Brokeback Mountain (2005) - Ang Lee

From the director of Life of Pi comes one of the highest grossing films with LGBT protagonists of all time… How to Get Oscar Noms by Two Straight Guys!

Kidding aside, I fell ridiculously in love with this movie. Now I’ll discuss why it’s problematic.

I’m joking! *clears throat* In Wyoming in 1963, Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) are hired to herd sheep for the summer. Jack’s job is to guard the sheep all night from coyotes in their remote sleeping area in the mountains, and Ennis’ job is to… take care of base camp? A bottle of booze later, their loneliness gets the better of them and after two seconds of cuddling they’re in crazy frantic love-making mode.

I knew they were gonna have sex the second Jack tried to help clean Ennis’ wound from falling of his horse. Nothing is more intimate than cleaning a wound!!

But sadly the summer of cuddling in denim ends, and Ennis marries Heath’s wife IRL the white Michelle Williams, Alma. They have two daughters together. Jack tries to come back the next summer, but the homophobic rancher knew about their little secret and refuses to hire him. So he moves to Texas and marries his Love and Other Drugs (2010) costar Anne Hathaway!

When Jack and Ennis reunite after four years, the chemistry is electric!

Don’t see how two closeted men in the 1960s would make out outside, but it’s cute.

They begin to have seasonal trips up to Brokeback Mountain for “fishing.” Alma knows better, and over the years her marriage to Ennis deteriorates, ending in divorce.

During one trip, Jack suggests they get a cute little ranch together and live happily ever after and it’s the actual cutest thing. But Ennis has some weird childhood memory of his town brutally murdering a gay man and he refuses. Stupid Wyoming.

The film is seeped in toxic masculinity and explores how it negatively impacts their relationship. Poor Jack just wants to be with Ennis forever and ever.

He’s the sensitive one. Ennis is more of a… wear denim and punch guys on the Fourth of July kind of guy.

And so they fight and fight over the course of a 20 year relationship.

Jack is so sensitive even with his creepy mustache.

I knew the movie had great performances by the main four actors, Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Williams, and Anne Hathaway, but what I didn’t know is the great tertiary characters that fill Brokeback Mountain’s awesome cast.

Kate Mara (House of Cards, The Martian) plays Ennis’ grown up daughter.

Linda Cardellini (Scooby Doo, Freaks and Geeks) plays Ennis’ girlfriend for a short period of time after his marriage.

Anna Faris (everything great) plays a random girl who is a friend of Jack’s wife. A gif of her in the movie doesn’t exist so here she is playing basketball in her underwear with Chris Evans.

Brokeback Mountain is a hugely successful mainstream film with a love story between two men. It won Best Picture and Best Director at the Golden Globes, BAFTAs, Critics’ Choice Awards, Producers Guild Awards, and Independent Spirit Awards. It lost Best Picture at the Academy Awards to Crash.

So much of the LGBT film we have today is in part due to Brokeback Mountain’s success. Despite it’s limiting view of same sex love, how it is shameful and private and ultimately doomed, it remains a true accomplishment of cinema for its time.

Oz The Great and Powerful (2013) - Sam Raimi

In 2010, Disney released a Tim Burton remake of the 1951 classic, Alice in Wonderland. The film was a big special effects spectacle with Johnny Depp and actually turned out to be a sequel instead of a remake. The film grossed $1,024,299,904 during its run and became the 13th highest grossing film of all time (in between Star Wars Episode 1 and The Dark Knight). Disney executives were scratching their heads… what EXACTLY went so right with this film that it made a billion dollars off of a $150-$200 million budget? To give you an idea of how surprising this was… the original Alice in Wonderland made $3 million (although it was 1951). Was it the special effects? The built-in audience from the original classic? The Johnny Depp-Tim Burton-Helena Bonham Carter trio? Regardless, Disney got started on a similar production to take one of the most classic films of all time and turn it into a special effects-packed box-office sensation.

I’ll admit I haven’t seen The Wizard of Oz (1939) in a LONG time. But the magic of one of the most beloved children’s book adaption films of all time is very much a part of my childhood. I had big expectations and Disney had ginormous ruby-red shoes to fill. This wasn’t like their remake of Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz was an MGM film. Although the books are in the public domain, Disney STILL could not purchase the rights to the ruby-red slippers and the design of the Emerald City, both MGM’s copyrighted property. They had to keep lawyers on the set to make sure nothing was going to cause problems, which made for a very timid approach to the idea of praising and reviving a classic film.

So the story follows Oscar (known as Oz, played by James Franco) as he leaves Kansas forever and becomes the man behind the curtain we know him as from our childhoods. And James was very… James Franco about his role. Sam Raimi, the director (who also did the Spiderman trilogy and a terrible movie called Drag Me To Hell) wanted Robert Downey Jr. as Oz, and then Johnny Depp, and got neither. Franco approached him and convinced him that he could pull off the role of the Wizard.

He did alright. Obviously I wasn’t going in expecting Johnny Depp. I was going in expecting James Franco, the laid-back, “whatever” attitude with an obsession towards gay culture and earning masters degrees. Oz starts out as a failing magician in a traveling circus in Kansas. He is a stereotypical con-man, and woos ladies through deception and egoism. His performance felt a lot like this.

But James Franco is not the reason to see this film, so it shouldn’t be a deterrent either. The film has AMAZING special effects, on par with Alice in Wonderland as well as Avatar. My one problem was that I saw it in IMAX, so whenever the camera panned it felt like the world was spinning, and my eyes got pretty tired. But the still-shots are beautiful, and the CGI is impressive. Here’s a river fairy, a random creature that has no significance to the film.

The film made a nice nod to the “dream” aspect of The Wizard of Oz, where people from Dorothy’s life are transported into Oz as magical forms of their real life counterparts. Joey King (New Girl, Ramona and Beezus) plays a handicapped girl who gets upset when Oz’s magic can’t heal her, and then in the land of Oz she is a girl made of china whose legs are cracked until Franco heals them with some glue. It’s a nice little reference and I promise it’s less corny than it sounds.

Also Zach Braff plays Oz’s right hand man in Kansas, and then he is a loyal flying-monkey-friend in the land of Oz. 

Now down to the stuff I didn’t like. Okay. So the film seemed like it had an amazing cast. I could get past seeing Franco on screen for 100 out of the 130 minutes, because the leading ladies were Michelle Williams (My Week With Marilyn, Shutter Island), Mila Kunis (Family Guy, Friends With Benefits, Black Swan, Ted) and Rachel Weisz (The Mummy). I was really excited to see them in this huge film. But they all sort of felt miscast in this movie. Michelle Williams is an amazing actress in My Week With Marilyn, but her acting falls flat on the 1-Dimensional, All-Good, Bubble-Traveling character of Glinda The Good Witch. 

Mila is talented as well, but as a comedic actress. This film challenged her to be a lot more emotional, and it did not pay off. She looks awkward and nervous in most of her scenes.

I just felt like yelling to her:

But the fact that they all felt awkward in their roles I could tell was not their fault entirely. It was most definitely the script’s. Every single scene, the dialogue was like something out of a student written high school play. I am not kidding, these exchanges happened.

Franco: How bad is this wicked witch?
Kunis: She poisoned her dad so that she could take the throne.

Franco: (dead serious) That is pretty bad.

Franco: (during the tornado in the hot air balloon) I’m not ready to die! I promise if I survive this, I’ll change, I’ll be a better person! (two minutes later, survives) Thank you! I won’t let you down.

Actually the only good lines in the movie were given to Joey King, because her China Girl character was so rambunctious and innocent.

But, looking back, everything about The Wizard of Oz was corny, and we still love it today. Perhaps it is just the tired dialogue that made it feel like so little effort was given to the script. Did ALL of the money really go to the Casting and Special Effects departments? It was very not Disney of them. 

I’m gonna be honest, the dialogue was bad. But what made up for it was the story and the special effects. Despite some terrible lines, you can get through the whole film being impressed by the originality of the plot. Even though Judy Garland would probably look like this if she saw it:

You should still see it, just for the spectacle.