“Brokeback Mountain.” A Brick review. It’s a winner. It’s for mature audiences, mature as in for grown-ups who realize sadness exists as does love and passion. Mature as in people who love “story” and love characters developed in “story.”<\/p>\n
What I haven’t seen, though, is a professional review saying this: “Brokeback Mountain would be a heck of a double-feature with “The Ice Storm.” Oh, scratch that. You see those two in one evening, and you’ll drive off a bridge on the way home.<\/p>\n
But comparing the two Ang Lee pictures would be appropriate, for a pro movie critic. They hit the same years, just about. “Brokeback” starts in 1963 with the guys about 19, but it extends 20 years. “The Ice Storm” is about the early 1970s. The latter’s all over suburban middle class, and the former everyone this month knows is about what’s left of the cowboy career. “Ice Storm” has college-educated characters. Just about everyone in “Brokeback” are high-school dropouts. Both movies examine the mature (as defined lamely above) theme of disillusionment as part of Americans approaching middle age.<\/p>\n
If they were 19 forty years later, Jack and Ennis may or may not be “out,” depending on the part of the country they’re in, but instead of cowboys, they’d be midnight-shift shelvers at their Wal-Mart. Then the children of the couples in “The Ice Storm” would be their age now, repeating those revelations that come to most of us in time, but usually not in time to keep from messing up. -30-<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“Brokeback Mountain.” A Brick review. It’s a winner. It’s for mature audiences, mature as in for grown-ups who realize sadness exists as does love and passion. Mature as in people who love “story” and love characters developed in “story.” What I haven’t seen, though, is a professional review saying this: “Brokeback Mountain would be a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american-culture"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4169,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2013\/02\/bowled-over\/","url_meta":{"origin":5,"position":0},"title":"Bowled Over","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"February 28, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"February flies by, and not just because it's a couple of days shorter than other months. Here in Arkansas the weather at the end of the month is worse than the beginning, marked by the Super Bowl on Sunday the 3rd. Like the other 49 states, prit' near all of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "American Culture"","block_context":{"text":"American Culture","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/american-culture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"First lady Betty Ford tosses football to President Gerald Ford at Bethesda Naval Hospital in October 1974, following her surgery for breast cancer.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Betty-Gerald-Ford-300x207.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":948,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2009\/02\/depressing-news\/","url_meta":{"origin":5,"position":1},"title":"Depressing News","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"February 24, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2009 Ben S. Pollock The news business is collapsing. Lots of other industries are imploding -- banking, autos -- but who can do without loans and cars, while who needs news in this time of peace (yes, it is)? I. News Always Has Been Free, Almost The explanation given\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Life Lessons"","block_context":{"text":"Life Lessons","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/life-lessons\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"hamburger, seems to be a free image. It could be a veggie burger, you just don't know.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/02\/hamburger-300x246.gif?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":433,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2008\/06\/the-storm\/","url_meta":{"origin":5,"position":2},"title":"The Storm","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"June 20, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"NEW ORLEANS -- All morning, we visitors have been referring to Hurricane Katrina, occasionally to the other big one, Hurricane Rita, in the course of the all-day speeches and panel discussions. Instead of two days of workshops, this year's National Society of Newspaper Columnists conference loaded up the teachin' today\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Storm, New Orleans"","block_context":{"text":"The Storm, New Orleans","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/nsnc\/new-orleans-2008\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2641,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2011\/01\/north-east-west-south\/","url_meta":{"origin":5,"position":3},"title":"North East West South","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"January 13, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2011 Ben S. Pollock When teaching (it's been awhile) or just yakking, I find greater utility in broad definitions. News, for example, \"is whatever is new, whatever is different.\" Meaning front-page, top-of-the-hour news. That's where are found recountings of heroism, and more often tragedy. Print and broadcast are front-loaded\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Life Lessons"","block_context":{"text":"Life Lessons","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/life-lessons\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":220,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2006\/07\/ice-is-nice-til-pass-on-gas\/","url_meta":{"origin":5,"position":4},"title":"Ice is Nice til Pass on Gas","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"July 26, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2006 Ben S. Pollock We need a barometer. It will predict when gasoline costs too much. Just under $3 a gallon here in the Arkansas Ozarks. Everyone complains, but while we're driving perhaps more carefully, combining errand trips, topping off the tank, we're not all buying scooters. We're not\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "American Culture"","block_context":{"text":"American Culture","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/american-culture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5354,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2016\/03\/tear-down-mountain-inn\/","url_meta":{"origin":5,"position":5},"title":"Tear Down This Wall, That Wall, The Other Ones","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"March 25, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Mr. Developer, Tear Down This Wall. Pull over the other walls. Haul off the rubble and rebar. Thank you. It's a straightforward request but due a complicated, expensive and apparently years in length answer. Thursday (March 24), I made the request to the city of Fayetteville, Arkansas, that something be\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Body, Home, Street"","block_context":{"text":"Body, Home, Street","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/body-home-street\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Looking northwest at the side of what's left of the Mountain Inn, downtown Fayetteville, Arkansas, March 21, 2016","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/Mountain-Inn-corner-1000x750-0321016JPG-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2288,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5\/revisions\/2288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}