Brokeback Mountain‘s opening-day reviews are overwhelmingly positive at 82%, but when a movie this sad, classy and penetra- ting comes along, it’s not the percentages that count but the passions it seems to ignite. The movies you want to pay attention to and single out for awards are the ones that hit a nerve, and any film that has more than a few top-dog critics describing it as “groundbreaking”, “landmark”, “heartbreaking”, “masterpiece” and “zeitgeist-capturing moment for Hollywood” is obviously up to something extraordinary. You have to hand it to a film that has so many straight guys out there saying “no way, ain’t goin’, fuck no” and so on…there’s something shuddering in the earth when a movie can make so many guys this uncomfortable without anyone buying (or even contemplating buying) a ticket. The irony once again (and this is the last time I’m going to repeat this) is that Brokeback Mountain couldn’t be less “gay” if it tried, and it’s fortifying to read New Yorker critic Anthony Lane talk about his having been “surprised by its tameness.” When L.A. Weekly critic Ella Taylor calls it “at once the gayest and the least gay Holly- wood film I’ve seen,” she’s acknowledging the basic storyline (two cowboys have it bad for each other) while appreciating the unforced and delicate way that director Ang Lee finds the ordinary, ain’t nothin’ universality of the thing.