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| Here's the problem with this movie. by jeep 12/19/2005, 12:43pm PST | ||||
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| I know all about it already, I actually read the script a long time ago, so I'm not going to waste my time when I haven't seen anything else released in the last 2 months. Here was my problem with the script, then:
Imagine replacing Jake Gyllenhaal's character with a hot [insert ethnicity here] girl. Gabrielle Union, Aishwarya Rai, Ziyi Zhang or whoever. Granted it breaks some of the later stuff, but just look at the structure of the story with a guy and girl as the leads. Sure the wife still cries, but do you even go watch it? I sure as hell don't. Even if you put Keira Knightley in there, I don't see it. Yeah sure guys having sex on film makes me cringe, that's the price of growing up Irish Catholic. So I find some way to neutralize my own biases to be able to make a decision whether or not it's a movie I want to see. If this movie makes it possible for other mainstream films to have gay lead characters, fine. If it means some noir film or scifi or heist movie or war movie or crime story or whatever is now a bit more complex because this dynamic is allowed, then they'll be better for it and I'll remember it was this one that made it ok for Hollywood. If it becomes a new tool for other directors to use to tell an interesting story, great, even though directors like Atom Egoyian never had much of a problem. I suppose it has to start somewhere, and Ang Lee is certainly a good storyteller, but the Romeo and Juliet stories are done to death for me. This is sort of like old punk music to me, even if I don't care for the source material, hearing the effect it has on other genres certainly makes it a worthwhile endeavor. So I'll see the next generation and the next, where the movies have to individualize themselves beyond the obvious and too-easy derivations from the source material. I'll find things to enjoy that emerge from the complexity of having multiple sources, rather than sit through another "Romeo and Juliet plus X" retread. /jeep/ |
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