Bareback Rider

December 26, 2005 by Stan Persky  
Filed under Film / Television

Brokeback Mountain, Ang Lee, director; Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana, screenplay; based on a short story by Annie Proulx; (2005). . If you read the Friday movie reviews in your local newspaper, you already know that director Ang Lee’s controversial contemporary Western film, Brokeback Mountain, which opened a couple of weeks ago, is the “gay cowboy movie.” If you don’t read the reviews, “Brokeback Mountain” is the story that begins with... 
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Biopics: I Say Epicky, You Say Opicky

January 29, 2005 by Stan Persky  
Filed under Film / Television

Oliver Stone, Alexander (2004) Martin Scorcese, The Aviator (2004) Taylor Hackford, Ray (2004) Very occasionally, Hollywood gives its “Best Picture” Academy Award to a film with something on its mind, like Marty (1955), Annie Hall (1977), or A Beautiful Mind (2001). Mostly, though, it prefers to give the award to something epic, say, Gone With the Wind (1939) or last year’s Lord of the Rings (2003). If it can’t get something epicky, it’s willing to settle for something opicky — biographical... 
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