Brokeback Mountain

I finally watched Brokeback Mountain. I was really curious to watch it simply because of all the hype surrounding it. I still don't know whether the movie will be aired here in the UAE. The censor department or whatever they are called have not made up their minds yet, but if they do decide to show it here, then some "physical contact" and "boobies" scenes will definitely be deleted.

I liked the movie. It's not a "wow, what a wonderful, amazing" movie, but it's a good movie. The scenery is breathtaking, the score is superb, and the acting is very convincing. It must not have been an easy task for Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger to play these roles, but they were good.

The only critique I have is that I actually had a hard time understanding a lot of the dialogue. The heavy southern accent and the almost inaudible mumbling (especially from Heath Ledger...it often sounded like he was talking with cotton balls in his mouth!) made a lot of the movie difficult to understand. Maybe it was the quality of the DVD I had (and no, the English subtitle option was not available).

The most startling part of the movie was seeing Anne Hathaway, of The Princess Diaries fame, actually starring in her first non-miss-goodie-two-shoes role. She really went from one extreme to the other, with a very grown up scene with Jake Gyllenhaal's character (if you know what I mean....refer to the boobies comment above).

Overall, I would recommend this movie, if only for the stunning filmography. And although I usually hate reading a book after watching the movie, I think I'd really like to read Annie Proulx's book. That's if I can find it here.