"Good 5 Cent Cigar"----Student newspaper at the University of Rhode Island

In entertainment this week

MOVIES

Lonesome cowboys

Well, dear readers, this much is true: If you follow the wacky world of show biz long enough, you’ll eventually decide that you’ve seen it all. Nothing more can shock you. There will be no more surprises.

And then Hollywood, inevitably, pulls an artistic fast one.

Which brings us to “Brokeback Mountain,” prestige director Ang Lee’s film about a couple of cowpokes whose feelings for each other are at least as strong, if not stronger, than their feelings for the women in their lives.

Yes, it has finally happened: a movie about cowhands who indulge in “the love that dare not speak its name,” as our man Oscar Wilde so coyly put it.

Many critics have been lavish in their praise, while some have questioned why the supposedly groundbreaking film relegates homosexual love to the realm of misery and tragedy.

I suppose the only way to come to terms with these questions is to get up off our rumps and go see the movie. Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal star as the macho lovers. Also on hand are Michelle Williams, Anne Hathaway and Randy Quaid. The script is by cowboy novelist Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana, based on a short story by E. Annie Proulx. The movie opens Friday.