Friends, I guess I couldn't wait, so last week I saddled up my laptop, harnessed that high-speed internet connection (yeah, forgive the cowboy references) and got myself a torrent file to download the movie.
Three days of patient waiting later, I had the entire film downloaded - it's an 800MB file. I'm not going to make this academic, and there are no layers of queerness in this email. I watched the movie on my laptop last weekend. First, let me say that this is a terribly courageous movie to make and to act in. Ang Lee, Heath Ledger and Jake Gylenhall staked their careers on making it. A heavy dose of cynicism will also tell you that I'm quite sure they knew full well that their gamble was going to pay off in spades, at least critically. Hollywood has a way of heaping accolades on people who play 'unusual' characters - Tom Hanks in Philadelphia, Charlize Theron in Monster, and this year Felicity Huffman playing a man becoming a woman as well as Philip Seymour Hoffman playing Capote (another movie I really want to see). What has been a bit of a surprise to everybody was the extent of Brokeback's commercial success. But I'll let you'll read about that on the web. Basically, they're called women, and they represent 50% of the movie-going public, who'd have thunk... About whether I think it deserves the Best Picture Oscar - probably not. I believe that Crash is a better movie overall and I haven't seen the other three nominees. Besides, it is mushy and overtly sentimental. Has shades of Madison County all over it. But I agree with the article posted on this list yesterday, that if you only see Brokeback for a 'universal' love story, then you're missing the point. In fact, even if you see it as a gay cowboy movie, you're missing the point. Its true brilliance lies in its being a movie about what the closet does to homosexuals. Now, about my reactions to the film: I had read Annie Proulx's short story a couple of times last year, first when I heard it was being adapted for the screen and the second time when the movie opened to huge critical acclaim. It's a beautiful story - very subtle and graphic at the same time. What the film adaptation does very well is to fill in the broad contours of the story without mucking with it - some subplots are elaborated a bit further, and a few new scenes have been added. Ultimately though, it colours inside the lines of the story, so to speak. This is unlike another recent film also adapted from a short story, India's entry at the Academy Awards, which took a lovely story added entire sub-plots & wholly irrelevant characters and unduly lengthened what could have been a tightly edited two-hour movie. The sex scenes are there, pretty much as Proulx describes them - they haven't been made more explicit, and I didn't feel like the filmmakers self-censored too much. And can I just say, those two boys are HOT! Also, the two main women in the movie are excellent, both are recent teen queens (one's from Dawson's Creek, the other from the Disney factory) who have clearly grown up. I like how Anne Hathaway becomes creepier as the film progresses, and Michelle Williams becomes weepier. For those of you who haven't read the story, I'm not going to give away anything about the plot except for saying it's a tragic love story. You know the drill, boy meets boy, society doesn't sanction boy on boy action, and stories are woven as a result. The setting of the movie is such a visual treat, alternating between the Rocky Mountains and the Great Plains. The cinematographer has little more to do than point the camera at the scenery and he's a shoo-in for best cinematography. The score got a little annoying at times, being played sometimes when I wished there was just silence. The film is very languid, the camera lingers lazily, sequences get dreamy, even the characters' southern accents seem more drawn out. The net result is an almost complete lack of pitched drama, which is wonderful. Lee spends a lot of time establishing the mood of a scene before getting to the action, much like how Proulx has written the story. How did I feel? - I LOVED the movie. Halfway through, I sort of decided that it was dragging a bit and it wasn't all that great. Then it got to the end... Have you ever seen someone cry? There are basically two types of non-melodramatic crying. The first is the pretty cry. This consists of dignified sobs, maybe a lace hanky reaching up to gingerly wipe a tear away, and a little muffled sniffling. The second is the ugly cry. This is the one with the dry heaving, the snot running, tears streaking down face, runny mascara, halloween eyes and strange noises from the throat. All I have to say is that this is only the second movie in my entire adult life that has got me to the ugly cry. - Ali P.S. The first time was during Romeo & Juliet with Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes. And I only did the ugly cry when Mercutio died, not at the end, and only because I felt he could have loved Romeo more than that meddlesome Juliet. I was also 18. Group Site: http://www.gaybombay.info ========================== This message was posted to the gay_bombay Yahoo! Group. Responses to messages (by clicking "Reply") will also be posted on the eGroup and sent to all members. If you'd like to respond privately to the author of any message then please compose and send a new email message to the author's email address. Post:- gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com Subscribe:- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Digest Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED] No Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Individual Mail Mode:- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Contact Us:- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Archives are at http://www.mail-archive.com/gay_bombay%40yahoogroups.com/maillist.html Classifieds for personal advertisements are back on www.gaybombay.info site. Please exercise restraint in the language of your personal advertisement. Yahoo! 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