January 18, 2006

• WEDNESDAY MOVIES

  Golden Globes 2005

  So fun to watch awards shows but unfortunately on a work night I can’t stay up to the bitter end to see the Best Picture and Best Actor nods, which they always keep for the very last. Here’s a list of winners:

  Best Motion Picture Drama – Brokeback Mountain
  Best Actress Drama – Felicity Huffman in Transamerica
  Best Actor Drama – Philip Seymour Hoffman in Capote
  Best Musical or Comedy – Walk the Line
  Best Actress in Musical or Comedy – Reese Witherspoon
  Best Actor in Musical or Comedy – Joaquin Phoenix
  Best Supporting Actress – Rachel Weisz in The Constant Gardener
  Best Supporting Actor – George Clooney in Syriana
  Best Foreign Language Film – Paradise Now
  Best Director -Ang Lee – Brokeback Mountain
  Best Screenplay – Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana – Brokeback Mountain
  Best Musical Score – Memoirs of a Geisha
  Best Song – A Love That Will Never Grow Old – Brokeback Mountain

  I think it’s pretty interesting that Brokeback Mountain won Best Picture. From reading reactions on other blogs, I see that the majority of folks either aren’t that excited about seeing it or were underwhelmed when they did. I saw a lot of talk about the sex scenes and how they didn’t include expectable foreplay, etc. Also some reaction to the selfishness of the affair between the two men when each had wives and children. IMO, Heath Ledger’s character made it pretty clear from the gate that he was petrified of being found out and was trying to find a more acceptable lifestyle by marrying. He seemed to genuinely love his wife and children but be unable to let go of the real fantasy over years of summer trysts of what might have been if the world was different. It wasn’t all that long ago that “coming out” was unthinkable anywhere, let alone in Wyoming. I thought it was significant that neither character played their role with stereotypical limp-wristed mannerisms. To me all that was far less compelling than the connection on an emotional level between two men used to hard lives with no end in sight. But enough about that. I reviewed it a few days ago already. Kind of wished Heath Ledger would have gotten Best Actor. Philip Seymour Hoffman has already shown he has art film chops. For Ledger, it would have been a big step up to The Show. Maybe some other awards shows coming up will choose him. In the meantime, it may not be your cup of tea but it’s an important step forward in telling some stories that need to be told.
  

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  Deep Thought: “I wish I would have a real tragic love affair and get so bummed out that I’d just quit my job and become a bum for a few years, because I was thinking about doing that anyway.”
  Today I am grateful for: Not arriving at dementia yet (I don’t think)
  Guess the Movie: “ I was having this awful nightmare that I was 32. And then I woke up and I was 23. So relieved. And then I woke up for real, and I was 32.” Answer: Before Sunset, 2004.
  The Forgotten Wounded of Iraq
  By Ron Kovic
  Thirty-eight years ago, on Jan. 20, 1968, I was shot and paralyzed from my mid-chest down during my second tour of duty in Vietnam. It is a date that I can never forget, a day that was to change my life forever. Each year as the anniversary of my wounding in the war approached I would become extremely restless, experiencing terrible bouts of insomnia, depression, anxiety attacks and horrifying nightmares. I dreaded that day and what it represented, always fearing that the terrible trauma of my wounding might repeat itself all over again. It was a difficult day for me for decades and it remained that way until the anxieties and nightmares finally began to subside. (Rest of article here.)

  • 7:20 pm
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