Brokeback Mountain: The Reviews Are In

This weekend marks an epic moment in film history: Heath Ledger (remember him from this silly animated GIF right here at Waybig last week?) and Jake Gyllenhaal star as gay cowboys in the rave-reviewed Brokeback Mountain. Our ticket’s not good until tomorrow afternoon’s show, but here’s a smattering of the early reviews coming in from across the media:

“Beyond painting a spectacular portrait of the American West and treating issues of gayness and masculinity with intelligence and sensitivity, “Brokeback Mountain” does something many films aspire to but fail to achieve: It convinces you that two people have fallen in love…”– PlanetOut.com

“This moving and majestic film would be a landmark if only because it is the first Hollywood movie to unmask the homoerotic strain in American culture that Leslie Fiedler discerned in his notorious 1948 Partisan Review essay, “Come Back to the Raft Ag’in, Huck Honey”… “Brokeback Mountain” is ultimately not about sex (there is very little of it in the film) but about love: love stumbled into, love thwarted, love held sorrowfully in the heart.”—New York Times

“Brokeback Mountain is the ultimate response to those who think the lineup on cable TV’s Encore Westerns is a tad too homogenized. It’s a heart-wrenching portrayal of unfulfilled Wyoming love, but this time, we don’t mean Alan Ladd and Jean Arthur in Shane… while many of today’s movies don’t really end — you see a splice, and the end credits roll — the capper here is a kick in the gut. It’s an old-style virtue for a film that’s old-style in the best way: unassuming but people-oriented and aiming to endure.”—USA Today

When you’re done absorbing the reviews, check over at MSNBC’s hilarious column on how straight guys can endure the movie with their girlfriends:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10342237/