12/15/2005
More on That Cowboy Movie
Thought you were gonna get away without a big Brokeback update today? You thought wrong. But first, I've failed in any of my commentary to give props to whomever put together this look for Anne Hathaway. Flawless.
The Gilded Moose presents the "2005 Guide to Modern American History As Told Through Anne Hathaway's Hair in Brokeback Mountain." Well done.
Another must-read is Michelle Collins' hysterical narration of her trip to Chelsea to see the film. This is one of the few 'theater reports' I've read: "Of course, my friend Becca and I lurved every second of it, as we are like the Pied Pipers of Gayboys, playing our novelty dildo flutes down 8th Avenue from brunchery to brunchery, lactating Bumble & Bumble hair products, being surrounded by some of the city's hottest men, only to realize that they'd never have any interest in us, no matter how buff our pecs were to become."
Ex-gay Stephen Bennett and his wife Irene are leading a charge of their own against the film, though they haven't seen it. Scared it might hit too close to home, perhaps. Anyway, the following dross issued from their pieholes most recently: "We are very troubled to hear this movie may contain or imply the graphic homosexual sex in Proulx’s short story. Whether it does or not, many who’ve seen the movie are now looking “for more” and reading Proulx’s short story, which explicitly contains ALL the pornographic and graphic homosexual sex one demands."
Egotastic gives those straight guys whose masculinity might be threatened by seeing two cowpokes in love a few good reasons to see Brokeback — female breasts.
Fox News says Steve Martin's statement at the Oscars that "We're all gay" has become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
PunditGuy has something to say about the de-gayification of Brokeback and he just may have something. The promos he speaks about I believe are meant for industry trades in order to promote the film for Oscar consideration, and not for mainstream press, but I have to say that I've seen more than a couple and all of them feature strictly hetero star pairings.
David Walker of Portland's Williamette Week says that if Sidney Poitier's 1967 slap of a white man in In the Heat of the Night was a cinematic "slap heard round the world" for black civil rights, then Jack and Ennis' puptent encounter could be the "fuck heard round the world" for gay civil rights:
"During the height of what history will hopefully acknowledge as the new era of McCarthyism—when homosexuality and terrorism walk hand-in-hand much as desegregation and communism did five decades ago—there is a queer revolution going on. This new battle of gay liberation, building on the foundations laid in the aftermath of Stonewall, seeks to do more than recoup the losses incurred in recent years. What is going here is a complex issue—clouded under the rhetoric of same-sex marriage and eternal damnation—that is, quite plainly and simply, a matter of civil rights. Few people want to call it that, as if the acknowledgement of such somehow humanizes lesbians and gays in a manner they don't deserve. But the truth is that queers—much like blacks in the early part of the 20th century—are not seen as human beings. And so the struggle at hand is to be seen as humans."
Ang Lee talks to The Montreal Mirror and tells them that people keep asking him how he thinks the right wing conservatives will see the film, and he's a bit tired of it: "Actually, from the get-go I was more concerned about how the gay community would see it. I mean it’s a story about gay lovers, yet nobody asks me if I’m concerned about what gay people think."
Miles Christian Daniels of the Baltimore Sun applauds Brokeback's breaking down of stereotypes: "Now, through movies such as Brokeback Mountain, Hollywood is shedding light on the fact that not all gay men are fashion gurus, hair dressers, interior designers and superior in the arts, but that some might be - God forbid - cowboys herding sheep in Wyoming."
Review by Bruce Newman at the San Jose Mercury News:
"Occasionally, the cowboy roundups are bathed in such iconic imagery that they begin to resemble Abercrombie & Fitch ads, but Lee allows a beautifully minimalist script by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana to take the actors to the hard places they need to go. And they never fail to deliver."
Right wing site World Net Daily gives the film a resounding Bible-beating:
"As we predicted above, there are sure to be many leftwing awards for this twisted, laughable, frustrating, plotless and boring piece of homosexual, neo-Marxist propaganda. If only the leftists, radical feminists and communists would show the same compassion for the wives of homosexual perverts like these two characters, the world might be a better place. Don't count on that happening any time soon, however."
Movie critic Craig Outhier tells people to get out and see it:
"Ang Lee's 'Brokeback Mountain' has been described in various circles as 'the gay cowboy movie,' an alias both glib and faintly humorous. It suggests independent filmmaking at its most precious and contrived: Oil-rig foremen who pour their hearts into haikus, jobless steelworkers who disrobe for money. What a pleasure to find instead a spare, clear-eyed drama about the sorrow of unrequited love."
Chicago's Metromix gives the film a positive review:
"Thanks to the slow-burn passion of its leading men, 'Brokeback Mountain' maintains an elegant sadness, as love threatens to drift away like tumbleweeds. It's a gorgeous meditation on the sorrow of finding everything you want and not knowing how to keep it. Forget its Oscar chances; 'Brokeback Mountain' could be the foundation for next year's hit show, 'Queer Eye for the Marlboro Man.'"
The Towleroad Guide to Brokeback Mountain.
Posted 4:43 PM EST by Andy in Film & TV | Permalink
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They're STILL trying to lump us with communists.
Posted by: Mike | Dec 15, 2005 6:43:11 PM
Thanks for continuing to give us all the extra trimmings for this delicious meal. I was really enjoying the comments by Metromix until the so-tired-it-could-be-confused-with-rigor-mortis reference to Q-Eye. We'll be a lot better off politically if the images of the men on horseback from Brokeback Mountain replace that of the bleached blond eunuch who once had a pony named Sparky.
Posted by: Leland | Dec 15, 2005 6:44:21 PM
I don't know about Mr. Bennett, but I don't think even a thousand novellas could contain "ALL the pornographic and graphic homosexual sex one demands."
Posted by: matteo | Dec 15, 2005 8:21:00 PM
"As we predicted above, there are sure to be many leftwing awards for this twisted, laughable, frustrating, plotless and boring piece of homosexual, neo-Marxist propaganda. If only the leftists, radical feminists and communists would show the same compassion for the wives of homosexual perverts like these two characters, the world might be a better place. Don't count on that happening any time soon, however."
TRANSLATION: "Dammit. 'Narnia' isn't really lighting any fires. Let's just blame it on those damn lefties!"
And calling someone a 'communist' is both dated AND overused these days. I'm just glad they didn't invoke Godwin's Law and yell, "NAZIS!"
Posted by: Mike S. | Dec 15, 2005 11:11:49 PM
Hey all! I adore this site and visit often. Would love to support and get a t-shirt. Have tried the "contact me" button. Andy, I don't know if you read all of these but if you do, I'm having trouble with paypal/ e-mailing you from the site. If you had a chance and could drop a line at ckelly25@gmail.com that would be fantastic. Keep up the wonderful site. You are one of the best out there.
_chris kelly
Posted by: Chris | Dec 16, 2005 12:12:08 AM
There is wondrous irony in Bennett's frenetic scrambling for media exposure through these pitiable attacks on the movie. The young Madonna never whored herself out so much for coverage; one feels he'd suck any dick that would get him more press as a 'reformed' gay man.
Posted by: Giacomo | Dec 18, 2005 6:10:01 AM
RE: Hair & Makeup ~~~
anne hathaway's hair is the gayest thing about this flick and sure to inspire truckloads of tranny's everywhere. what puzzels me, though, is how arch-perfectionist ang lee put up with such crappy hair and makeup on the guys. i mean it is farcically baaaaddddd. did you catch those ridiculous paste-on mutton chops on both the boys that managed to resemble neither their head nor facial hair? or how about that retarded 'stache on jake that one reviewer called "a freddy mercury?" then what was really annoying, in heath's late-flick close-ups, when he is supposed to be 40 or something, the cracked pancake stops about an inch from his aching eyes and looks nothing like the lines on a guy who lived his whole life in the wyoming wind and snow. reportedly, the famously "difficult" mr. lee demanded "only nice people" on the crew of this film as a condition for doing it. too friggin' bad the hair and makeup department was so pleasant as to be utterly incompetant. and btw, the set decorators were pretty lame, too. grew up in brokeback country, and i guarantee jake's boyhood room never looked so tastefully bleak. fortunately, the costume designer had done her/his work and got the dudes both into those slightly too long, droopy butt wranglers real cowboys wear. he/she messed up bad w/ the girls, though. hairy fleece didn't hit wyoming until a decade or more after the movie was meant to take place.
Posted by: teknozen | Dec 18, 2005 10:07:32 PM
Nice interview with Jake in toronto's NOW magazine
http://www.nowtoronto.com/issues/2005-12-15/cover_story2.php
"The fact that I have two godfathers who are a gay couple and a lot of my friends came out when they were 15 or 16 probably helped it all seem not that foreign," he smiles.
Posted by: Ryan | Dec 18, 2005 11:47:13 PM
Interesting... that scene in the poster with Jake and Lureen wasn't even in the movie. Could be a fake?
Posted by: Kerry | Dec 19, 2005 1:06:53 AM
The movie was sheot and I was laughing my ass off.
Posted by: wtf | Dec 20, 2005 2:33:54 AM
Ang Lee's production values are bang on, having grown up in Alberta (Where the movie was filmed) I was amazed at the portrayals of the secondary characters. My rural relatives in central Alberta could be these stoic, emotionally repressed, dysfunctional, and unhappy people. (We grew up stoic and repressed in Edmonton.) The thanksgiving scenes WERE family gatherings in Innisfail, complete with the swearing and the overbearing father (In this case my uncle) This movie hit the period bang on with these portrayals. congratulations on Mr Lee's result, That is how the rural folk in a lot of the United States and Canada were and in many cases still are.
PS I think some of my relatives still have that higher than god hair only they are a lot older now!!!!
Posted by: Darrell | Dec 20, 2005 1:33:42 PM