The Bottom Line
- Emotionally powerful movie about forbidden love
- Superb screenplay, direction and acting
- Visually engaging and has high production values
- DVD contains excellent featurette on film's Oscar-winning music
- DVD has a featurette discussing movie's unexpected box-office success and societal impact
- Twenty-one year time span not handled entirely convincingly
- Movie may be too restrained for some
- Only 31 minutes of bonus materials not in previous DVD release
- DVD extras are not up to the quantity and quality a movie of this caliber deserves
- Questionable whether Collector's Edition is worth additional cost compared with earlier DVD release
Description
- Two-disc Collector's Edition DVD set containing drama Brokeback Mountain (2005)
- Movie nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture
- Film won three Oscars: Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score
- Movie stars Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal and was directed by Ang Lee
- Collector's Edition carries over four featurettes (total running time 45 minutes) from previous DVD release
- Collector's Edition has three new bonus materials (total running time 31 minutes) not on earlier DVD
- Eight collectible postcards come packaged with the Collector's Edition two-disc DVD set
- MPAA Rating: R for sexuality, nudity, language and some violence
- Feature run time: 2 hours 15 minutes
- DVD release date: January 23, 2007
Guide Review - Brokeback Mountain DVD Review
Starring Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, Brokeback Mountain is a melancholy drama about forbidden love that was nominated for eight Academy Awards and won three, including Best Director (Ang Lee). Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Ledger and Gyllenhaal give memorable performances, and they are well-supported by Michelle Williams, Anne Hathaway and Randy Quaid.
The Collector's Edition DVD is a two-disc set that carries over four featurettes (total run time 45 minutes) from an earlier single-disc release. The strongest of these was an 11-minute interview with the screenwriters. Two of the others are a six-minute featurette on the actors going to cowboy boot camp and a seven-minute look at director Ang Lee.
There are three new bonus materials on the Collector's Edition DVD set, but their total run time is only 31 minutes. The most compelling of these is the 11-minute featurette on the film's Oscar-winning music, which was mostly written by Gustavo Santaolalla before Ang Lee even started shooting. The featurette also discusses other musical contributions, including those of Rufus Wainwright and Willie Nelson. Nelson's performance of Bob Dylan's "He Was a Friend of Mine" is particularly moving.
Also on the Collector's Edition is a 17-minute featurette where various people talk about Brokeback Mountain's unexpected box-office success and explore what it might mean that a gay love story had mainstream audiences streaming into the multiplexes. We hear from Ledger, Gyllenhaal, Lee, Ossana and the film's producers, as well as from four journalists.
Compared with the earlier single-disc DVD release, the Collector's Edition contains only 31 minutes of extras and eight eye-catching postcards that are new, making it questionable as to whether it's worth the additional cost.
