Anne Hathaway

Brokeback Mountain

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Brokeback Mountain. Focus Features 2005.

Before watching the movie:

Among this month’s selections I guess this isn’t the most widely watched. But I still consider it formative to my cohort. Everybody knew about the Gay Cowboy Movie. Many were not kind. But I think the fact that it existed, that it challenged masculine images, and came from a major studio with big name actors, affected our perspective, even if not all at once. The world was changing, and this was part of the background radiation in the course of that change. Almost two decades later, I don’t think anything about this premise seems nearly as controversial as it did back then. Is that representation in action? Is it the confirmation of culture warriors’ fears? Maybe it’s both, or maybe neither.

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Les Misérables

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Les Miserables. Relativity Media 2012.

Before watching the movie:

I’m decently acquainted with the plot of the book, but somehow more through osmosis than from actually having watched the 1998 movie in class. I also recall attempting to read the book, but when I picked up the distressingly large tome with shockingly small text I was already having second thoughts, and then when this supposed English translation began with five pages in Latin, I put the book down and gave up.

I’ve wanted to experience the musical for a long time, and it’s always been a disappointment to me that the 1998 version was not based on the musical and that the musical was never properly filmed on stage (though there was an “original cast in concert” film just lined up on the stage performing the music, which I saw some of possibly in the same class that watched the other movie). When I decided to include Les Mis in this run of musicals, I was hoping there would’ve been another version because I’ve heard mostly bad things about Tom Hooper’s directorial decisions. But somehow this monumentally popular show has only been done on film the one time.

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The Devil Wears Prada

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The Devil Wears Prada. Dune Entertainment 2006.

Before watching the movie:

I think the main reason I was never especially drawn to this movie was because I’m not that into fashion, but then movies can be themed around anything without requiring intimate knowledge of them. And maybe it was also something that didn’t appeal to me because it’s a women-oriented movie and I wasn’t as interested in those in 2006.

I do vaguely recall it being among the movies that I first got a real glimpse of what’s interesting about it at the Academy Awards that year, but like most other movies that I never really considered until the Oscars showed me more than any trailer did, I never really followed up.

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