Netflix: Brokeback Mountain (2005)

Per usual, no secret is safe with me, "spoilers" abound.

If I learned one thing from Brokeback Mountain it's that 80% of cowboy hat wearers are gay.

I thought the movie was ok. I had some niggling issues with it. Like, it's probably a bad idea to make out with your boyfriend in plain view of your wife. And I assumed Jake Glyenhaal has some pretty powerful gaydar when he gets it on with Heath Ledger (because really, they don't show anything that would indicate any type of curiosity on Ledger's part prior to, not even a game of naked pattycake or anything), but then he almost gets the beat down for hitting on (very mildly) a rodeo clown. Maybe his gaydar isn't so honed. Heath Ledger's voice was quite an annoyance. He spoke as if he had a dip in, along with a dozen or so Gobstoppers. Even with the advantage of a granfather who talked much the same way, I only understood 30% of what he said.

Overall, I thought it was a lot of sizzle and not much steak. (That might not be the best way to put it.) The movie was hyped by the fact that there were two guys making out (and their respective star power). That's not to say it wasn't well done. It was. The direction, cinematography, score (in terms of music and not man-love), all of it was pretty much spot-on. But, if the movie featured a man and woman under similar circumstances, like a mixed-race couple in 1950's Alabama, you probably would have never heard of it. Is that good, bad, unimportant? Oh, I have to answer all the questions? How about you do some of the heavy lifting around here? I don't claim to know - just asking.

In the end, I found their reasons for NOT being together uncompelling. And that is the pin which hold the hold movie in place. Without it, the whole thing crumbles.