There are arguments on both sides of this debate. So here is mine.
Do I want my Government to thwart terrorist attacks, saves lives.. I answer a resounding YEEESSS. Do I want them to do it at the cost of our civil liberties.. I scream NO...NO ... NO.....
Let us not forget the old adage " if you give them an inch , they will take a mile"
We only need look back at the early 1900's and the invention of the internal revenue service. A temporary agency to get us out of the depression, and yet here we are in 2006, paying more than ever.
If President Bush really believed that wire tapping is warranted, then why not go ahead and get the appropriate warrants. He has access to a special court, that issues only these warrants. There is no waiting in line, or making an appointment.
With all the other scandals he has been involved in, 9/11, Katrina, outing of a CIA agent, you would think if not him, then at least his people, would have warned him how stupid this decision was.
I can't trust this administration, they have lied and failed to act, too many times.
I guess I can feel thankful, this is his last term.
Sunday, February 26, 2006
Friday, February 17, 2006
Brokeback Mountain - it ain't all that
Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
Brokeback Mountain is that rare thing, a big Hollywood weeper with a beautiful ache at its center. It's a modern-age Western that turns into a quietly revolutionary love story.
100Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Ang Lee's unmissable and unforgettable Brokeback Mountain hits you like a shot in the heart. It's a landmark film and a triumph for Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal.
100The Hollywood Reporter Ray Bennett
Anne Proulx's 1997 short story in the New Yorker has been masterfully expanded by screenwriters Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana to provide director Lee with his best movie since "Sense and Sensibility" in 1995.
100Premiere Glenn Kenny
Lee and company handle the particulars of the tale with the requisite meticulousness and exquisite taste that marks all the director's films.
100San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
Carries a lot of emotional power.
100Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
Brokeback Mountain is a tragedy because these men have found something that many people, of whatever sexual persuasion, never find - true love. And they can't do anything about it.
100The New York Times Stephen Holden
Mr. Ledger magically and mysteriously disappears beneath the skin of his lean, sinewy character. It is a great screen performance, as good as the best of Marlon Brando and Sean Penn.
100Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
Confidently directed by Ang Lee and featuring sensitive and powerful performances by Jake Gyllenhaal and a breathtaking Heath Ledger, this film is determined to involve us in the naturalness and even inevitability of its epic, complicated love story.
100Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
Brokeback Mountain aspires to an epic sweep and achieves it, though with singular intimacy and grace.
100USA Today Mike Clark
It's a heart-wrenching portrayal of unfulfilled Wyoming love, but this time, we don't mean Alan Ladd and Jean Arthur in "Shane."
100New York Daily News Jami Bernard
Gently unfolds into an epic, heartbreaking love story that's far greater than the sum of its parts.
100Newsweek David Ansen
There's neither coyness nor self-importance in Brokeback Mountain--just close, compassionate observation, deeply committed performances, a bone-deep feeling for hardscrabble Western lives. Few films have captured so acutely the desolation of frustrated, repressed passion.
100Empire Staff (Not credited)
The real revelation here is Heath Ledger as the bruised and sometimes brutal Ennis. His tortured secret is the tragedy and the ecstasy of this powerful and moving film, a smart study of relationships that could but can't and never will be.
100Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Brokeback Mountain has been described as "a gay cowboy movie," which is a cruel simplification. It is the story of a time and place where two men are forced to deny the only great passion either one will ever feel. Their tragedy is universal.
100Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
This poignant, wise and subtle picture -- which, yes, happens to be the best movie of the year -- should be approached with humble expectations. Lee's approach to this delicate material is suffused with melancholy, metaphors and small, telling touches that favor subtlety over exclamation points and rough-hewn simplicity over grandiloquence.
100Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
An experience as tender and troubling as any you're likely to get - or not likely, if this subject puts you off.
100The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann
So in all the tumult about this film, the eruption of its subject into wide attention and the consequent revelations about cowboys' lives in the past, let us--without forgetting the American sources of the screenplay--acknowledge the anomaly that the director is Chinese.
Dave gave it a10:
Incredible movie. The end hit me like a punch that knocks the wind out of you. I'm very open minded and have many gay friends, but was still a bit nervous about seeing this movie. If you love good film and are still haven't seen this movie, see it! The romantic scenes are very tastefully done and well acted. After a while you practically forget this movie is about two guys falling in love.
Fred J. gave it a9:
A really great movie.
Wanda M. gave it a10:
This was a amazing movie. I cried my heart out. I was hoping that they ended up together.
paul gave it a10:
This film still haunts me after seeing it for the second time. Beautiful and tragic, what an experience in film making and viewing. The best movie experience I have ever had.
Malcolm H. gave it a10:
Simultaneously epic and intimate. An almost perfectly realized film. But I must remind the naysayers - the aging in the film shouldn't be an issue, don't forget at the end of the movie Jack and Ennis are still only 39 to 40! Wrinkles, paunches and arthritis are not required at 40 years old. One of still fairly youthful.
Can any one movie live up to all the hype this movie is generating. This movie is being touted as the Messiah Movie.. the next coming.
Can one movie change the consciousness of the planet. If it can, is this the movie.
For the sake of argument, let us say this may be the one. Is the movie that will change the world really about 1950's cowboys? Are sweeping vistas, campfires, and sheep the catalysts for the change.
I can not say that I agree with any of the above praises. I do not believe this movie lives up to any of the hype. I believe the hype was inflated on purpose.. a marketing strategy to encourage us to see it.
It worked on me, I do not like westerns or cowboy movies, yet I was compelled to see what all the drama was about.
I was disappointed. I found most of the movie to be dull and boring. I found the dialogue lacking, and because of Heath Ledger's mumbling I was often sitting on the edge of my seat, leaning, straining to understand him. This was very annoying.
People were outraged at the sex in the movie. I also found this less than expected. There is more sex on soap opera's, than there was in this movie. There was kissing and you were led to believe that they had sex. No actual sex scenes were shown or even the imitation of sex.
I did find humor in spots. I do not think humor was intended, and I laughed all by myself. There is a scene the morning after the assumed sex, where Ennis says "I ain't no queer". Isn't this what all straight boys say right after they have fucked you in to unconsciousness. thisd statement is usually proceeded by I've never done this before. Typical, which for me is why it was a laughed out loud, streams of tears running down my face moment.
The second scene that was laugh out loud was the argument in the kitchen between Ennis and his x wife. The wife is confronting him, that she knows what he does because of a note on the fishing pole and calls Jack Twist by the name Jack Nasty.
Again, I was the sole laugher.
Is this a good stand alone movie.. Sure. Does it live up to the critics reviews. I think not. In urban venacular " it was good, but it wasn't all that".
Brokeback Mountain is that rare thing, a big Hollywood weeper with a beautiful ache at its center. It's a modern-age Western that turns into a quietly revolutionary love story.
100Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Ang Lee's unmissable and unforgettable Brokeback Mountain hits you like a shot in the heart. It's a landmark film and a triumph for Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal.
100The Hollywood Reporter Ray Bennett
Anne Proulx's 1997 short story in the New Yorker has been masterfully expanded by screenwriters Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana to provide director Lee with his best movie since "Sense and Sensibility" in 1995.
100Premiere Glenn Kenny
Lee and company handle the particulars of the tale with the requisite meticulousness and exquisite taste that marks all the director's films.
100San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
Carries a lot of emotional power.
100Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
Brokeback Mountain is a tragedy because these men have found something that many people, of whatever sexual persuasion, never find - true love. And they can't do anything about it.
100The New York Times Stephen Holden
Mr. Ledger magically and mysteriously disappears beneath the skin of his lean, sinewy character. It is a great screen performance, as good as the best of Marlon Brando and Sean Penn.
100Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
Confidently directed by Ang Lee and featuring sensitive and powerful performances by Jake Gyllenhaal and a breathtaking Heath Ledger, this film is determined to involve us in the naturalness and even inevitability of its epic, complicated love story.
100Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
Brokeback Mountain aspires to an epic sweep and achieves it, though with singular intimacy and grace.
100USA Today Mike Clark
It's a heart-wrenching portrayal of unfulfilled Wyoming love, but this time, we don't mean Alan Ladd and Jean Arthur in "Shane."
100New York Daily News Jami Bernard
Gently unfolds into an epic, heartbreaking love story that's far greater than the sum of its parts.
100Newsweek David Ansen
There's neither coyness nor self-importance in Brokeback Mountain--just close, compassionate observation, deeply committed performances, a bone-deep feeling for hardscrabble Western lives. Few films have captured so acutely the desolation of frustrated, repressed passion.
100Empire Staff (Not credited)
The real revelation here is Heath Ledger as the bruised and sometimes brutal Ennis. His tortured secret is the tragedy and the ecstasy of this powerful and moving film, a smart study of relationships that could but can't and never will be.
100Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Brokeback Mountain has been described as "a gay cowboy movie," which is a cruel simplification. It is the story of a time and place where two men are forced to deny the only great passion either one will ever feel. Their tragedy is universal.
100Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
This poignant, wise and subtle picture -- which, yes, happens to be the best movie of the year -- should be approached with humble expectations. Lee's approach to this delicate material is suffused with melancholy, metaphors and small, telling touches that favor subtlety over exclamation points and rough-hewn simplicity over grandiloquence.
100Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
An experience as tender and troubling as any you're likely to get - or not likely, if this subject puts you off.
100The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann
So in all the tumult about this film, the eruption of its subject into wide attention and the consequent revelations about cowboys' lives in the past, let us--without forgetting the American sources of the screenplay--acknowledge the anomaly that the director is Chinese.
Dave gave it a10:
Incredible movie. The end hit me like a punch that knocks the wind out of you. I'm very open minded and have many gay friends, but was still a bit nervous about seeing this movie. If you love good film and are still haven't seen this movie, see it! The romantic scenes are very tastefully done and well acted. After a while you practically forget this movie is about two guys falling in love.
Fred J. gave it a9:
A really great movie.
Wanda M. gave it a10:
This was a amazing movie. I cried my heart out. I was hoping that they ended up together.
paul gave it a10:
This film still haunts me after seeing it for the second time. Beautiful and tragic, what an experience in film making and viewing. The best movie experience I have ever had.
Malcolm H. gave it a10:
Simultaneously epic and intimate. An almost perfectly realized film. But I must remind the naysayers - the aging in the film shouldn't be an issue, don't forget at the end of the movie Jack and Ennis are still only 39 to 40! Wrinkles, paunches and arthritis are not required at 40 years old. One of still fairly youthful.
Can any one movie live up to all the hype this movie is generating. This movie is being touted as the Messiah Movie.. the next coming.
Can one movie change the consciousness of the planet. If it can, is this the movie.
For the sake of argument, let us say this may be the one. Is the movie that will change the world really about 1950's cowboys? Are sweeping vistas, campfires, and sheep the catalysts for the change.
I can not say that I agree with any of the above praises. I do not believe this movie lives up to any of the hype. I believe the hype was inflated on purpose.. a marketing strategy to encourage us to see it.
It worked on me, I do not like westerns or cowboy movies, yet I was compelled to see what all the drama was about.
I was disappointed. I found most of the movie to be dull and boring. I found the dialogue lacking, and because of Heath Ledger's mumbling I was often sitting on the edge of my seat, leaning, straining to understand him. This was very annoying.
People were outraged at the sex in the movie. I also found this less than expected. There is more sex on soap opera's, than there was in this movie. There was kissing and you were led to believe that they had sex. No actual sex scenes were shown or even the imitation of sex.
I did find humor in spots. I do not think humor was intended, and I laughed all by myself. There is a scene the morning after the assumed sex, where Ennis says "I ain't no queer". Isn't this what all straight boys say right after they have fucked you in to unconsciousness. thisd statement is usually proceeded by I've never done this before. Typical, which for me is why it was a laughed out loud, streams of tears running down my face moment.
The second scene that was laugh out loud was the argument in the kitchen between Ennis and his x wife. The wife is confronting him, that she knows what he does because of a note on the fishing pole and calls Jack Twist by the name Jack Nasty.
Again, I was the sole laugher.
Is this a good stand alone movie.. Sure. Does it live up to the critics reviews. I think not. In urban venacular " it was good, but it wasn't all that".
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)