Classic Love Story

Rating: 9/10 (16 January 2006)

Surely, despite the Boondocks column in which Grandpa gets a rude shcok, it is not a spoiler to say that this movie is about gay cowboys. But more that most movies with gay characters, it is not about being gay. It's a story of lovers divided by social obstacles, and has a great deal in common with other stories about a woman and a man divided by race or class or family antagonism or whatever.
Ang Lee has recovered from the nightmare of _Hulk_ to produce a humane, visually apprealing story. Excellent acting, beautiful scenery, strong dialogue, and a compelling story...unless your taste requires exploding cars, there isn't much more you can ask for from a movie.
I notice that a highly unusual number of IMDb 'users' have given this movie a 1. I think that this cannot be because they think that Lee, Ledger, McMurtry et al. have done an incompetent job at the level of, say, Showgirls or Plan 9 From Outer Space. Most of these votes must be from people venting their spite and anger that someone made a movie about this topic--one wonders how many have even seen it. How pathetic is that?