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07 / 12 / 2008
Fantasy Rally: The final Fantasy Rally results are in - we have a winner! See how your team fared or see the Rally GB results.

05 / 11 / 2008
Review: After the gruelling James Bond press junket tour, I bet Daniel Craig could use a Quantum of Solace.

23 / 10 / 2008
Review: Brad Pitt steals the latest from the Coen brothers: Burn After Reading.

23 / 10 / 2008
Review: Simon Pegg learns How to Lose Friends and Alienate People.

23 / 10 / 2008
Review: Ben Stiller directs stars aplenty in Tropic Thunder.

12 / 10 / 2008
Review: A few words on some recent movies: RocknRolla,
Death Race,
Hellboy 2: The Golden Army,
Space Chimps,
Stuck,
The Babysitters,
Starship Troopers 3: Marauder,
Son of Rambow,
Jack and Jill vs the World,
Made of Honor,
Meet Dave,
Doomsday,
Pathology.

15 / 08 / 2008
Review: You can mess with Adam Sandler, but You Don't Mess with the Zohan.

15 / 08 / 2008
Review: Mike Myers tickles some chakras in The Love Guru.

14 / 08 / 2008
Review: Toot and come in, it's The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.

14 / 08 / 2008
Review: You can stop watching the skies now, it's The X Files: I Want to Believe.

31 / 07 / 2008
Review: Batman Began and now continues in The Dark Knight.

24 / 07 / 2008
Review: The Chronicles of Narnia continue with Prince Caspian.

23 / 07 / 2008
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22 / 07 / 2008
Review: Jules Verne never envisaged a 3D version of Journey to the Centre of the Earth.

09 / 07 / 2008
Review: Jet Li and Jackie Chan team up in The Forbidden Kingdom.

09 / 07 / 2008
Review: Will Smith keeps the streets safe and smelling of booze in Hancock.

09 / 07 / 2008
Review: M Night Shyamalan's latest, The Happening.

09 / 07 / 2008
Review: Spanish creepy-creepy The Orphanage.

09 / 07 / 2008
Review: A quick catchup of movies that don't get the full treatment:
Be Kind Rewind,
Street Kings,
What Happens In Vegas,
Superhero Movie,
The Ruins and
Teeth.

08 / 07 / 2008
Review: Bend that bullet Angelina! Wanted.

01 / 07 / 2008
Review: Those cats were fast as lightning - Kung Fu Panda.

24 / 06 / 2008
Review: Don't make Ed Norton angry - The Incredible Hulk.

24 / 06 / 2008
Review: Carrie and Big's wedding, it can only be Sex and the City.

11 / 06 / 2008
Review: Everyone's favourite pot-addicts are back in Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay.

04 / 06 / 2008
Review: Harrison Ford returns in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

04 / 06 / 2008
Review: Tube driver seeks suicidal man in Three and Out.

18 / 05 / 2008
Review: CGI fantasy motor racing in Speed Racer.

18 / 05 / 2008
Review: Your creases will fly away with Iron Man.

18 / 08 / 2005
Sudoku! Have a go at the online Sudoku game.

Plenty more
See the rest of the reviews here.

Brokeback Mountain

Cast: Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Williams, Anne Hathaway, Randy Quaid, Linda Cardellini. Directed by Ang Lee, from the short story by E Annie Proulx. Story: Gay cowboys. Running Time: 2hrs 14 minutes. UK Certificate 15.

Brokeback Mountain is one of those movies that you've heard way too much about before you see it. Knowing a movie has already won awards makes it very difficult to judge objectively. In the case of Brokeback Mountain, it's a powerful story, but not without its faults.

Homosexuality is like eating snails to me. If someone wants to eat snails, they should go right ahead and eat snails, but I'd really prefer it if they didn't do it while I'm around, much less make a movie out of it. It's fair to say that there's no way I'd have seen this movie if I didn't do this web site - but having watched it carefully and winced at the appropriate moments (just in case anyone was watching and got the wrong idea - you know how up-tight us straight folks are), I'm glad I did. To be honest, the gay thing isn't really the driving factor here - although director Ang Lee would probably disagree in a bid to sell more tickets - it's simply a story of forbidden love that could have happened between anyone. The fact that the couple is made up of two cowboys actually detracts from the story, as they manage to overcome their indoctrinated upbringings with virtually no effort at all - they go over to The Brown Side far too readily for my liking, as if they're cosmopolitan students rather than repressed macho figures.

Heath Ledger has had a cracking year, with two superb performances in The Brothers Grimm and Lords of Dogtown and he makes it a worthy hat-trick, comprehensively acting Jake (Jarhead) Gyllenhaal off the screen with another inventive characterisation. The two of them do have some mano-on-mano action, but it's relievingly ungraphic and almost unnecessary. It's the bond between the two characters that makes the atmosphere, so much so that the sex scenes could have been dispensed with completely without losing any of the dramatic impact. It would have lost most of the viewers though, and definitely wouldn't have been winning awards. Yes, call me cynical, but I genuinely believe awards are given on criteria like this, even if it's not entirely a conscious decision. In today's diverse society we're supposed to embrace homosexuality, but we still have trouble with it, even if we can't admit it in public. Just look at the cinema ratings: It's a 15 certificate over here, a 16 in Ireland and R rated in the USA (meaning if you're under 17 you must be accompanied by a parent or guardian). In Sweden you can see it when you're SEVEN and in France it's a U. I can't think of any heterosexual love story with such a spread of ratings.

But I digress. As well as the gay headliner, both characters are also married - Gyllenhaal to Anne Hathaway and Ledger to Michelle Williams. Anne Hathaway has gone out of her way to lose the squeaky clean image she garnered from teen hits The Princess Diaries and Ella Enchanted. Havoc nearly did that for her, but no-one saw that, so she's had to strip off here as well to get noticed. Probably a wise move, as her oppo Michelle Williams, a Dawson's Creek alumnus along with Katie Holmes, is far more convincing - though to be fair she does have a meatier role. A Best Supporting Actress award would not be out of the question, though you have to be a little disappointed with the rumour that she needed the boys to get it on out of shot in order for her to do the Oh-my-god-my-husband's-bent expression properly. If that's true then I'd prefer the award went to someone else. Call me picky.

Brokeback Mountain is indeed a thoroughly recommendable movie. The Wyoming scenery is beautiful and the love story is compelling too. I just can't get past the feeling that it's only hailed as fantastic because two straight Hollywood A-list hunks put their tongues down each other's throats. It isn't fantastic - it's just good - but I suspect it makes no difference what I say. You already knew before you read this whether you were going to go and see it or not, and I daresay the expectation you have, whatever it is, will be fulfilled.

I enjoyed this film: 4/5

I think the average moviegoer will enjoy it: 5/5 - not that I think it's a 5/5 movie, I just think that the people who want to watch it will see it that way.

Testosterone Satisfaction Rating: 2/5 - look the other way during the single-sex encounters and wait patiently for the boobs of both Anne Hathaway and Michelle Williams (click the links for a preview). The gay scenes aren't very graphic, though Heath Ledger does spit on his hand to ease his passage - so to speak.

To enjoy this film you should be: keen to see it.