Don't Believe the Hype

Rating: 8/10 (21 January 2006)

Yes, this is a very nice movie. Beautiful scenery, fine directing and shooting, very good acting, interesting drama...but it certainly is not the phenomenal masterpiece everyone is raving about. Plenty of other movies are far superior, but get a tiny fraction of the praise this film got. If the main couple were not gay, I doubt it would have ever gotten out of the underground. Of course, I guess if it takes a gimmick to get a decently made movie into the big theaters for a change, I can not complain too much.) The first half of the movie is a detailed look at the everyday lives of cowboys in the 60's?, and by far my favorite part. The second half is mostly less interesting domestic drama amongst small-town and country folk in the 70's. The actress who plays Jack's wife is very pretty and a good actress, but especially whoever played her daughter when grown up I think is a wonderful actress, and I really hope to see a lot more of her. The actor who played Jack was great as usual and still one of my favorite actors, despite having played Spiderman, though he did a good job even there and I hope he got payed real good for it. There are some very funny and cute bits throughout.
Yeah, I cried.
Anyway, I guess it's a good thing for there to be more non-hetero relationships on screen in general, and it is good to look at things differently, but I can not say that it really did all that much for me. I have much more appreciated other queer depictions, such as Hedwig, and Niel Gaiman's graphic novel A Doll's House (not yet a movie, unfortunately!) Do not believe any rumors of excessive female nudity.)