Good, but not great

Rating: 6/10 (8 January 2006)

I just saw the movie and although I think it is a pretty good movie, I fail to see what is the big huge fan fair of it. I don't think the movie or the even the story line was that fantastic. What am I missing? This is a movie about bi-sexual men who happen to have hooked up sexually and continued to see each other over the course of thirty years. They still dated women, had sex with women and procreated. I never got the feeling that they didn't like women or were not attracted to women. That is where my confusion comes in about "a gay movie". I also believe that "E" was not homosexual, as he had a situation happen in the woods while away from everyone else, he was horny and he took advantage of it. I really believe that if he had never had an experience with Josh would he have had relations with men. Ang Lee did a good job filming and directing this movie. It was not ground-breaking to me, other than to tell a story about men having sexual/romantic relationships in a time when it was taboo.
Other things that were not so great. The death of Josh and the entire shirt symbolism. It could have just been done a little better, it took away from the movie. Also, the move seemed to drag at times, and there just could have been more movement to the film to deal more intrinsically with the topic.
Overall observation: The hoopla is the whole crowd and peer pressure phenomena. One person sees the film, goes crazy over it and people follow suit. The movie is above average, but definitely not the greatest film you will ever see or even on this subject matter.