Monthly Archives: June 2025

Movie Reviews

Elio – Review

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It’s becoming more and more difficult for an original idea to break through in the increasingly competitive world of animation.  Once a rarity, sequels have become the driving force of animation studios, with more and more of the top brands relying on established franchises in order to keep the lights on.  But at the same time, none of these franchises would exist had one original film managed to connect with audiences.  So, there has to exist a balance between studios investing in their future by coming up with the next big idea for a movie, while at the same time still continuing to milk their franchises for what their worth.  Sadly, the balance is becoming more heavily favored in the sequel department, and that’s partly because those are the films that generate the strongest results at the box office.  But the flooding of the marketplace with established franchises has made it difficult for something original to stand out, and the number of them that do is becoming far smaller each year.  This is even true with what is regarded as the best animation studio of them all; Pixar Animation.  All of their highest grossing films are sequels, including Inside Out 2 (2024), Incredibles 2 (2018), Finding Dory (2016) and Toy Story 4 (2019), and there more on the horizon, including another Toy Story.  But, they are a studio that still tries to put out something original into theaters, not just in order to plan for the future, but to also allow themselves a chance to be experimental as well.  They have a lot more leeway than other animation studios in this regard, mainly due to the strength of their brand name which is a selling point in itself.  But, circumstances in recent years have made even this selling point difficult for them.  After Toy Story 4 hit theaters and generated a handsome total at the box office, Pixar had an upcoming slate that was going to be primarily originals; a bode of confidence in their ability to deliver on the strength of their brand alone.  But, unfortunately the Coivd-19 pandemic ruined their plans.  Onward (2020) only got two weeks into it’s run before movie theaters everywhere closed and Pixar would not have anything seen on the big screen for another 2 years.

In that meantime, three films of theirs were dropped onto streaming; Soul (2020), Luca (2021), Turning Red (2022).  And when it finally came time to return to the big screen, Pixar unfortunately were re-entering the race with a bum horse called Lightyear (2022).  Essentially, all of the brand value that they had in the previous decade was undercut by their parent company’s decision to have them drive up their streaming service’s membership instead.  And this was despite the positive critical response that these movies received; Soul even went on to win a couple of Oscars.  These movies were finding an audience thankfully, but their absence from the movie theaters was affecting the brand’s selling power as well.  People were just not being drawn to theaters anymore because they had to see the new Pixar movie.  This was evident by the weak opening weekend numbers of Pixar’s next film, Elemental (2023).  The movie thankfully managed to stay afloat thanks to strong word of mouth, but even still it was far from Pixar’s peak performance.  But then came a sequel to the studio’s rescue; Inside Out 2.  People figured that the sequel to the award winning 2015 original would do much better at the box office, but I’m sure few imagined just how well it would do.  The movie became Pixar’s biggest moneymaker ever both at the domestic and worldwide box office.  It’s unfortunate that it had to be a franchise film that turned around Pixar’s fortunes, but at the same time Inside Out 2 was still made with the high quality animation and storytelling that has become a bedrock of the studio.  With a big win in their column now, Pixar is hoping that it will have strong downhill effects for their follow-ups.  Originally, their newest film, Elio (2025) was supposed to precede Inside Out 2, but considering that it’s production was delayed a bit by the strikes in 2023, it was decided to push the film a full year and let Inside Out 2 carry the slack for the year.  It may have worked to Elio’s benefit because now they can ride the crest of the wave of it’s predecessor’s huge win.  The only question is, is Elio another positive step in the right direction for Pixar, or is it another flop waiting to happen that can’t carry the weight of Pixar’s valuable brand.

Elio is another in a long line of coming-of-age stories that have been central to Pixar’s body of work.  A young little boy named Elio (Yonas Kibreab) has recently lost his parents in an accident and now has to live under the care of his Aunt Olga (Zoe Saldana), an Air Force major responsible for running a program that tracks space debris.  While spending time with her on the base, Elio wanders into an exhibit that details the history of the Voyager 1 spacecraft and how it has explored deep into outer space, sending a message from Earth to distant worlds within the cosmos.  Blown away by all this, he wishes to explore the cosmos himself.  A couple years later, he has devised a plan to get himself abducted by aliens.  His obsession has left him isolated from his community, and estranged from his stressed out aunt.  Things come to a head when Elio ends up using the satellites on the base to send out a message to outer space in the hopes that someone will hear him.  This incident leads Olga to put Elio in a youth camp where he’ll be trained to be more disciplined.  But, while trying to stay out of the wrath of bullies at the camp, Elio ends up finding out that his message was received.  An alien spacecraft arrives and beams him light years away to another world.  He soon finds himself at a space station that operates like a intergalactic United Nations, and they are seeking new worlds to join their ranks, including Earth.  With the help of a super computer named Ooooo (Shirley Henderson), he’s given a universal translator that helps him communicate with all of the Alien ambassadors present there, including Ambassador Questa (Jameela Jamil), Ambassador Tegmen (Matthias Schweighofer) and Ambassador Helix (Brandon Moon).  There’s only one problem, they are all under the impression that Elio is the leader of Earth.  Complicating things even more, a war lord Emperor named Lord Grigon (Brad Garrett) is also threatening the council of the Communiverse if they don’t honor his membership.  In order to fit in and continue his charade, Elio volunteers to speak with Lord Grigon on his dreadnought ship, but he soon learns he’s out of his league and becomes imprisoned.  On the ship, Elio meets Grigon’s young son Glordon (Remy Edgerly), who may be his ticket out of trouble.  Is Elio able to fit in with this weird and often dangerous alien world, or will he learn that he needs to make things right on Earth first.

Elio is the first directorial effort of Pixar veteran after Adrian Molina after his co-directing work with Lee Unkrich on Coco (2017).  It’s easy to see that coming-of-age stories are something that he’s drawn to as a storyteller as there are quite a few parallels between the two movies.  Both involve an adolescent boy with big dreams getting a chance to visit a fantastical world where he’s able to live out his fantasy; but along the way they realize that their dreams also clash with reality and it makes them confront something about themselves that challenges their viewpoints.  All of this isn’t to say that Elio is directly copying Coco beat for beat; it just shows that Molina seems to work comfortably with this kind of narrative.  And indeed he does make Elio’s story a wonderful and engaging one.  Elio will indeed be a crowd pleasing movie for many people.  It’s funny, colorful, and even has a good heart that hits some powerful emotional beats.  I’d say the one thing that works against the film is that it isn’t terribly original either.  It does cook with all of the Pixar movie ingredients that we all like and uses them well, but it all comes together in a meal that feels perhaps a tad bit familiar.  Elio isn’t quite as groundbreaking in it’s concept, as demonstrated with it’s similarities to Coco, and visually it is borrowing a lot of inspiration from a lot of things that we’ve already seen done in other Pixar Animation movies.  Is it just me, or does some of the designs of the Communiverse station feel like they were pulled out of the world of Inside Out.  With all that said, everything is still done well in the movie.  It may be formulaic, but the movie doesn’t suffer too much from that.  I for one was still finding myself entertained throughout.  But you can definitely tell when the movie was falling back on already tread ground when it was struggling to find it’s way.  Oddly enough, it’s the Earthbound stuff that was where the movie was finding it’s most inspired moments.  I especially loved the way they dealt with what Aunt Olga was going through while Elio was off on his adventure.

The movie’s greatest asset overall is the character of Elio.  He’s certainly not the first young protagonist in a Pixar movie, and he’s actually part of a recent trend of the studio focusing on adolescent stories.  Elio comes to us after the likes of Miguel from Coco, Luca from Luca and Meilin from Turning Red, but he’s still able to stand out amidst all of them.  The thing that makes the character of Elio so enjoyable to watch in the film is that the filmmakers aren’t afraid to make him a bit of a problem child.  There are a lot of similarities between him and Lilo from Lilo & Stitch (2002), and that’s not a bad comparison at all.  Elio is essentially a nice kid, but he also has a bad temper and is a bit of a habitual liar as well.  The movie also makes a strong point that this obsession he has had with exploring the universe has made him withdrawn and alone, which is an interesting character flaw to give to a young character like him.  Elio’s journey is much more than getting the chance to explore the universe; it’s also about coming to understand that having a myopic obsession becomes a roadblock to your maturity as a person.  The movie thankfully never shames Elio for being a bit of a weirdo.  But it does confront Elio with the fact that he does need to grow up in order to be a better person.  When he is taken to the Communiverse, he realizes very quickly that his dreams have done little to prepare him for real world situations.  It does the coming-of-age trope very well in this regard, and the many layers of Elio’s character help to make the story resonate.  I have a feeling that many kids are going to find the character relatable, and the message that Pixar is sending with the movie is one that is worthwhile for young viewers.  It’s okay to dream and be a free spirit, but also have a sense of your responsibilities to those you love and the world you live in.  All the while, Pixar does a great job giving Elio a winning personality that makes him feel both animated but also real at the same time.  I especially like the fact that he not only has come up with his own language (which is a very kid thing to do) but he also figured out the correct grammar in that language as well.  His voice, provided by a talented young actor named Yonas Kibreab, also brings a lot of warmth and humor to the role.  You know when Pixar is working well with it’s storytelling when they can make yet another child protagonist in their long line of movies still feel wholly unique and different.

The remainder of the cast are more of a mixed bag.  The one drawback of having such a strong main character in the movie is that his development kind of takes away from all of the other secondary characters in the story.  Elio’s Aunt Olga perhaps suffers the most in available screen-time, because for the sake of building up the middle act of the movie, her character needs to be sidelined.  That being said, she does come across as a fully rounded character herself.  It’s helpful that she’s voice by newly minted Oscar winner Zoe Saldana, whose adding yet another prime role in her body of work for Disney, following appearances in the Guardians of the Galaxy and Avatar franchises.  Her vocal performance hits the right marks with showing Olga’s frustrations with all of Elio’s bad behavior as well as her desire to do right in raising him up in the absence of his parents.  The alien characters also are a mixed bag, as many of them don’t really stand out given the short amount of run time we spend with them.  One of the stand outs is Brad Garrett as Lord Grigon.  Garrett is a veteran of many different Pixar films, including playing Bloat in Finding Nemo (2003) and Gusteau in Ratatouille (2007), and he brings his comically bassy voice to yet another memorable character in one of their films.  I like the fact that his vocal performance is able to find range between menacing and comical without making the shifts feel out of character.  It’s a character that could’ve easily turned one note, and thankfully Brad Garrett is a veteran of the medium to where he can make the character a lot more multi-faceted.  Newcomer Remy Edgerly is also a standout with his hilariously upbeat performance as Grigon’s young son Glordon.  The contrast between Glordon’s more monstrous appearance (kind of like a mini version of the sand worms from Dune) and his hyperactive childish personality is especially fun to watch, and the movie gets a lot of humorous mileage out of the character.  Edgerly also has strong chemistry with Elio’s voice actor Yonas, and the interaction between the two is a definite highlight of the movie.  And in the Pixar tradition, the strength of the cast is not in the names on the marquee but rather by how well the actor fit their role.  Zoe Saldana is perhaps the biggest name in this cast, and she’s not even the main character.  Everyone is perfectly suited for their roles in the film, and it makes for another great Pixar cast of characters.

The film also has a strong visual sense too, even though a lot of it does feel derivative.  Pixar has never faltered when it comes to their visuals, even on some of their lesser films, and Elio continues their winning streak in this department.  I especially like the contrast that the movie delivers with the Earthbound moment and the celestial ones.  The Earth scenes feel natural with a muted color palette.  Then once the aliens come to “abduct” Elio, the palette begins to pop.  It’s a lot like the shift found in The Wizard of Oz (1939), though no sepia was used this time.  While the visual motif of the Communiverse feels perhaps a bit too close to the organic looking fantasy-scape of Inside Out, it still had a lot of beauty to it as well.  It’s also cool to see the work put into making all of the aliens unique in their designs. There aren’t a lot of repeating alien types in those scenes, which tells you that Pixar allowed their artists to go wild with their imaginations, and most of it does make it on the screen.  The movie definitely gives the story a very adventurous feel, surprising us at every corner with all the stuff we are about to see.  And while there is a lot of familiarity to a lot of the sci-fi tropes in this movie, many of them are fun send-ups of those cliches as well.  What they do with cloning in this movie is especially imaginative, and it leads to some of the best laughs in the movie.  In many ways, I feel like this movie pays homage to a lot of kid-centric sci-fi movies of the 80’s and 90’s, like Flight of the Navigator (1986) and Explorers (1985) and helps to modernize those kinds of imaginative adventures for young audiences living today.  At the same time, it does have the same heart-string pulling moments that have become a hallmark of Pixar.  While the movie didn’t leave me misty eyed like the ending of Coco, the film does hit some emotional moments that I’m sure will warm the hearts of audiences both young and old.  Also, I especially dug the music in this movie, provided by Rob Simonsen.  It’s got a techno futuristic beat to it, but also it also hits those emotional moments very well, reminding me a lot of the Oscar winning work of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross on the Soul soundtrack.  Overall, another extremely well crafted film from Pixar Animation.

It’s too early to tell just yet how Elio will be received.  It will not be anywhere near the record-breaking box office of Inside Out 2, and early indicators suggest it may actually struggle out of the gate.  The hope is that Inside Out 2’s success may have rebuilt the brand prestige to Pixar, but that will only be determined by Elio’s ability to stand on it’s own as a follow-up.  There’s no doubt that Pixar still has the creative drive to deliver a worthwhile original film, but it’s going to be hard to convince audiences of that in this current animation market.  Even now, the box office is dominated by not one but two live action remakes of classic animated movies; Lilo & Stitch and How to Train Your Dragon.  One positive that may work in Elio’s favor is that Pixar films are known to leg out well past their opening weekend.  This was true with Elemental, which overcame a weak opening weekend to turn into a modest success at the box office.  And all of those films that opened on streaming instead of in theaters have since gone on to become some of Pixar’s most popular recent films.  Hopefully audiences will discover Elio over the course of the summer and if they don’t come in droves on opening weekend, hopefully word of mouth will keep it around for a long while.  As far as Pixar movies go, I think it stands very well in contrast with some of their best work.  I wouldn’t say it’s one of their all time greats (which is becoming an increasingly high bar to clear), but it’s definitely in the upper half of their filmography.  The only thing that holds it back from a more perfect score is that a lot of it is formulaic and falls back on the familiar too many times.  But, everything is still done extremely well, so there isn’t too much to complain about.  It’s got one of their best main characters ever and has a story that still has a lot of charm, humor and warmth to it.  And it should be said that we need to root for more movies like it, especially in an animation industry that is increasingly reliant on franchise appeal.  There needs to be more fresh ideas in the animation market, and these new ideas need to be nurtured through audience interest.  That’s how we can get a vibrant and bustling animation market back to not feeling like it’s not a cash grab anymore.  Definitely see Elio if you can in a theater and keep looking up at those stars.

Rating: 8.5/10

Editorials

Cowboys in Love – Brokeback Mountain at 20 and the Impact it Has Had on Queer Rights in America

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It is really quite interesting looking at a movie like Brokeback Mountain (2005) in the context of the 20 years since it’s release in theaters.  For a lot of things, it was a pivotal film for many different things.  It solidified director Ang Lee as one of the industry’s greatest filmmakers, earning him his first Oscar for directing, a landmark as the first Asian filmmaker to win that prestigious honor.  It was also a crucial film in the budding acting careers of Jake Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway and Michelle Williams.  It was also a major touchstone in the all too brief body of work for actor Heath Ledger who sadly would be lost to us in a short couple of years after his appearance in this film.  But, above all else, Brokeback Mountain stood as a monumental step forward for queer themed movies in Hollywood.  In the 20 years since this movie came out, there have been many social progressions in queer representation in cinema, with the presence of queer characters and storylines no longer being niche, but rather a natural part of the fabric of the culture.  But, 20 years ago, things were quite different, and Brokeback Mountain stood out much more as a provocative statement in it’s time.  Over the years, we’ve seen attitudes change, and it puts Brokeback into a different frame now in retrospect.  Does it still resonate with a culture that has seen so much change in 20 years, or is it becoming more of a relic of it’s time.  There are many ways to dissect Brokeback Mountain as a work of cinema, but it’s place in queer cinema is where it has stood out the most.  It certainly wasn’t the first movie centered on queer themes to be made, nor even the first mainstream film to center on queer characters.  But it perhaps was the most profound statement made in it’s time about how Hollywood as a whole wanted to deal with queer rights in society which was to be fully supportive of it.  And that was crucial as the fight for queer rights in America were reaching a breaking point.

One of the  most provocative things about Brokeback Mountain was that it was telling an overtly queer story in a genre that typically was associated with hyper masculinity; the Western.  The movie was adapted from a short story written by American author Annie Proulx.  It covers the story of two cowboys named Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist who are hired to herd sheep in a grazing range near the titular Brokeback Mountain in Wyoming.  Out in the middle of nowhere with only each other for company the two form an attachment which eventually turns into sexual desire.  After the weeks long assignment ends, the two men go their separate ways.  They both find new lives and jobs, get married and have children.  But, there’s always that nagging draw in the back of their minds about the time they spent alone at Brokeback Mountain.  They eventually reunite, and sneak away on camping trips which cover for their romantic flings.  Over time, this secretive arrangement they’ve made for themselves takes it’s toll on their relationship as well as on their marriages.  They know that if their secret gets out, it’s more than just public shame for them; in certain parts of the country it also means death.  For the sake of their sanity and what’s left of their relationships with their broken families, they part ways for good.  Years later, Ennis learns that Jack did in fact run afoul of the wrong kinds of people who looked down on their love, and it leaves an empty place in his heart now with no one else to share his secret love with.  Annie Proulx wrote her story as a reflection of what she observed in rural North America.  She would spot lonely men in country bars who often appear to be looking at the other men, but had to put on a rugged exterior in order to throw off suspicion.  She didn’t know for sure what these men were hiding, but it gave her the inspiration for writing about cowboys who had to hide their secret homosexual desires behind the aesthetic of a rugged outdoorsman, as she stated herself in an interview, “I watch for the historical skew between what people have hoped for and who they thought they were and what befell them.”

Her short story was acclaimed when it was first published and immediately garnered the attention of screenwriter Diana Ossana.  Ossana sought Annie Proulx’s approval to adapt the story into a feature script, which Proulx agreed to despite reservations about whether it could be done.  While Ossana was an accomplished writer in her own right, she also had a writing partner on this screenplay that would be crucial for the adaptation; acclaimed writer Larry McMurtry.  McMurtry was very much the godfather of modern Westerns with an impressive body of work that included dozens of novels and short stories.  He’s perhaps best know for his Lonesome Dove series, which was turned into an acclaimed TV mini-series starring Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Duvall.  Movies that were based on his novels have also become classics, including neo-Westerns like Hud (1963) and The Last Picture Show (1971).  McMurtry and Ossana had collaborated on a few novels before and they had a great rapport together.  Larry loved the story that Ossana brought to him with Brokeback Mountain, and he had the Western bona fides to give it that genuine rugged American cowboy flavor.  They completed their screenplay almost a year after the original publication of the story in 1998, but the film would languish in development for a couple years.  Hollywood was still hesitant to invest in a provocative and unapologetic story about gay love, especially as the conservative Bush administration was coming into power.  New Queer Cinema icon Gus Van Sant expressed interest in the script for a while, with the intent of casting Matt Damon and Joaquin Phoenix in the roles of Ennis and Jack.  That eventually fell through as Gus became more intent on filming his Harvey Milk biopic project instead.  Eventually, producer James Schamus at Focus Features decided to take a chance on the film, and he handed it over to his long time collaborator Ang Lee.  Lee was an interesting choice to tackle this project, as he was very versatile filmmaker.  In between this and his Oscar nominated martial arts epic Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), Lee was just coming off his failed attempt at a Marvel super hero movie, Hulk (2002), proving that he was open to making any kind of movie regardless of genre.  It wasn’t Lee’s first attempt at a queer themed storyline, which was 1993’s The Wedding Banquet, but it would be his first attempt at a Western.  Still, Brokeback Mountain had extraordinary luck in not only having a team of prestige writers and filmmakers in their corner, but with Focus Features involved they were getting the backing of a major studio as well.

Brokeback Mountain was released at a very crucial time in American society.  We were entering a hotly contested debate over the matrimonial rights for gay and lesbian couples in the United States.  In 2004, Massachusetts became the first US state to recognize same-sex marriage as a legal right for it’s citizens.  This set off a firestorm from the religious right, saying that it was an affront to “traditional marriage,” and they began to push back on this groundbreaking advancement in gay rights.  Unfortunately for many in the queer community, the anti-gay right wing had the political muscle to get push back.  Republican president George W. Bush and his administration used this as a wedge issue in their re-election campaign and were pushing for more bans on same-sex marriage across the country.  Sadly, the majority of states did ratify these bans into law, including deep blue California with their controversial Proposition 8.  There was even a move to write a ban of same-sex marriage into the Constitution with a “traditional marriage amendment.”  This was the flashpoint that Brokeback Mountain was brought into; a moment where the debate over same-sex marriage was the primary focus of the American “culture wars.”  In a way, this was both a blessing and a curse for the movie.  One, it was a prestige film that was going to garner more attention because the subject it was tackling was very much a focal point of the cultural conversation at the time.  But, it was also going to become the poster child for this same era of conflict, and become the target of the same backlash that the queer community was facing during this time.  The movie would be the talk of the town, but also the focal point of a debate that it may not have been built for.  Regardless, the movie premiered to critical acclaim when it first released in the Fall of 2005, and it was for the longest time seen as the clear front runner in the Oscar race for that year.  It’s eventual loss to Crash (2005) of course would set off another firestorm of it’s own.

The Oscar controversy aside, Brokeback Mountain would have a more lasting effect on the industry that did lead to profound change not just in Hollywood, but in the culture as a whole.  With a solid box office and substantial collection of awards to it’s credit, Hollywood was finally seeing that queer themed films were actually quite valuable and worth investing in.  This was helpful for Gus Van Sant’s previously mentioned Milk (2008), which became an Awards season success just a few short years later.  But it wasn’t just with prestige films that we were seeing this change happen.  The stigma of queer representation in movies became less and less of an obstacle and more of a feature of the industry.  Gay characters were popping up more and more on the silver screen and on television, and not just as a stereotype there to be made fun of.  The same evolution was also happening across the country, with a backlash starting to grow against the backlash to queer rights.  The incoming Obama administration took a much different approach towards the LGBTQ population.  While initially playing things down the middle, then Vice President Joe Biden stirred the conversation again by rightly pointing out how absurd these same-sex marriage bans were.  Eventually the administration embraced the idea of decriminalizing same-sex marriage, and California’s Prop 8 was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, thereby nullifying all bans on the books and making it legal in all 50 states.  How much Brokeback Mountain had a hand in this change is uncertain, but the movie certainly put focus on the conversation that was desperately needed, and perhaps helped to strengthen the resolve of Hollywood to no longer ignore this very vital community in the culture at large.

It is a much different world now than it was back when Brokeback Mountain was first released into theaters.  Attitudes towards same-sex relationships have certainly changed.  The stigma around same-sex marriage is almost completely gone, with now a vast majority of Americans having a positive opinion about it, with only the most rabid religious fundamentalists having any issue with it today.  Even still, there is still a lot of people out there trying to silence and erase queer voices in media.  The Trump administration in particular has courted many people intent on rolling back queer rights into his government, while also hypocritically proclaiming himself to be an ally for the queer community.  The times have changed, but a movie like Brokeback Mountain faces a challenge in trying to remain a relevant factor in this conversation.  Does it hold up in these changing times.  One thing that has negatively effected it’s place in queer cinema is surprisingly the way it deals with the relationship between it’s two characters.  One of the ways that Hollywood has dealt with garnering sympathy for the rights of queer people in society is to turn their stories into tragedies.  It does play into the underdog aspect of wringing sympathy from the viewer towards the plight of this persecuted community, but it does also send the wrong message to people who are still struggling with their identity.  This is what a lot of people today identify as the “kill you gays” trope, where a gay character is often doomed in the narrative as motivation for the plot.  Queer people don’t deny that the hardships of their struggle for rights need to be documented, but they also believe that these stories should also be balanced with stories of affirmation and triumph as well.  The fact that Brokeback Mountain ends on such a downer may be crucial for it’s own story, but what kind of message does it send to a young viewer still struggling to come out to see that queer relationships often end in heartbreak or tragedy.  It’s perhaps why much more queer themed movies today try to show more triumphant stories about love and adversity than the tragedies that often flavored their presence on the big screen before.  It also helps that many more of these movies are coming from a more insider perspective, made by queer filmmakers for the purpose of being inspirational.  Annie Proulx, Diana Ossana, Larry McMurty and Ang Lee are all well-meaning in telling this story, but they are also coming at it from an outsider perspective, which comes across as being more about pity than anything else.  It’s a good thing that we are moving beyond movies like Brokeback Mountain and presenting queer characters and storylines that don’t have to be marked by tragedy in order to be successful.

It works much better to look at Brokeback Mountain on it’s own merits as a story about love blossoming in the unlikeliest of places.  Ang Lee’s involvement serves well here, because he is never once trying to thrust the message of the movie to the forefront.  He presents the film as an unexepected love story framed within the aesthetic of the American West, and how that contrast plays out.  There’s no cinematic flourish to the love-making scenes in the movie; they play out in a very realistic way, with both men not really knowing exactly what to do in the situation.  There’s a naturalistic flow to Ang Lee’s direction, with him playing the scenes out as honest to life as possible.  It’s not a titilating movie or a preachy one either.  He’s concerned first and foremost with the lives of these characters, and how the forces of society are weighing down on them.  It helps that his actors approached the material with the same kind seriousness.  The film’s most standout performance, however, belongs to Heath Ledger.  Ledger, who had been a rising star in Hollywood for some time, was finally given the oppurtnity to play a role with great emotional depth, allowing us all to see what he really was capable of as an actor.  And we saw the making of a superstar with this performance.  Ledger’s performance as Ennis del Mar is a total transformation, showing emotional depth and command over a character that is truly impressive.  You also don’t even feel like he’s acting, as he just embodies this character wholly.  It’s through his performance that we especially feel the schism between the way a man like him presents himself publicly, with a stoic cowboy exterior, and how he feels internally with his desire to embrace the man he loves.  Jake Gyllenhaal’s performance is a bit showier and doesn’t quite stand up as well as Ledger’s, but the chemistry between the actors still works.  The real surprise though is Michelle Williams as Ennis’ lovelorn wife Alma.  The actress, who up to that time was most well known for the primetime soap Dawson’s Creek,  was finally given the chance to act in a film where she could really show her dramatic chops, and she has since become one of Hollywood’s most celebrated and awarded actresses.  Sadly, Heath Ledger was unable to see the legacy of his performance play out after his untimely death in 2008.  But there was one positive outcome of his work in this movie that still literally lives on to this day.  Both Ledger and Williams fell in love during the making of this movie, and they had a daughter together named Matilda who was born in 2005, right when the movie was hitting theaters.  Now 19 years old, Matilda is carrying on the torch of her late father and keeping his memory alive.

It’s undeniable that Brokeback Mountain is a pivotal film in the history of queer cinema, but it’s also a good thing that Hollywood has also moved past it.  As queer themes have become more mainstream in movies not just on the outskirts of Hollywood, but by the actual studio system itself, the more provocative films of the past now look like time capsules of a different time period, when things were not so great.  But, that also doesn’t mean that these films should be forgotten either.  We need to still see where we once were to know how far we have come.  Brokeback Mountain was made to make a statement at a crucial time when it almost looked like we were about to enshrine discriminations against same-sex relationships into the Constitution itself.  With gay marriage now not just the law of the land, but also embraced by the vast majority of Americans, the statement made by movies like Brokeback now seem quaint and irrelevant.  But, complacency often leads us to forgetting the importance of our hard fought for rights and it can lead to an erosion of those rights over time if we are not careful.  That’s why movies like Brokeback Mountain are still important, because it reminds us of the struggle and what it took to get where we are as a community.  When it first came out, Brokeback Mountain was undeniably provocative and stirred a conversation worth having.  As a young twentysomething closeted gay man when this movie first came out, I too struggled with how to respond to it.  I shamefully tried to dismiss it too, running away from my own feelings because the movie was very much showing me the struggle that came with being queer in America.  But over time, I saw why the struggle was necessary and I was able to accept who I am without fear, and in turn, I accept the movie much more now as a cinematic milestone.  I acknowledge that I am a better man today, and while I still have some reservations about the movie (particularly with it’s tragic gay tropes), I do now wish to celebrate it for what it did for queer representation in cinema.  Back then, some of us wished we could quit Brokeback Mountain, but now with the world once again challenging our rights in the queer community, we need this movie and the many more films of the Queer Cinema movement to inspire us to fight for a better future again.

Collecting Criterion

Collecting Criterion – My Own Private Idaho (1991)

The road to get us to the point where mainstream acceptance of same-sex relationships took many different paths, one of which was the art of cinema.  It can definitely be said that the struggle is still not over and is in fact getting bad once again for the LGBTQ community, but there is solace in knowing that we as a society have persevered through this before and will do so again.  It helps to look back and see how the Gay Rights Movement managed to evolve over the years by looking at the films that defined it.  In the span of a lifetime, queer themes in movies went from being nearly hushed into oblivion to being accepted as mainstream by the whole of Hollywood.  One of the big turning point moments came in the 1980’s, a time when the queer community faced some of their biggest challenges.  It was the era of the AIDS epidemic that ravaged it’s way through the LGBTQ community, and with it came fierce backlash from the Reagan Era rise of the Religious Right.  And yet with all that hardship in their way, brave voices rose up and demanded to be heard.  In the face of unimaginable bigotry, including at the highest levels of government, queer activists made their voices heard and through significant and bold actions that demanded the attention of the general public, they managed to win support to tackle the scourge of AIDS and gain a sense of dignity that they had long been denied.  While the mainstream of Hollywood largely steered clear of queer issues out of fear of backlash themselves, there were filmmakers in the independent space that were eager to put queer stories on the big screen.  And in turn, queer themed movies would help to revolutionize the indie film market in kind.  This rise of new independent movies that addressed and spotlighted the LGBTQ community in the late 1980’s and early 90’s became known as the New Queer Cinema movement, or the Queer New Wave according to some.  Much like the other avant garde art cinema movements of the past, Queer Cinema intended to present a new vision of queer representation on film.  It would be a movement that would encompass many different genres of cinema, but would be geared primarily towards challenging the accepted heteronormality of classic Hollywood and pushing cinema into addressing sexuality and gender in a more head on way.

The Criterion Collection has included a number of movies that helped shape the New Queer Cinema movement.  One of the most noteworthy is the groundbreaking documentary, Paris is Burning (1990, Spine #1018). which examined New York City’s drag-ball scene.  This documentary, shot mostly in the midst of the 80’s, was a dramatic window into a vibrant Gay and Trans cultural movement which ultimately found it’s way into the mainstream, influencing mega stars like Madonna by inventing the concept of Voguing, and also the idea of ‘throwing shade” at someone.  Other noteworthy New Queer Cinema movies that made it into the collection also includes Cheryl Dunye’s The Watermelon Woman (1996, #1184) and Gregg Araki’s Totally F***ed Up (1993, #1233).  But not all movies that are classified as part of the New Queer Cinema movement are made by filmmakers that have exclusively made queer themes a major part of their filmmaking style.  One such filmmaker is Gus Van Sant.  The Portland, Oregon based filmmaker has been an icon of the independent film community, but his film output is not primarily within the Queer Cinema scene.  Today he is probably most well known for his Oscar nominated work on Good Will Hunting (1997), which is very much not a queer themed movie; at least not textually.  But he has addressed queer issues in his movies, owning to the fact that he is an out and proud gay man himself.  And some of his earliest movies were indeed integral to the formation of the New Queer Cinema movement.  Sant’s debut feature, Mala Noche (1985, #407) has been added to the Criterion Collection, but it was with his thrid feature film that he made a significant jump in his esteem as a filmmaker, and helped to shed a spotlight on the New Queer Cinema in a big way, giving it the mainstream recognition that got Hollywood to finally notice that this was more than just a niche, underground movement.  That film, My Own Private Idaho (1991, #277) not only was a monumental step forward for queer representation on the big screen, but it would go on to be a highly influential film over the years that followed in how it depicted queer relationships in cinema.

My Own Private Idaho is a uniquely told story, combining many different inspirations into one.  It’s both a neorealist look at the life of street hustlers living on the fringes of society as well as an avant garde visual poem, and even an adaptation of Shakespeare at times.  The film revolves around a street hustler named Mike Waters (River Pheonix) who tries hard to get by selling himself for sexual favors with often lonely older clients, but unfortunately his episodes of narcolepsy has made this difficult for him as well.  Living off the streets is made better thanks to the support of his community of fellow hustlers, including Scott Favor (Keanu Reeves), his best friend.  Scott is different from the other hustlers because he is there by choice rather than circumstance.  He has a lifeline in the fact that he is the son of the mayor of Portland, and is entitled to inherit a fortune once he turns 21.  But, he has rejected his father’s high society life in favor of a life living day by day on the streets.  They make their home squatting in an abandoned apartment complex in Downtown Portland, which is lorded over by an older hustler named Bob Pigeon (William Richert), or Fat Bob as they affectionately call him.  After the police raid the apartment complex, the community of hustlers scatters and has no place to stay other than on the streets.  In this aftermath, Mike resolves to return to his hometown in Idaho in search of his long lost mother, and Scott agrees to help him in this new adventure.  On the journey there, they run into a German businessman named Hans (Udo Kier), who is far more frank and honest about his homosexuality than these two American boys are.  It leads Mike to confess that he has stronger feelings towards Scott than just being a friend, but Scott rebukes him, saying “I only sleep with men for the money.”  They end up learning that Mike’s Mom left Idaho many years ago to go to Italy, which then takes the duo all the way to Rome.  Unfortunately, their search is fruitless there as well, and Scott ends up abandoning Mike after falling for a local Italian girl.  Quite some time later, Mike has returned to the streets in Portland, and he sees Scott again, this time living the high life after inheriting his money.  When the street hustler gain loses their mentor Bob suddenly, they hold a funeral for him defiantly in the same cemetery that Scott is burying his own father in.  And by looking across at each other, the two former friends clearly see what divides them as they know what they now consider home.

The movie is certainly one that will leave many divided.  It’s loose narrative is one that is definitely built more around vibes than anything else, and it may be alienating to those who want a clearer throughline of a story.  But with My Own Private Idaho, Gus Van Sant is wrapping his arms around a lot with this movie, and there is a lot of poignancy there.  One of the best ways to view the film is seeing it through the eyes of it’s protagonist, Mike Waters, and the unique way he experiences reality due to his narcolepsy.  There are gaps in time that affect the way he sees the world, and that’s why there are dramatic jumps made throughout the narrative.  Van Sant does a lot of experimental storytelling here, with the film jumping from sometimes almost documentary like style, such as the parts where the street hustlers are telling their life stories in an almost interview like way, to flights of fantasy like the image of a barn being dropped from the heavens onto an empty road.  But perhaps the most jarring addition to the film’s structure are the few moments when it is literally turning into a performance of Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part One.  The intention is clearly to equate Scott Favor’s character with that of Prince Hal from the play, and how he would ascend to the Throne of England to become Henry V.  The character of “Fat Bob” Pigeon is also a clear parallel with Falstaff, and the movie not only makes these equations obvious to the viewer, the film even takes lines directly from the plays themselves.  Originally, My Own Private Idaho started out as a modern day set adaptation of Shakespeare, but as the script evolved, the straight adaptation was parred down.  This might have been because Van Sant became more interested in exploring Mike’s story-line, which makes the Shakespearean elements even more interesting.  Where Henry V’s rejection of his past Bohemian ways is seen as a noble inevitability, here Scott’s actions are seen as more of a betrayal.  Through Mike’s point of view, Scott choosing to accept his affluence is denial of who he really is; a sign of him running back into the closet as it were.  This parallel’s Mike’s own awakening towards accepting his own feelings, which is portrayed in a more positive light.  Through this, Gus Van Sant is showing a more frank exploration of affection between two males that wouldn’t have been allowed in Hollywood before, and is defiantly stating that it’s better to embrace who you are rather than shield yourself in a “normal life.”

The greatest strength that this movie has are the performances of the two leads.  You’ve got to remember that this was the early 90’s, when homosexuality was still seen as a taboo in most of the culture.  If there was a portrayal of a queer character on screen, it was either as a target of ridicule or an individual doomed to tragedy.  But, one of the big things that remained a roadblock to getting more queer voices represented on the screen was the stigma that still remained around portraying a queer character.  Many still believed that it would hurt one’s career to take on a role as a queer character, because people thought it would stick to them and lead to a loss in their celebrity status.  Performers who actually were LGBTQ also had to live in the closet in order to have a career in show business as well.  It was only through some much needed, groundbreaking films like this one that the stigma was finally broken down in the late 90’s and into the new millennium, to the point now where an actor coming out of the closet is no longer tabloid material but rather just an accepted norm.  Both Keanu Reeves and River Phoenix deserve a lot of credit for legitimizing movie roles like these.  River Phoenix was one of the most celebrated young actors of his era, already an Oscar nominated actor before turning 20, and he was well on his way to superstardom.  Keanu was very much heading in that direction as well, having gained a fandom through Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989).  Upon reading the script, Keanu said yes to the role right away, un-phased by the queer themes of Van Sant’s script.  Initially, River’s agent tried to prevent him from seeing the script, but Van Sant sneakily got around this by letting Keanu personally deliver the script to River’s home.  Of course, River said yes as well, and Gus Van Sant luckily got his two most sought after actors to bring his characters to life.  And both River and Keanu perfectly show how ridiculous that long held stigma against queer roles in movies was.  Here were two heterosexual, cisgender actors who not only brought honesty and compassion into their roles as these queer characters, but it also showed that it wouldn’t negatively affect their careers either.  Sadly, River Phoenix would not live long after to see the effect that his performance had, but the fact that Keanu’s career is still going strong to this day is proof that this movie was nothing but a net positive for him as an actor.

My Own Private Idaho was a big step up for Gus Van Sant when it came to his visuals.  Here he got to shoot it beautiful 35mm film stock, which was a far cry from the 16mm black and white graininess of Mala Noche.  And Idaho is a very color saturated film, showing off a vibrancy that was a trademark of his early work.  Idaho still hasn’t received a 4K UHD release from Criterion yet, but for the blu-ray edition it was given a new 4K transfer that was approved by Van Sant and his director of photography, Eric Alan Edwards.  The new transfer was made from a digital scan of the original camera negative straight from the Warner Brothers Archive.  Considering that this is a film barely over 30 years old, it was fairly in good condition already, but this new transfer makes it look absolutely immaculate.  Apart from some of the style choices of the early 90’s, you would swear that this was a movie made within the last couple years as it has held up very well visually.  Some of the artsier moments in the movie shine the most in this restoration, including the faux freeze frame shots that Van Sant uses for the sex scenes.  What also stands out are the outdoor vistas.  The opening shot of River Phoenix standing alone on a country road in Idaho, which was actually shot out in Eastern Oregon as Mount Hood is clearly visible in the scene, particularly shines with all the natural beauty in fine detail.  The Criterion disc also feautures two optional DTS certified master soundtracks.  One is a re-creation of the original film’s 2.0 surround sound track, while the other is a re-mixed 5.1 alternative.  The film is not quite a bombastic aural experience for the most part, with most scenes playing pretty quiet, so either track is fine for your viewing experience.  You might get more of an oomph from the 5.1 option with regards to the movie’s many needle drops, and also from the cityscape ambiances of Portland and Rome in the movie.  Overall, Criterion has done a fantastic job presenting this film in a way that does justice to the filmmaker’s intention and how it was meant to be seen in it’s original release.

The bonus feautures are bountiful as well, per usual for Criterion.  Most of the bonuses are carried over from the orginal 2005 DVD release of the film from Criterion, and thankfully they are deserving of re-releasing them in this blu-ray upgrade.  There’s no audio commentary track, but Gus Van Sant does get to speak about the film in a special audio only interview with fellow New Queer Cinema pioneer, filmmaker Todd Haynes.  Their conversation is illustrated with various images of the movie and it’s making related to the topics discussed.  Through this, Van Sant gives some interesting insight into his experience with the movie and how it stands as a landmark in Queer filmmaking.  A more substantial featurette is a Criterion made documentary called The Making of My Own Private Idaho, which features interviews from cast and crew including Van Sant and Keanu Reeves.  One other interesting featurette is an interview wit film scholar Paul Arthur where he discusses the adaptation of Shakespeare in the film, as well as the influence of Orson Welles’ Chimes at Midnight (1966), which covered the same plays referenced in Idaho, and which Van Sant cited as a direct influence.  There’s also an interesting featurette which has a conversation between producer Laurie Parker and Rain Pheonix, sister of River Phoenix.  This was an especially insightful piece because it sheds more light on the importance of River’s contribution to the movie and the tragedy of his all too short life.  There’s anoter featurette that features a conversation between writer J.T. LeRoy and filmmaker Jonathan Caouette about the film’s legacy.  Lastly, a set of deleted scenes and a theatrical trailer round out the remainder of the extras.  It’s a great assembly of features that both shed a lot of light on what went into the making of the film, as well as putting into perspective it’s importance as a part of the New Queer Cinema movement.

One of the most poignant things learned about the movie was a subtle addition that River Phoenix himself insisted be part of the film.  The campfire scene where Mike professes his love to Scott was a moment that was very much shaped by the manner in which River chose to portray the character.  As Gus Van Sant was crafting his screenplay, he made the film as more of an exploration of the hardships that the street hustler life put upon the characters.  But, perhaps not by his own intention, the movie was more or less making these characters victims of their own homosexuality; something that harkened back to how the subject would have been addressed in old Hollywood.  But, in that campfire scene, you see a characters, as Van Sant describes it “being gay in an all natural environment, with no money changing hands.”  It’s one of the first true coming out scenes where accepting one’s own same-sex attraction is a moment of affirmation, and presented as a true breakthrough for the character.  Phoenix, unbeknownst to to Van Sant, had rewritten much of the dialogue for this scene himself and Van Sant is grateful for the devotion that his actor brought to making Mike Waters more than just another queer tragedy, but rather a soulful reminder why characters like him matter.  It’s that honest take on queer identity that has helped to make My Own Private Idaho an iconic film in the New Queer Cinema, and it’s influence can still be felt as queer films have become more mainstream.  Brokeback Mountain (2005) and Moonlight (2016) travelled on the road paved for them by My Own Private Idaho and the many other unsung movies of the New Queer Cinema movement.  Criterion has done a wonderful job preserving this film, and they are continuing the expand their library to include many more queer themed movies that come from this pivotal cinematic movement, and even those that paved the way for it as well.  Lifting up queer voices is as crucial now as it has been before, and movies like My Own Private Idaho are poignant reminders of the road that has been traveled before, and the path ahead that we must walk to keep their influence and inspiration burning bright.

criterion.com/films/249-my-own-private-idaho