Some scattered, not very deep observations on BBM:



- I do appreciate the way Ennis' wife Alma is treated sympathetically by script, direction and performance; no "first wife as bad guy" syndrome here

- however, I lost sympathy and patience with Ennis around the time of the divorce, which isn't to say I didn't think think Heath Ledger was ging a good performance - he did - and the characterisation made sense, but while there are some characters with a talent of making their own life and a lot of other people's lives miserable I like, Ennis wasn't one of them, and when he told Jack post-divorce that they'd still have to continue the secret meetings - well, that was that

- Lurreen's various hair styles so reminded me of Dallas the soap opera and the 80s that I expected her father to be called J.R., not JD

- credible aging of Jack and Ennis, but strangely enough not of their wives

- ...I wonder whether it would have made a difference to my detachedness if they had hired Alan Ball instead of Larry McMurtry for the script? Because if I compare Jack and Ennis with David and Keith (who also are good in making their lives miserable at various points)...

Comments

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

The whole idea of gay cowboys shepherds scripted by Alan Ball makes me smile, and now I can't help plotting an AU in which David and Keith are herding sheep. It makes me sorry that 6FU is done with, b/c we'd almost have to get a fantasy sequence from one of the boys sending up this film, wouldn't we? I've only read the story of BBM, not seen the film, but it does seem like there's an interesting parallel to S1 David/Keith, with Keith urging him to come out, and David more concerned about what other people would think (though dealing with very different social frameworks, obviously)

BTW, did you ever watch to the end of . . .well, whichever 6FU season you were watching?

I still haven't seen BBM so I have little more to say on that. Though if you'd given it an enthusiastic thumbs up, that might have been one review that would sway me. Lee's films do tend to leave me cold, and together with disliking the original story, I think I can wait for the video. People keep telling me the landscape is breathtaking, but, then, I've seen the real thing (and it's not unlike parts of Utah, as we were discussing way back when re: Connor/Justine).

[buffyannotater.livejournal.com]

It makes me sorry that 6FU is done with, b/c we'd almost have to get a fantasy sequence from one of the boys sending up this film, wouldn't we?

OMG, now you're going to make me cry again that SFU is over!

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Fourth season, and yes, I've seen it entirely by now.

Thinking about it, the only Ang Lee film which didn't leave me detached was Sense and Sensibility, and there I tend to give the credit to Emma Thompson's screenplay... so maybe it's really the director.

Yes, I was thinking of the parallels to S1 David/Keith.

It makes me sorry that 6FU is done with, b/c we'd almost have to get a fantasy sequence from one of the boys sending up this film, wouldn't we?

YES.

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

I do like S&S pretty well, despite my general aversion for adaptations of 'classics' in general and Austen in particular. I do think it has a lot to do with the script as well as the performances (Winslet and Rickman and the girl who played the younger sister particularly; Thompson was also good, but I kept getting distracted by her being too old for the part, and in the case of Hugh Grant, I am always distracted by how much he blinks). But yes, that's a good film, and I also remember enjoying his earlier Chinese language films. But The Ice Storm I didn't care for, despite good performances; and Crouching Tiger I wanted to like more than I actually did.