Come Anticipate "Brokeback Mountain" With Me

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this is the kind of tasteful tearjerker that's often overrated and smothered with prizes because it flatters our tolerance and sensitivity

So it's the Guess Who's Coming To Dinner of 2005, then.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 29 December 2005 23:33 (eighteen years ago) link

thanks, John! have you seen it yet?

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 29 December 2005 23:33 (eighteen years ago) link

well, it seems obvious to me that Gyllenhaal is the gay one.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 29 December 2005 23:34 (eighteen years ago) link

Yup, I saw it last Friday, right after I finished my Christmas shopping. Yeah, you're right, Jack is probably gay: the Mexico scene of courses reinforces this. But I was the one who argued against Chris Cooper's character being gay in American Beauty long after it became apparent that he obviously was (but that was just me wishing the film was more ambiguous than it actually was).

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 29 December 2005 23:37 (eighteen years ago) link

King Kong was the gay one.

― [use of street parade as pivotal set piece] (nordicskilla), Thursday, 29 December 2005 23:38 (eighteen years ago) link

So it's the Guess Who's Coming To Dinner of 2005, then.

A suspicion that's haunted me since I saw the film; but it's much too cold and spare.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 29 December 2005 23:39 (eighteen years ago) link

King Kong was the gay one.

You great feeb, it was Aslan.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 29 December 2005 23:39 (eighteen years ago) link

Yup, I saw it last Friday, right after I finished my Christmas shopping. Yeah, you're right, Jack is probably gay: the Mexico scene of courses reinforces this.

Don't forget he also cruises Ennis a few minutes into the film.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 29 December 2005 23:40 (eighteen years ago) link

Yeah, you mentioned that ("this will do"), but I honestly don't remember it that clearly. And he does make the first move in the tent.

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 29 December 2005 23:42 (eighteen years ago) link

Also: I'm getting a bit weary of the Heath Ledger award drumbeat, especially when Gyllenhaal is really the heart of the movie. His delivery of his last monologue is the most powerful acting he's ever done.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 29 December 2005 23:42 (eighteen years ago) link

I can't agree with you there, unfortunately. He was fine for the first half of the film, but I found him as a bitter middle-aged man a bit unconvincing: I kept looking at him searchingly but all I saw was Jake Gyllenhaal with a ridiculous 'stache.

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 29 December 2005 23:46 (eighteen years ago) link

Gyllenhaal has such bizarre, oversized features. Were I homosexual, he would not be my premier candidate for intercourse.

― [use of street parade as pivotal set piece] (nordicskilla), Thursday, 29 December 2005 23:48 (eighteen years ago) link

I love the 'stache! I dunno...he seemed more comfortable with the stolidity of movement that's part of being middle-aged. And in the scene in which he answers Ennis' question about whether he's been with other women, he answers with an economy of gesture/bitterness that surprised me (it helps that his response is a lie: he's actually boning the ranch hand, not the ranch hand's wife).

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 29 December 2005 23:48 (eighteen years ago) link

Don't get me wrong, I still think he's hot.

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 29 December 2005 23:49 (eighteen years ago) link

nah

― [use of street parade as pivotal set piece] (nordicskilla), Thursday, 29 December 2005 23:49 (eighteen years ago) link

I got bored. I really liked the short story though.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Thursday, 29 December 2005 23:55 (eighteen years ago) link

It's only now that I've noticed his hotness since his other movies have been mostly appalling.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 29 December 2005 23:56 (eighteen years ago) link

I gotta say I'm not interested in this movie at all, and am surprised much of mainstream America is. I can see gay cowboys walking down the street any day of the week, and have found Ang Lee to be a pretty unreliable and unforgiveably mawkish director - the combo sounds boring and, er, flaccid...

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 29 December 2005 23:56 (eighteen years ago) link

I can see gay cowboys walking down the street any day of the week

I forgot you lived in Miami.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 29 December 2005 23:57 (eighteen years ago) link

Unfortunately the combo in the movie is (boring and) flaccid too.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Thursday, 29 December 2005 23:58 (eighteen years ago) link

"I forgot you lived in Miami."

close - San Francisco.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 29 December 2005 23:58 (eighteen years ago) link

I forgot you lived in Daly City.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 30 December 2005 00:02 (eighteen years ago) link

Soto's the one who lives in Miami!

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 30 December 2005 00:03 (eighteen years ago) link

The best gay cowboys ever were in that one scene in Collateral.

― [use of street parade as pivotal set piece] (nordicskilla), Friday, 30 December 2005 00:04 (eighteen years ago) link

It's pretty much been all downhill for gay cowboys since that moment on.

― [use of street parade as pivotal set piece] (nordicskilla), Friday, 30 December 2005 00:04 (eighteen years ago) link

Soto's the one who lives in Miami!

I forgot you lived in Rockford.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 30 December 2005 00:05 (eighteen years ago) link

My cousin lives in Miami and he thinks that San Francisco is Miami's polar opposite.

What a bunch of crap.

― [use of street parade as pivotal set piece] (nordicskilla), Friday, 30 December 2005 00:07 (eighteen years ago) link

I love cuban breakfasts though. We need more of those.

― [use of street parade as pivotal set piece] (nordicskilla), Friday, 30 December 2005 00:08 (eighteen years ago) link

I'm also an admirer of Morris Lapidus.

― [use of street parade as pivotal set piece] (nordicskilla), Friday, 30 December 2005 00:08 (eighteen years ago) link

and Trick Daddy, of course.

― [use of street parade as pivotal set piece] (nordicskilla), Friday, 30 December 2005 00:10 (eighteen years ago) link

and the early 90s Dolphins color scheme.

And some bits of Scarface.

― [use of street parade as pivotal set piece] (nordicskilla), Friday, 30 December 2005 00:11 (eighteen years ago) link

The scarred bits, right?

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Friday, 30 December 2005 00:19 (eighteen years ago) link

man I wish I knew a decent Cuban place in SF - the best ones I've eaten at were in LA...

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 30 December 2005 00:19 (eighteen years ago) link

The closest thing to gay cowboys we got in Miami walk the streets on Halloween.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Friday, 30 December 2005 00:19 (eighteen years ago) link

Gyllenhaal has such bizarre, oversized features.

Aw yeah.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Friday, 30 December 2005 01:19 (eighteen years ago) link

"guess who's coming to dinner" really isn't as bad as ppl say it is.

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Friday, 30 December 2005 03:29 (eighteen years ago) link

Except Tracy makes me cry in the last scene -- cuz he's talking about him & Hepburn in real life -- and this one kept my eyes dry. (It's more like the tragic sodomite Same Time Next Year.)

Lotsa dull dull domestic melodrama, and there's hardly any carnality (or eroticism) in it after the spit-lube. The way the next-to-last scene with the daughter panders to the hetero 'mainstream' made me kinda ill. Bet the Best Picture Oscar, and I wonder if Heath will keep up the Novocaine Mouth in his acceptance speech.

Boys with that brand of bizarre, oversized features can crawl in my tent too.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 31 December 2005 20:26 (eighteen years ago) link

The way the next-to-last scene with the daughter panders to the hetero 'mainstream' made me kinda ill

Wow. I know the scene is not in the story, but any scene as well-played as that one (Kate Mara gives the film's least heralded good performance) works just fine.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Saturday, 31 December 2005 20:53 (eighteen years ago) link

I also thought Shouty Jake (ie, the last monologue) was not particularly successful.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Monday, 2 January 2006 14:15 (eighteen years ago) link

Soto, can i read yr review.
I just sent a discussion of this and mr and mrs smith to jump cut in montreal.

― anthony easton (anthony), Monday, 2 January 2006 14:20 (eighteen years ago) link

Dr Morbius plainly hates good acting.

Anthony: you got mail.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Monday, 2 January 2006 14:38 (eighteen years ago) link

I don't think this was a gay film at all. It was a conventional "women's picture". It has the same appeal to the same audience as A River Runs Through It, The Horse Whisperer etc etc. It's all about hunky, tough yet sensitive guys who don't say much. The buttsex angle is something of a red herring.

Compare/contrast slash fiction, written and read almost exclusively by heterosexual women.

― dream logic, Monday, 2 January 2006 14:38 (eighteen years ago) link

I don't think this was a gay film at all. It was a conventional "women's picture".

I agree, but a rather cold one. It reminded a bit of a Douglas Sirk picture: kitsch redeemed thanks to the director's tonal control.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Monday, 2 January 2006 14:43 (eighteen years ago) link

Here are two statements that I did not understand!

Apparently Michelle Williams may be 'acting' off the set much like Katie Holmes, IF you know what I mean...

-- Dr Morbius (wjwe...), November 10th, 2005.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You guys realize if there's any pudding in this film, it'll be the strawman indie film as outlined by Cartman in South Park?
-- mike h. (m...), November 10th, 2005.

Can anyone translate, or explain?

― the pinefox, Monday, 2 January 2006 14:48 (eighteen years ago) link

Maybe the interesting thing is the way the gayness otherwise lets the film totally off the hook, and allows the leads to be in every other way conventional when it comes to gender role models. It'd be hard to imagine a movie these days where the leads were such conservative unreconstructed "real men", and yet where the target audience was "liberal" rather than "red state".

― dream logic, Monday, 2 January 2006 14:52 (eighteen years ago) link

Ultimately, what this film lets women do is pull off a Houdini trick where they can fantasise about "real men", while not having to buy into everything else that goes with the "real man" ethos, because of the gayness of it.

― dream logic, Monday, 2 January 2006 14:58 (eighteen years ago) link

Oh man, if only Ang Lee had half of Sirk's passion (or looniness).

xpost
Unsubsantiated rumor: MW and HL's coupling (and child) is a front for his gay/bisexuality.

South Park's Cartman once defined 'independent film' as movies about gay cowboys eating pudding.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Monday, 2 January 2006 15:15 (eighteen years ago) link

But they do eat a lot of beans.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Monday, 2 January 2006 15:29 (eighteen years ago) link

Thanks, Dr Morbius - now I understand, at least more than I did.

People are so often unwilling to explain things these days.

― the bellefox, Monday, 2 January 2006 15:45 (eighteen years ago) link

I like your review too, Alfred, esp the puke-Proust line. You do pick a considerable number of flaws for an A-, but I guess the virtues carried more weight for you than me. I'd have preferred the spare, 95-minute film this could have been ... because the female characters AREN'T IMPORTANT. The McMurtrys are guilty of major bloat by adaptation.

(I saw a ref to Ang Lee referring to The Last Picture Show as a different kind of male-male romance that inspired him, so our Jeff Bridges-Dennis Quaid fantasy version could be within reach. You get the time machine, I'll work on convincing Proulx to write it when we get to 1979.)

Nude Jack washing Ennis' shirt by the river is one of the most erotic scene in the film (and Most Likely to Freeze Frame).

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Monday, 2 January 2006 16:04 (eighteen years ago) link

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