The actor: Heath Ledger The character: Ennis Del Mar The film: Brokeback Mountain The line: “If you can’t fix it, Jack, you gotta stand it.” “Who knows if we shall ever see them again?” Morrel said, wiping away a tear. “My dearest,” said Valentine, “has the count not just told us that all human wisdom… Read More Top 100 American Movie Quotes of the 21st Century: #1
The actor: Jake Gyllenhaal The character: Jack Twist The film: Brokeback Mountain The quote: “I wish I knew how to quit you.” So the problem with “I wish I knew how to quit you” is twofold. I say “problem” like I wasn’t going to guarantee it a spot on this list. Even if it’s not… Read More Top 100 American Movie Quotes of the 21st Century: #74
For each movie in the top 100, I’ve written a question to answer. (It would get very, very boring for me to have to write some variation on “boy howdy, you’ll never believe how good this movie is” one hundred more times.) There’s no exact sentence or word count I’m holding myself to here, but… Read More Top 250 American Movies: 41-50
The following is from my series of Oscar Best Picture rankings, as well as my strongly worded suggestions for what should have won from among the nominees. For an introduction to the project, click here. For a way to vote on some Oscar-related ideas, click here. If I’ve written a review on any of the… Read More Better than the Oscars: 90-86
The following is part of an overview of the top 100 American narrative fiction feature films, from my perspective. For an introduction to the project and an index of other entries in the series, click here. For a list of more than 800 films which I considered for the top 450 and my eligibility qualifications, click here.… Read More Better than AFI’s Top 100: 70-66
Dir. Ang Lee. Starring Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Williams More than a decade later, Brokeback Mountain is undoubtedly the best American movie of 2005 and, purely from back of the napkin work, probably one of the best American movies of the aughts. It’s a movie of striking bravery simply for the topic at hand; in 2005,… Read More Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Seeing Things Secondhand 