I'm not going to keep posting what are likely to be gazillions of interesting pieces on the film, but here are two before I sign off.
Gene Shalit's pan calls the film "wildly overpraised" and labels Jack Twist, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, a "sexual predator." What's the Today show got against this movie, anyway? Actually, Shalit has written supportively about his gay son, but clearly he still has issues with what gay men do under the covers. (Here's a link to view his review.)
On a more positive note, New York Daily News columnist Jack
Mathews
writes:
Like "Curb Your Enthusiasm's" Larry David, who voiced his tongue-in-cheek objections to "Brokeback" in a recent New York Times op-ed piece, I felt that "cowboys would have to lasso me, drag me into the theater and tie me to the seat" to make me watch a pair of range riders steam up a pup tent.
But I've now seen the movie three times (twice with my wife, if you have to know) and it is one of the most devastating Hollywood love stories of all time.
No word on whether Larry David was ever lassoed into the
theater, though.
-- Stephen Miller