BetterMost, Wyoming & Brokeback Mountain Forum
Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond => Brokeback Mountain Open Forum => All Things Brokeback: Books, Interviews and More => Topic started by: Front-Ranger on July 03, 2025, 10:05:13 am
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Today, the New York Times published the readers' choice version of this list. Brokeback Mountain, which came in at #17 on the critics' list, was #30 on the readers' list. It's at:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/movies/readers-movies-21st-century.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20250703&instance_id=157771&nl=the-morning®i_id=91026593&segment_id=201153&user_id=8b5ad6a133ffcce0b9fda3ccfb15b213 (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/movies/readers-movies-21st-century.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20250703&instance_id=157771&nl=the-morning®i_id=91026593&segment_id=201153&user_id=8b5ad6a133ffcce0b9fda3ccfb15b213)
and you can download a picture of the ones you've watched or want to watch. Here's mine.
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I couldn't see the list without creating an account which I don't want to do.
Nevermind, it's not important.
But I can't believe Barbie is on that list!!!! Crappiest movie I've ever seen!
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Sorry about that. I'm interested in why you didn't like Barbie. Was it the plot, the acting, the general premise of it? Or?
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Sorry about that. I'm interested in why you didn't like Barbie. Was it the plot, the acting, the general premise of it? Or?
It was everything about it, really. I found it incredibly stupid, immature, uninteresting, childish, candyflossy. It was a total waste of my time. Sorry I can't be more specific than that, I have blissfully forgotten most of the details of it.
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The beginning reminds me of "Gone With the Wind" sort of. Remember how Vivien Lee was flouncing around in her curls and petticoat, while Mammy admonished her to eat before the picnic? And how the boys fawned over her? The antebellum days on the plantation and how it contrasted with the later scenes during the war.
"Barbie" was like that, with the perfect doll waking up in her dream house, with the airhead dialogue, the fake water and the idealized beach, and the endless dancing and partying. You could see that Barbie's life wasn't preparing her for what was to come. I loved the visual tricks like the clothing ensembles that froze in the air, the magical journey from Barbieland to the real world using all modes of transport from a camper to a space ship. For me, the culmination was the dream dance of the Kens in the manner of a Busby Berkeley musical, and the subsequent battle on the beach. At some point, the story became more about Ken than Barbie and when Barbie really came into her own was when she saw the vulnerability in Ken and helped him find himself.
I also liked the idea that the Barbies were put under a spell and it was the manifesto of the mother and daughter who came from the real world that broke it. The movie was part fable/fairy tale and part coming of age a la Holden Caulfield. The screenplay was very original and should have won an Oscar at least. I liked that Greta Gerwig worked with Mattel and they didn't quash her creativity and wit. And the music was great!
I can understand how skeptics might have gone to the movie just to see what all the fuss was about since it was so successful. And many people were probably disappointed. A multimillion-dollar movie about a doll? But it is not unprecedented. "Pinocchio" comes to mind. "AI" was about a robot and there are countless movies about animals. Some of them have been serious works of art. "Barbie" for me, straddles the line between comedy and drama. It came out at a time when I needed some serious escapism and it fit the bill splendidly.
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I keep forgetting that I want to read the book Killers of the Flower Moon. :(
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I've heard it's good. The protagonist in the book was the FBI agent, who was just a minor character in the movie. From what I recall, Scorsese was going to stay true to the book but after he talked to the descendants of the people who were victimized he changed the script around to focus on them. But he didn't go far enough. He made the protagonist a clueless white guy, nephew of a rich landowner, who married into the tribe. The movie has some large flaws, but it is well shot. And, as I recall, it was long, over three hours. There was a scene with a fire that seems to go on and on.
Back to "Barbie," I got such a kick out of what they called horses: "man extenders." :laugh:
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It was everything about it, really. I found it incredibly stupid, immature, uninteresting, childish, candyflossy. It was a total waste of my time. Sorry I can't be more specific than that, I have blissfully forgotten most of the details of it.
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I LOVED Barbie. It was visually creative, well plotted and had a feminist message (albeit a pretty elementary one, but unfortunately there are some pretty elementary people out there). I love Ryan Gosling in any context and in this case I loved his song and dance number (and possibly loved his rendition in the Oscars broadcast even more), I admire Greta Gerwig's originality here and in other movies. I loved it much more than Oppenheimer, for the record, and more than a lot of movies that win Best Picture and more, IIRC, than the other nominees that year.
Oh well, Sonja, at least you and I agree on one movie.
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I keep forgetting that I want to read the book Killers of the Flower Moon. :(
I'm wondering if the book is better than the movie. The movie was OK but dragged a bit, and I've heard lots of good things about the book and David Grann in general.
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The beginning reminds me of "Gone With the Wind" sort of. Remember how Vivien Lee was flouncing around in her curls and petticoat, while Mammy admonished her to eat before the picnic? And how the boys fawned over her? The antebellum days on the plantation and how it contrasted with the later scenes during the war.
"Barbie" was like that, with the perfect doll waking up in her dream house, with the airhead dialogue, the fake water and the idealized beach, and the endless dancing and partying. You could see that Barbie's life wasn't preparing her for what was to come. I loved the visual tricks like the clothing ensembles that froze in the air, the magical journey from Barbieland to the real world using all modes of transport from a camper to a space ship. For me, the culmination was the dream dance of the Kens in the manner of a Busby Berkeley musical, and the subsequent battle on the beach. At some point, the story became more about Ken than Barbie and when Barbie really came into her own was when she saw the vulnerability in Ken and helped him find himself.
I also liked the idea that the Barbies were put under a spell and it was the manifesto of the mother and daughter who came from the real world that broke it. The movie was part fable/fairy tale and part coming of age a la Holden Caulfield. The screenplay was very original and should have won an Oscar at least. I liked that Greta Gerwig worked with Mattel and they didn't quash her creativity and wit. And the music was great!
I can understand how skeptics might have gone to the movie just to see what all the fuss was about since it was so successful. And many people were probably disappointed. A multimillion-dollar movie about a doll? But it is not unprecedented. "Pinocchio" comes to mind. "AI" was about a robot and there are countless movies about animals. Some of them have been serious works of art. "Barbie" for me, straddles the line between comedy and drama. It came out at a time when I needed some serious escapism and it fit the bill splendidly.
Wow, you've really put some serious analyzing into it, Lee!
I've seen Gone with the wind exactly once, and that was about 40 years ago, so I'm afraid I don't remember the scenes you describe, or much of it at all.
As for Barbie, I didn't see any of the things you liked and describe so well. I disliked it too much to put any serious thought into it at all. I found it totally empty and braindead. But I find it very interesting that you were able to see and read into it so much that I was totally oblivious of.
I had no desire to watch it at all, but I was talked into it by a friend (no names! let's just call him Doc P 8)) who had seen some reviews that made him interested.
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Oh well, Sonja, at least you and I agree on one movie.
Yup, and that's why we're here in the first place ;D
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I think if you go into Barbie thinking it's going to be a silly lightweight movie about dolls that you, an adult with sophisticated taste, will have no interest in, that's probably what you'll see. I'd read a fair amount about it beforehand, including praise from critics, and having watched other movies involving Greta Gerwig I trusted her to do something clever with it because that's just her. Her other movies have been interesting, and heck, she did clever things with Little Women, and that had been a respected classic for more than 100 years that had already been done to death including one with my favorite actor Christian Bale. But GG found a new way in. Later, my older son told me he'd liked Barbie and he 1) does not play with dolls and 2) usually has a pretty gritty but sophisticated appreciation for movies (he generally likes complex very indie movies like, some of which I find too depressing to watch, like Requiem for a Dream, and he also liked Brokeback Mountain).
As for Gone With the Wind, I think that's pretty much an American thing. In grade school I read the book about 12 times and same with the movie, when I was growing up in Minnesota -- far from the Deep South. Everyone I knew or saw at that age was white. So I didn't think much about the book's racism. My dad did and scorned it, but I didn't know why exactly; later I learned he had gone through the Deep South with the Army during peak Jim Crow and was horrified at what he saw. So he was very pro-civil rights and I think was offended for that reason.
Anyway, I loved GWTW and knew both book and movie very well. I went to the Margaret Mitchell Museum in Atlanta while waiting for a flight, and it was really fascinating -- a lot of echoes of the book in her life. And the origin story: some talent scout from a major publisher was touring the South trying to find other great writers (I guess because of the success of Eudora Welty and William Faulkner) and Mitchell, an Atlanta journalist/socialite, was chosen to lead him around her city. By that time, she'd written like a three-foot pile of typed pages of GWTW (the finished book was 1,039), but according to legend she wasn't going to even tell the scout she'd written anything until she heard one of the other socialites say, "That silly Peggy Mitchell thinks she's written a book" or something like that, so she gave it to the scout before he left. He called her when his flight landed and told her he wanted to publish it. It is by far the most successful book ever by a Southern writer, and maybe by any American writer, period (since that would exclude JK Rowling).
GWTW is more or less canceled at this point among American progressives, and understandably so. It's a sympathetic tale about the Confederacy and slave owners, and you can't get much more un-woke than that. But Mitchell actually was LESS racist for her milieu at the time -- she not only gave to organizations that helped Black people but her book treats them like real people with three-dimensional characters, which most books by white authors did not and is why Hattie McDaniel won an Oscar for her role in the movie (but was not allowed to sit with the other stars during the ceremony, I guess).
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Anyway, I loved GWTW and knew both book and movie very well. I went to the Margaret Mitchell Museum in Atlanta while waiting for a flight, and it was really fascinating -- a lot of echoes of the book in her life. And the origin story: some talent scout from a major publisher was touring the South trying to find other great writers (I guess because of the success of Eudora Welty and William Faulkner) and Mitchell, an Atlanta journalist/socialite, was chosen to lead him around her city. By that time, she'd written like a three-foot pile of typed pages of GWTW (the finished book was 1,039), but according to legend she wasn't going to even tell the scout she'd written anything until she heard one of the other socialites say, "That silly Peggy Mitchell thinks she's written a book" or something like that, so she gave it to the scout before he left. He called her when his flight landed and told her he wanted to publish it. It is by far the most successful book ever by a Southern writer, and maybe by any American writer, period (since that would exclude JK Rowling).
Good grief. Is my memory really that bad, or have I never recommended the biography Southern Daughter: The Life of Margaret Mitchell, by Darden Asbury Pyron (there's a name for you!)? If you haven't already read it. She did write a lot of her life and family history into that novel. (E.g., she didn't make it home from college in time before her mother died of the flu. What does that sound like?)
I guess I wouldn't have too much trouble finding a copy on DVD. I used to watch just the first half on videotape. I felt the end of the first half was emotionally satisfying (to me anyway), and I didn't like the second half anyway. And Leslie Howard was so dreadfully miscast. ...
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Good grief. Is my memory really that bad, or have I never recommended the biography Southern Daughter: The Life of Margaret Mitchell, by Darden Asbury Pyron (there's a name for you!)? If you haven't already read it. She did write a lot of her life and family history into that novel. (E.g., she didn't make it home from college in time before her mother died of the flu. What does that sound like?)
Yes, the museum mentioned that, too. Also talked about her admiration for people with "gumption." I had a couple of ideas for essays/articles after seeing the museum, but I knew any piece of writing that wasn't mostly focused on decrying the racism would never get published these days. Unless the Daughters of the Confederacy have a magazine or something.
There's a book called "The Wrath to Come: Gone with the Wind and the Lies America Tells." I haven't read it, but it sounds kind of interesting. I think that kind of angle is more publishable.
I hadn't heard of the book you mentioned, but I'll look it up.
I guess I wouldn't have too much trouble finding a copy on DVD. I used to watch just the first half on videotape. I felt the end of the first half was emotionally satisfying (to me anyway), and I didn't like the second half anyway. And Leslie Howard was so dreadfully miscast. ...
The first half certainly is less unpleasant. I mean, war and slavery are of course unpleasant, but the interpersonal relationships in the plot just get kind of increasingly depressing in the second half. I don't think the first half could have stood on its own, though, because Rhett and Scarlett reunite in the second half.