Well, almost everyone has put their two cents in, so here goes.

I haven’t seen it, don’t plan to, but I did see the SNL parody Brokeback Goldmine, which was purty durn funny.

Do you remember the snickering at the trailer I mentioned? This is evidently a national phenomenon, worthy of a notice in the NYTimes, which asks forthrightly, "Why are audiences laughing at this trailer?"

Mickey Kaus tells why he’s not interested and then discusses Frank Rich’s piece on why this will surely be a breakout movie here – scroll down a bit. Ah, for permalinks. Ann Althouse has a critique and vigorous discussion going.

Now for the religious:

Jimmy Akin dissects the controversy about the USCCB review, and the change in the rating from "L" to "O" last week (a change which Andrew Sullivan, as is his wont, blames on the Pope, in this snort-worthy post:

Well, the Vatican was not pleased. And so the review has been changed. The rating given originally was "L" for "appropriate for limited adult audiences". The new rating is "O" for morally offensive. The reviewer’s name has been taken off the review. The theocon website, a conduit for the most reactionary forces in the Church, i.e. Benedict, Neuhaus, et al., exults here.

"The theocon website?" Benedict and Neuhaus will undoubtedly be surprised at their new conduit – Lifesite.)

The Christianity Today review which Jeffrey Overstreet praises here.

And finally, the very fine review by Steven Greydanus of Decent Films. USCCB are you listening? Chuck the current staff and hire this guy. He just gets better and better.

He does the very valuable service of comparing the film to inarguable agitprop like The Magdalene Sisters and The Cider House Rules. Here’s his conclusion, which is pretty stunning:

In the end, in its easygoing, nonpolemical way, Brokeback Mountain is nothing less than a critique not just of heterosexism but of masculinity itself. It’s a jaundiced portrait of maleness in crisis — a crisis extending not only to the sexual identities of the two central characters, but also to the validity of manhood as exemplified by every other male character in the film. It may be the most profoundly anti-western western ever made, not only post-modern and post-heroic, but post-Christian and post-human.

And finally again, thanks to a commentor, take a look at Victor Morton’s review. Morton and Greydanus doing movie reviews for the USCCB. Good deal. I’m not going to excerpt, because Victor’s post isn’t just a review, it’s a wide-ranging essay about the purpose of film criticism in a moral context, the relationship between art, life and morality, and an account of His Dinner with David (Morrison.) Go read.