Gone Fishin' - Movie Reviews

Well, Jake Gyllenhall can never complain that this household never watches his movies. Donnie Darko is probably in our Top 5 movies (even own the DVD), and Spiderman was probably the best superhero...oh wait, that's the other guy who had intimate relations with Kirsten Dunst. Cider House Rules, great movie...nah, other guy too...Probably a little known fact - Kirsten Dunst spent some of her youth in New Jersey and attended Ranney School with a high school friend of mine.

Anyway, back to Mr. Gylllllllenhallll. Maybe by happenstance, we watched a couple of his movies this weekend.

Jarhead - Adapted from the book of the same name, Jarhead tells the story of Tony Swofford, a Marine trained to be a sniper and then shipped off for the first Iraq war. Trouble is, ain't much need for snipers when a) you got planes that can blow up everything for miles ahead of you and b) you're fighting a war with no real purpose in the first place. I did read the book before I saw the movie, and the movie gets several of the details right. However, while it's interesting to read an account of a bored Marine, I can't say that it was as interesting to watch a movie about a bored Marine. However, the parts that made me laugh in the book made me laugh in the movie, and Jamie Foxx (who seemingly comes and goes with no rhyme or reason in this movie) turns in a pretty good performance. If you want a good first Iraq war movie, see Three Kings. Overall, movie gets a 3.5/5.

Brokeback Mountain - So now if I tell the wife I'm going "fishing", she's going to think that I'm going to meet up with some guy I herded sheep with 4 years ago so we can go "catch some trout". People joke about and are turned off about the fact that this is a gay cowboy movie. Let me dispel one myth...This is a gay cowboy movie...crap. But how about this...if you're THAT turned off by the fact that two men might show affection towards each other beyond the ol' slap on the ass so commonplace in our professional sports, there's about 3 minutes total (across 3 scenes) of the movie I recommend you skip. This movie is well done and really worth watching. Heath Ledger and Mr. G have a tryst, move on with their lives, and then wrestle (sometimes literally) with the fact that two cowboys, especially one who's less intelligible than Sling Blade, probably can't live a comfortable existence. The emotion felt real, the jilted wives felt jilted, and every awkward situation was exceedingly awkward. Unlike Capote, the soft omnipresent guitar actually adds to the movie, and I think this movie does for Wyoming what the Lord of the Rings did for New Zealand. Overall, 4/5.

Happy fishing!