BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN-- BEST FILM OF THE YEAR

I'm still floored from having seen BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN this afternoon. The story was beautifully told by Annie Proulx in a 1997 issue of THE NEW YORKER. I'm kind of thinking it's the best movie I saw this year-- or at least way up there with THE CONSTANT GARDENER and CRASH... better than BEFORE THE FALL.

I usually avoid romances like the plague so maybe I'm getting sappy in my dotage. But this one was more than a romance. It was a real no-frills, soul-mining slice of the human condition. I don't recall hearing so many people weeping in a theater in my life, not a cathartic weeping either, just bitter and desolate. And deep.

I saw SYRIANA a few days ago. The politics is right but the editing destroyed the movie. It's a B. BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN is an A+. I think it's the kind of film everyone-- minus maybe the ones who are waiting for Armageddon-- can love, although I already heard that Faux News is attacking it, which should be an indictation of how good and how powerful it is.