12/20/2005
Brokeback Stampedes into Red State Territory: An Update
Variety reports that Focus Features is accelerating its rollout of Brokeback into red state territory based on the phenomenal numbers it racked up last weekend, coming in 8th at the box office on a meager 69 screens: "Focus brass said Monday that it will roll out "Brokeback" on 300-400 screens by Jan. 6, altering its original agenda of putting the film on 250 screens by Jan. 13."
Brokeback took top honors at the Satellite Awards, a group comprised of former members of the Hollywood Foreign Press.
David Letterman: Top Ten Signs You're a Gay Cowboy.
In the Sunday movie section of the NYT, Manohla Dargis looks at the tradition of the cowboy, masculinity in America, and Brokeback Mountain's relationship to the gay rights movement — Masculinity and its Discontents in Marlboro Country:
"Jack and Ennis embody the classic western divide between nature and culture, their lives split between the freedom of the wilderness and the restrictions of the putatively civilized world they call home. Ms. Proulx's story opens long after the symbolic closing of the American frontier and six years before Stonewall, and delineates a new frontier that will soon change the country's social and political topography: gay rights. As Ms. Proulx has reminded interviewers, Matthew Shepard was murdered the year after her story was published. In the pop-culture fantasy of assimilation, gay men and lesbians are little more than fabulous accessories for straights, but Shepard's death and the debate over same-sex marriage are reminders that this frontier remains open."
Calling Brokeback a gay cowboy story is a "cruel simplification" says Roger Ebert:
"When he was taught by his father to hate homosexuals, Ennis was taught to hate his own feelings. Years after he first makes love with Jack on a Wyoming mountainside, after his marriage has failed, after his world has compressed to a mobile home, the laundromat, the TV, he still feels the same pain: 'Why don't you let me be? It's because of you, Jack, that I'm like this -- nothing, and nobody.' But it's not because of Jack. It's because Ennis and Jack love each other and can find no way to deal with that.
MSNBC talks to Michelle Williams about her role in Brokeback. Among other things, she tells them Heath Ledger was upset when unauthorized on-set nude paparazzi photos of him appeared on the internet:
"I know how hurt he was by it—for a lot of reasons. You feel let down by the people who are supposed to be protecting you and who are creating a safe working environment. You're aghast that there are people out there who could profit on such a private moment. The thing that's a shame about it is that I remember him coming back from that day at work. He was feeling exuberant—and enlivened. Then, to have that taken away from him. All of a sudden it was this public moment. That's just such a shame. That's such a bummer.
Seizing an opportunity to feel out a homo in Brokeback country, the NYT profiled Guy Padgett, the openly gay mayor of Casper, Wyoming over the weekend: "Other people said the film's gay-cowboy theme would be a bigger deal outside Wyoming than in places like Casper, because the outside world, they say, has locked in stereotypes about the state that the movie can play with and shatter. Here, they say, many people will yawn, or chuckle. Mr. Padgett, whose single term expires next month, said that he did not think there would be any backlash against gay men in Casper as a result of "Brokeback Mountain," when it eventually does play in theaters here, but that there probably would not be any positive change, either."
Newsweek chats with Jake Gyllenhaal about his ass: "I respect that people are interested in that. I'm flattered by it. But I hope there are more important things in the stories that they're moved by."
The Telegraph chimes in with a meatier Jake interview: "If I walked into the make-up trailer first thing in the morning and realised Heath was being a pain because he was exhausted and I was a little pissed off with him because of that, then I would take that into our love scenes. I just decided that whatever I was feeling, I was going to incorporate the real stuff into the scenes...What's special about Brokeback Mountain is that it says that whether it's heterosexual, homosexual, if there's love, that's all that matters, and it will last, no matter how scrutinised or abused it is."
Monsters and Critics reports on the reaction Brokeback is getting from conservatives, who think the film will die a slow death at the hands of empty theaters (a theory already proven wrong). Diana Ossana, the film's co-screenwriter, said it's changing hearts and minds: "People come in with these preconceived notions of the film but after they see it they can't stop thinking about it. They'll tell me, 'You know, I never really thought about gay men and their lives. I always tried to avoid it, but I really felt bad for those guys. I didn't know they felt the way that we do.''
Chicagoist looks at the local papers and sees double.
The Harvard Crimson reports on Focus Features' James Schamus visit to the Harvard Film Archive for a screening of BB, where he talked about working with Ang Lee on the film: "Schamus, however, soon realized the core audience for the film would not be homosexuals: 'I said to Ang, there’s one core audience for the movie; he said, ‘oh yeah, right, the gay audience,’ and I said, ‘no, women.’' Schamus says he hopes mothers worldwide will be the voice of this movie."
Oops. You can imagine how pissed wingnut watchdog site Lifesite was when it found out the Catholic News Service gave Brokeback a positive review. They scolded The United States Conference of Bishops Office for Film and Broadcasting because of the "completely inappropriate" review of the film published by the group's wire service: "While the glowing review remains, the USCCB office's rating for the film has been altered to the most severe rating - "O" for morally offensive from "L" which denotes that it is appropriate for a limited adult audience."
Movie website JoBlo gives the film 7/10 stars: "Another cool thing about this film was that it didn’t make these men-loving men the “stereotypical” over-the-top effeminate gay type, but rather simply…all-out cowboys who just happen to enjoy the company of men as opposed to the ladies (there’s nothing wrong with that!)."
Palo Alto Online gives the film their highest rating: "The incessant tag of the gay Western offends; groundbreaking is more like it. Nuanced sentiment and genuine affection brand this as one of the most memorable films of the year."
Tony Robinson at Oregon's KATU tells people to go and go with an open mind: "If you can leave preconceived notions at the door, you’ll find a gem. The performances are top notch and the writing and direction are equally good. It’s a film that deserves to be seen and discussed, not for its controversial story, but for what it is; art."
The Towleroad Guide to Brokeback Mountain.
Posted 5:00 PM EST by Andy in Film & TV | Permalink
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Focus Features initial fear of running Brokeback concurrent with King Kong has shown that the mighty beast was no match for two cowboys in love. A rapid rollout of this movie is only logical given the positive word-of-mouth (now known as viral marketing) provided by internet communication.
Posted by: Johnny Lane | Dec 20, 2005 5:53:19 PM
I am a big homo and am so friggin sick of hearing about this film. I had thought I would want to see it, but the more I hear, the less I care. And the two stars have each said so much bullshit to distance themselves from it that they both look like idiots. Why did they take the parts in the movie if they didn't think people would ask them about their own sexuality?
Posted by: manchild | Dec 20, 2005 6:01:03 PM
Thanks for the update, Andy. Always appreciated.
Posted by: Roland | Dec 20, 2005 6:26:11 PM
First of all, within the capacity of what I think the film is (simple in it's seductive sweetness, and way-multifaceted in it's bleakness) I must say I found it very enjoyable (I loved watching it!), but the experience of viewing the picture was narrow in many ways.
Fussed-over and coiffed even in its gritty moments, the film is oddly fairy tale-like throughout... despite its almost sickeningly blighted ending. On the film's surface it is picturesque, poetic, dreamy, slow and subtle. Skilled director Ang Lee casts the rugged wilderness of Wyoming as a gorgeous, ever-turning Marlboro ad kaleidoscope - his take on the beauty of nature would have made Andy Warhol blush. Fitting, because at it's sad, sweet heart, the story being celebrated in the media as "new" and "shocking" - is only so within it's own slim mainstream pop culture bandwidth. The story's two main characters, Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) play cowboys who take a job herding sheep on Brokeback Mountain in Wyoming during 1963. The two fall into a gay relationship on the isolated mountain, and despite one living in Wyoming and one living in Texas, maintain the relationship for over two decades, using the mountain for an ongoing several-a-year rendezvous spot where they can see each other in blissful secret, away from the people and events that have developed in their own lives over that time.
Sound romantic? Heavenly so. Which is why Ennis and Jack almost seem like angels, or ghosts. The two main protagonists, despite one fantastic performance and one debatable one, seem like fauxhemian robots in a lot of ways.
It makes sense seeing as how the entire logic and energy of the film is (and forever will be) enslaved by the grandly bland-ing tradition of Hollywood films that are disciplined in anticipation for an Oscar and Golden Globe vortex parade. Remember how BOYS DON'T CRY ('99) swept the Oscars? Remember the film? No, really... can you remember it? I find this realization regrettable about BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, because I genuinely enjoyed the picture, and was sincerely rooting for it (for many reasons) when I was first steamrolled by it's media hype (over two years ago!) - I just wish the end product had turned out as less of a pose...
Will BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN forever be branded by the garish spotlight already overcrowded by skull-crushingly dumb product like WILL AND GRACE, QUEER AS FOLK, or QUEER EYE FOR THE STRAIGHT GUY? Not exactly. Ang Lee's film is in the same solar system as those media-washed nightmares - just on a further planet (FYI: Gus Van Sant's MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO ['91] is not even in that same universe... and John Schlesinger's MIDNIGHT COWBOY ['69] is in another dimension altogether).
Speaking of space, you know that weird logic in films where two characters will be having a conversation as they walk through a setting, and one will ask another one about something, and the other character will be answering the question posed, but the two characters have obviously walked a great distance, like all the way from the exit of a cafe to the entrance of a park... and it seems like they held a pause in their conversation just so they could be in another interesting setting for the director to cut to? Well, that happens a lot in BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN - except instead of settings, whole decades seem to pass before Ennis answers Jack's questions about how best to deal with their relationship. While watching the film, one gets the idea that the two men never say anything to each other, or discuss anything at all amongst themselves, all those years the camera was not on them. Does it really take twenty-five years for them to dramatically confront one another about having to always escape to the mountain, and the status of their secret relationship (in a powerful scene near the film's end)? This of course keeps things simple, but ends up giving a lot of the film a high-school-play feel.
The screenplay was adapted from a short story by Annie Proulx that originally appeared in The New Yorker magazine, and within that context it was probably blissful. But on the grand, all-seeing-eye scale of a full-length motion picture, which simultaneously enlarges and flattens fiction... Proulx's story suffers from improbability that you wonder about later. Is it cynical to think that two people will still feel so strongly for each other after twenty-five year's long time... with so much happening in their own lives, and in having to see each other in such a hassling arrangement over and over and over, month after month, year after year? Also, Ennis and Jack meet in the 1960s and hold a hidden gay relationship all the way up to the 1980s, keeping hush hush the whole time. But were they even aware of the changing culture around them at all? It's like the two characters were inside a time machine that was whizzing them throughout the decades that frame the film's timeline, so the outside world (and 1/4 of a century) was a blur that affected them in no way. An excellent adventure? Probably not, but then again the culture at large within the reality of the film doesn't affect Ennis and Jack because Lee chooses to never show it (to them). And of course I'm getting carried away; whatever structure a director creates in order to diorama a story they want to tell is fine, if it works... and for the story he wanted to get across here - it certainly functions. And changes in the culture outside of their "secret" are touched upon in a few subtle ways: in the beginning of the film, passage to Brokeback Mountain is totally remote and removed from society and prying eyes, accessible only by a prickly journey with a sure-footed mule. But by film's end, Ennis and Jack are able to drive their trucks literally right up to their usual camping spot, via an obviously well-traveled dirt road.
Heath Ledger's portrayal of Ennis Del Mar is that of a leathery, simple farm-bot with a squinty drawl and Sasquatch gait - which he enacts beautifully. Reminding me (to death) of the exact types of men I grew up around during my adolescence in Texas (yes I know this is Wyoming), you must trust me when I tell you he gets every nuance spot-on. The scene of Ledger automatically putting his thumbs in his jean pockets at an empty country western bar and starting a typical plywood-style dance-sway when a girl drags him onto the floor had me howling with nostalgic laughter (especially when contrasted against the twirling, laughing, sex-ritual bounce of his female partner). This casual cardboard cut-out dance style is reserved only for the most self-conscious he-men in country dance bars - and is exactly how Ledger's character would have unconsciously handled the situation. Ledger has countless great scenes, but they were so grizzly real to me while watching the film that it's almost painful to write about them now.
Unfortunately, Ledger's great performance casts a shadow over Jake Gyllenhaal's earnest but twee inhabitation of a similar role, a shadow from which Gyllenhaal can occasionally shine out of using his anime-like large cartoon eyes. I can't help but be reminded of the way Seth Green's excellent interpretation of extro-freak James St. James commanded the camera from a mis-cast lead Macaulay Culkin in the disappointing PARTY MONSTER ('03), or the way Charlize Theron's hypnotically sick performance of Aileen Wuornos obliterates Christina Ricci's blither-blather sidekick role in the half-great MONSTER ('03). Also of note: Ledger's mannerisms in the film and their obvious similarity to our sitting president is unquestionable. I doubt the makers of the film meant it to turn out that way from the start, although along the way I doubt anyone involved (even Ledger?) thought to tone the similarities down.
Speaking of shadowy presidents, I have to say found the obvious politicization of hot topics in the story (which were perhaps inserted into it) to be off-putting and forced, even tired; heterosexual marriages are dysfunctional! Traditional family get-togethers are a nightmare! Ohhhh... rise and shine Christian Family Values America!
The death of Jack is being called a shameless analogy to Matthew Shepard's martyrdom. Shepard was also from Wyoming. I weirdly didn't pick this up when I saw the film, perhaps because I've always eye-rollingly ignored the Shepard legacy out of semi-disgust. Any simple research into the Shepard case reveals complexities in the personas and situations of the victim and his perpetrators that contradict what political activists (on both sides) have tried to turn the whole thing into. Perhaps why I didn't love BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN in a nutshell?
The over-budgeted fabrication of most of the greeting-card/home-catalog-ish settings (particularly in the second half of the film) is often depressing, especially when your eye is allowed to wander during many of the long takes. One wonders if it's just an attempt to not confuse or disturb an audience that the creators thought didn't want to face ugly images, or if it's just due to lazy, unimaginative design teams. Gyllenhaal sports a way-obvious fake mustache towards the end of the film (let's hope the added pot belly is also a prosthetic). In one scene during a Thanksgiving dinner at Jack's "real" family's house (set in the 1970s), the characters arranged carefully around the table are dressed in so many blatantly obvious costume and hair choices, and the showroom style dining area has so many barefaced 70s-nostalgia props and furniture pieces placed perfectly around the room, with nary a molecule out of place (even the turkey looks plastic!), that the whole scenario begins to resemble a scene from Todd Haynes' lost and excellent SUPERSTAR: THE KAREN CARPENTER STORY ('87).
Although having condescendingly "scrooged" my way through most of the above points, I must confess optimistically that director Lee obviously wasn't afraid to show in his film other complexities within troublesome life situations; particularly the devastation that secret affairs can have on established families (and Lee doesn't waste time on glass menagerie clichés). The claustrophobia and pain imposed on Alma Beers Del Mar's (Michelle Williams) world is shown no-holds-barred on screen when she first learns the un-faceable realities of her husband's clandestine affair. And since Williams' excellent performance only makes you care about what happens to her... it's heart-wrenching to see her have to live with the undisclosed arrangement for many more years (when the two were finally shown getting a divorce, I practically fell out of my seat cheering for her - '...that's right! Divorce that lying gay creep!') Perhaps the down-to-earth Alma should have taken a hint from Jack's wife Lureen Newsome Twist (Anne Hathaway), who deals with her husband's secret gay life the only way a Texas power-woman can; practicing reinforced obliviousness while dripping in diamonds. In a heartbreaking scene where Lureen is telling Ennis an obviously made-up story of how her husband died, she's shown reciting the tall tale over the phone in a bored monotone, perched in a gorgeous all-white living room, dripping in silver, turquoise and platinum mile-high hair... any look of emotion on her face obscured by mountains of Mary Kay.
"Nature vs. nurture" debate thrill-seakers will be either love or loathe the events depicted leading up to Ennis and Jack's initial domino coital spark. Rather than an awakening of something deep inside both of them, Lee plays out their first deflowering as the result of the two men being isolated and bored for a great length of time, with no women around.
Other moral symbols are luridly touched upon in obvious manners, yet still work. After Ennis and Jack's first late-night drunken tryst, Ennis symbolically pays for his sins by discovering the carcass of a gruesomely eviscerated lamb, slaughtered by wolves the night before when it should have been kept safe under his paid night watch. Whether you're rebelling against the laws of structural society, nature, or man... or just following your heart... something has to be sacrificed as a result.
Despite it all, did I take anything away from the film besides the melancholy and pensive mood it left me in as I walked out of the theater? I learned a great new phrase, slurred-with-daggers by Ennis and Jack's first boss Joe Aguirre (a deliciously beady eyed Randy Quaid), who leeringly accuses them of "..stemming the rose," although strangely I originally had an audial hallucination and heard it as "thorning the lily" (even better!) I've never heard this real term, or the imaginary one... and plan on using both repeatedly in the bedroom with my boyfriend Jim! See? BAREBACK MOUNTAIN has strengthened my relationship with my longtime companion!
Speaking of, I found the initial intimate sexual scenes, hyped and debated widely in the press as the film was being made, to be incredibly awkward and really not done very well at all. In their first encounter in the tent, with all the spastic pushing, slap-punching, violent face-butting and pants-ripping, Ledger and Gyllenhaal display the intimacy of a pair of drunken paraplegics fighting over the last belt buckle at a Western Wear closing sale. With the way these scenes have been pointlessly debated in salivating gay blogs for their poignancy or daring (nope!), I can't imagine the horrors these images might have on impressionable gay adolescents anticipating their first dates. But hey, what's a virgin gay sex experience without Keystone Kops-style faux-rape anyway?
Beyond that nit-picking, and in an a much larger sense; the film does have a nice balance. Jack's initial enthusiasm in looking forward to the life that the two could possibly have if only Ennis would let go of his fear in the film's first half, is mirrored at the end with Ennis looking regretfully back on the life the two could have had if only he had done so.
When Ennis goes to Jack's childhood home of his own accord to meet his parents after his death, he finds a spooky, confused old rural couple in a depressingly run-down farm in the middle of nowhere, obviously at odds with what really happened to their son. Even more at unease with who Ennis appears to be, Jack's stubborn, skeleton-like father (Peter McRobbie) refuses Jack's wish for his ashes to be spread "...on some place called Brokeback Mountain," and sternly puts his foot down about the remains being laid on the nearby family plot. After this is expressed, Jack's kind and reservedly suppressed mother (Roberta Maxwell), obviously of a different mindset about her son and who Ennis appears to be, stands at the front door and looks right into Ennis' eyes (out of view of her husband) and politely intones the usual "You come back and see us sometime... you hear now?" with a very poignant, telling look in her eyes - seeming to suggest that she wants Ennis to return at a later date and somehow get Jack's ashes from her out of the watch of her husband, because she wants her son's wishes to be fulfilled. I found this to be a very subtle, open-ended move in Lee's direction (and Maxwell's short performance), which was very touching.
Basically, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN is a story of loss, and regret - and ultimately of memory and emotion attached to physical spaces (or times), and the price and value of escaping to them. Ennis is show at film's end (presumably middle aged) relatively alone and somewhat broken. He stands in his trailer and is shown cherishing a jacket Jack wore on their first encounter, with the shirt Ennis wore underneath (a secret momento he discovered hanging in the bedroom closet of Jack's family's house), alongside the most recent mountain invite picture postcard Jack had sent him before he died. Both items are displayed on the inside of a closet door that, when opened, obscures a window view of the outside world (a barren, windswept plain). Ennis swears out loud to keep the upcoming date of what is now the last rendezvous, presumably to fulfill Jack's wish to deliver his remains to his favorite place in the world: a safe space Lureen said Jack had once drunkenly described as "...a place where the blue birds sing all day and the rivers run with whiskey," (mirroring Ennis' criticism of how he thought Jack foolishly saw the mountain hideaway during an argument years before), where "...one could be so at peace that one could sleep while still standing standing up, just like a horse does," a place that, in his mind, Jack was ultimately resigned to accept as paradise; a dreamy fantasy world removed from the worrisome responsibilities of heterosexual families, children, and even work - exactly how the radical right has been trying to portray the gay lifestyle for eons now.
Posted by: kuros | Dec 20, 2005 6:52:45 PM
Oh my God, seriously Andy, what are you going to talk about when this damned movie comes out on DVD?
:)
Posted by: Chad | Dec 20, 2005 8:04:58 PM
Kuros... curious about how many spelling errors there are in your posting?
Posted by: HisHolynessDPope | Dec 20, 2005 8:16:44 PM
Kuros, that must be the longest comment in the history of blogs.
Posted by: Greg | Dec 20, 2005 8:22:50 PM
David Letterman can go fuck himself.
Posted by: JOE | Dec 20, 2005 8:43:51 PM
that was a long ass comment kuros. dammmmn.
Posted by: june | Dec 20, 2005 9:19:38 PM
rest it
u just dont give it a rest at all do u?
it gets annoying after a while.
the worlds not all shite u know.
say somthin nice 1nc in a while.
see how it feels. lates
Posted by: ura nagger | Dec 20, 2005 9:55:55 PM
I love the Brokeback. Love. Keep it coming.
Posted by: Nicholas | Dec 20, 2005 9:56:15 PM
i love towleroad and think it's a great resource. but i agree with manchild and sort of wish there was a way to filter out the brokeback content.
Posted by: rod townsend | Dec 20, 2005 11:24:21 PM
Have you see this article/review about the movie? http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1668470,00.html
Posted by: megan | Dec 21, 2005 12:05:30 AM
Methinks Kuros should switch to decaf......really, really soon.
Posted by: gabe | Dec 21, 2005 12:21:39 AM
I saw Brokeback Moutain in Denver on a trip with a group of about 30. We waited in line despite having tickets already. About 3-4 dozen people were turned away. I was impressed especially considering they had three showings within 15 minutes of each other. I cried so many times in the movie because I was so angry and so sad. It's a sad story, but I was so angry at Ennis and so sad for Jack. I realized how despite the bitching we all do for being "oppressed" or considered second-class citizens, I am so fortunate to be a part of the gay community now as opposed to back in the 1960s. I think maybe if we step back to see what we've accomplished as a group thus far, we might be more appreciative and positive in what we can accomplish in the next few decades. Maybe PRIDE might mean something more than a party. Ok, no more drinking on Tuesdays for me!
Posted by: Britt | Dec 21, 2005 2:36:36 AM
Too much BB seems to be the chink in Andy's armor lately. I thought so meself.
But I don't now. I mean, guys, really - look at the tsunamis of exposure online a piece of crap like Madonna's new cd got. Look at the links and articles and talk generated by vapid bullshit like Aniston's pain through her divorce, or Cruise's psycho prancing to His own megalomaniacal cross. The film is important. It may be the most important media work dealing with homosexuality to yet emerge. Andy is doing the right thang.
Posted by: Giacomo | Dec 21, 2005 4:35:40 AM
(Can someone else do a right thing and please let me know how the fuck to insert images into my blog that will stay there?)
Posted by: Giacomo | Dec 21, 2005 5:38:06 AM
I am having a BB experience myself. I am in a hetero relationship and I have a boyfriend on the side. I want to go see the movie with both of them but I am afraid what my wife will think if maybe I cary at soem parts. When I watch teh trailors and I see Ennis hugging the clothes on the hanger I get all queezy inside. I cammot tell you how many times I have done that exact thing. I think that from the trailors that, that seen seems to be teh most poinant of the movie.
Posted by: dyonysis | Dec 21, 2005 8:39:39 AM
Giacomo contact your blog support staff for assistance since the navigation tools are a little different for each blog service bureau. And yes, Andy is doing the right thing with respect to Brokeback coverage. This film does many things and it appeals to audiences on many levels, all of which help promote a better understanding of gay men. I think that the most interesting revelation is the high percentage of women who are seeing the movie. When I saw it last weekend, about 80% of the audience were women which I found astounding. I know from personal relationships that women have found the vast numbers of gay men in all walks of life a bit intimidating. Especially since so many gay men are fit and good looking. Straight women are looking for answers as to why so many guys are coming out and rejecting relationships with females. There is also the nagging question of the number of 18 - 28 year olds who claim they are bisexual. I personally feel that Brokeback offers very realistic insight on male bonding as we watch Jack flirt with Innes. Each audience member will relate to the film differently based on thier life experience.
Posted by: Johnny Lane | Dec 21, 2005 8:57:15 AM
Press on with what you've been doing, Mr Towle. You. Are. The. Fiercest.
Posted by: Towleroad Groupie | Dec 21, 2005 9:25:57 AM
Sorry, but I have to agree with Manchild, way too much on this movie. There has to be other topics of interest. I love Andy and this blog but am more than a little worn out with all the Brokeback posting. MHO
Posted by: Michael | Dec 21, 2005 10:35:54 AM
Andy, you'll find it interesting that the CST's Red Streak just announced that it's folding.
Chicagoist called it.
On BM: I saw it for the second time (the first was a lucky pre-screen in Hollywood during Halloween) with most of my gay friends. It was a sold-out showing on a Monday night. When the film ended, there was a collective silence in the theater. Some people just sat in their seats crying. What really stuck with me was this guy by the exit, still sitting there with his girlfriend(?). He had obviously been crying really hard during the last part of the movie. The girl was trying to console him.
That's the kind of reaction I think this movie will receive in the Heartland, as well. People will be shocked that they can feel compassion for those two men on screen, and the turmoil that they're dealing with.
Kudos to you, Andy, for staying on top of this movie.
Posted by: Tread | Dec 21, 2005 11:13:51 AM
RE: I mean, guys, really - look at the tsunamis of exposure online a piece of crap like Madonna's new cd got. Look at the links and articles and talk generated by vapid bullshit like Aniston's pain through her divorce, or Cruise's psycho prancing to His own megalomaniacal cross.
Posted by: Giacomo | Dec 21, 2005 4:35:40 AM
You're kidding me.. and you've got shit about Nick and Jessica's divorce on YOUR blog?!
Posted by: Greg | Dec 21, 2005 11:32:17 AM
Re: Kuros
First, get a blog. Your a very good writer and despite the nitpickings of some vicious queens, there were very few mispellings. I read the entire piece, which against this glorious black backdrop isn't easy. At nearly 3000 words, the insights are plentiful, the observations lucid and yet, I am unclear about your point---it is ironic that that an eleven page short story turned into a two hour movie could conjure up so much discussion, but in some ways, for me, that was the point: it was a simple story. Did i notice fake moustaches, Levitt's furniture set dressing? No, did I care, no.
I sat in a movie theatre where when two men kissed there was no shuffling of feet, no moans of disgust. I watched a love story, albeit a very sad love story about the effects of childhood and communication, and it seemed quite real, very adult and I was happy to have lived this long to see something so simple, so brave on screen.
The intellectual in us loves to dissect, ponder and question. But this is a film about heart, its failures, longings and yes, though you seem so cynical, the notion that love endures.
Posted by: randy | Dec 21, 2005 11:48:16 AM
I love how it just keeps creeping up the scale at Rotten Tomato. I wonder how many other movies manage to keep this kind of momentum going. It seems like most movies now are made to be number 1 the first weekend and them immediately fade into obscurity. This is an awesome example of building an idea that is made to last and truly become a legitimate classic.
Posted by: MT | Dec 21, 2005 12:51:26 PM