Monday, February 06, 2006
Brokeback Mountain
Are my wife and I the only non-homophobes who didn't like Brokeback Mountain?
The week before we'd seen "Memoirs of a Geisha". As we left I said the same thing I'd said when I'd left that other great Asian epic, "The Last Emperor", more than decade ago: "Wow, that was cinematic." I was glad that if I saw it at all I saw it on the big screen. I had trouble telling which character was which. It wasn't so much that they all looked alike but the girls kept again while the Chairman got younger. At least Nobu had that scar.
In any case, having dragged my wife to "Geisha" I let her pick the chick flick.
The twanging guitars bugged us right from the start.
Just what type of gaydar did these cowboys have that they went from huddling for warmth to rough sex in a matter of hours? Wasn't Ennis a virgin until then?
Maybe it's because we live in Boston today instead of Wyoming (or Canada) then, but for most of the movie I was thinking "What a bunch of assholes. Why don't they just move someplace more tolerant and be with each other? Even in the years portrayed the Village and the Castro had reasonable communities."
From about an hour in my wife was nudging me "When is something going to happen? Don't we have to leave to get the kids?" At about 2 hours in I got a phone call I had to take so I went out to the lobby, and my wife joined me with our coats, and I didn't object.
Comments:
"Maybe it's because we live in Boston today instead of Wyoming..."
I think that pretty much covers it regarding that particular plot criticism. Nathan Lane (gay and also, like you, non-homophobic) had the same reaction to the film on a Today show segment I saw. I live in Boston too, but personally I cut the movie some slack on the theory that in 60's and 70's Wyoming, a lot of people (both straight and gay) felt more psychologically constricted by their environment than we do in 21st century Boston. (Though, I might add, we'll see what happens here in 2008 when MA residents may get to choose whether to enshrine homophobia into the state constitution)
I'm gay, and my boyfriend and I went to see it together. I liked the movie, he didn't like the movie. For non-homophobes, my bet is that whether you like it or not has more to do with whether you happen to like the slow storytelling style of Director Ang Lee, as well as the screenwriters (who also wrote The Last Picture Show, if that gives you a point of reference). I think it's just a matter of taste...some poeple like it, some don't.
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I think that pretty much covers it regarding that particular plot criticism. Nathan Lane (gay and also, like you, non-homophobic) had the same reaction to the film on a Today show segment I saw. I live in Boston too, but personally I cut the movie some slack on the theory that in 60's and 70's Wyoming, a lot of people (both straight and gay) felt more psychologically constricted by their environment than we do in 21st century Boston. (Though, I might add, we'll see what happens here in 2008 when MA residents may get to choose whether to enshrine homophobia into the state constitution)
I'm gay, and my boyfriend and I went to see it together. I liked the movie, he didn't like the movie. For non-homophobes, my bet is that whether you like it or not has more to do with whether you happen to like the slow storytelling style of Director Ang Lee, as well as the screenwriters (who also wrote The Last Picture Show, if that gives you a point of reference). I think it's just a matter of taste...some poeple like it, some don't.
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: Sunday, February 26, 2006 1:06:00 PM EST
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