Greetings!

Lots of fun stuff this week. I wasn’t really planning on doing an update, but I keep stumbling over all these articles that I feel need to get on here! So here goes…

The film is a subtle piece that lingers with you after it’s gone. It’s issues are very complex, the relationship between Twist and Del Mar is affectionate, brutal, heartbreaking and destructive as both try to deal with their feelings, which ultimately divides them from their families and a shot at living without each other. Unlike the film, the lovers do not triumph against adversity.

Quoting from the “News & Star” site, a little fluff called “Brokeback Masterpiece.” The rest of the article is expendable, but I had to start with this because it sums up my feelings on the movie quite well. I saw it over the weekend, and can we say depressed? Altogether now: DEPRESSED. I loved it, but I’ve never felt this emotional about a movie before! Sappy, let me mosey on…

Of course, anyone who has been watching any stories about the movie knows that our President (for better or for worse…), George W. Bush, was asked at a recent open forum if he had seen the movie. Take a look at the new story. Independent Gay Forum (generally critical of most of the gay establishment) responded with a short newsbit, which points out that GW is not being flippant, just showing what little charisma he has. I haven’t seen the video, but from the text, my feeling is that he’s just trying to gloss over the subject in as minimally offensive a way as possible.

And now for an odd bit on Entertainment Weekly’s PopWatch: Christopher Lee: Today’s stars are too inexperienced. Mr. Lee seems to think that the boys didn’t pull off their roles too well in the film, and PopWatch agrees, saying that the “grownup” boys and their wives were more like children playing dress-up than the real thing. Not sure if that matters, though. It didn’t distract me much.

Here’s a really great article, called Two Gay Cowboys Hit a Home Run. Touches on all the normal reviewish type stuff, but also is nicely astutue in its observations about the fact that the story is about more than just Ennis and Jack.

Time has another great article, How the West Was Won Over, talking about the current effect the movie is having, with some good background on how the movie got made.

And lest I dare, here is an article on a conservative magazine site, from a reviewer who is underwhelmed by the movie: Brokeback Mountain and the Romance of Gayness. Here’s my favorite part:

Based on a prize-winning story by Annie Proulx, one of the problems with the movie is that the screen writers are too respectful of Proulx’s story. It is this fidelity to the short story that makes this film, with its awe-inspiring backdrop, seem so small. The story is characterized by emotional minimalism — the young men, Jack and Ennis, are barely articulate even at emotional high points. Much is communicated by silence or enigmatic looks and shrugs. This may work well in short fiction, but the art of writing a short story is different from the art of writing a movie. And after all a short story can only go so far in developing character and creating dramatic conflict.

I find this laughable. So enthusiastic to condemn the movie, is the writer, that logic goes out the window! Tell me, oh wise right-leaning sage, how “silence or enigmatic looks and shrugs” supposedly “work well in short fiction”? I’m curious as to how either of these things are conveyed artfully in literature? Is it not the screen on which silence is more poignant than words? And on the page in which we are touched by poetic verse? What a silly criticism.

But we see this poor, mentally challenged reviewer’s true colors just a paragraph later:

Her grievances with men, or at least men who live by “white masculine values,” as she calls them, profoundly influence “Brokeback Mountain.”

Of course. If we couldn’t get feminism up in the discussion (or, rather, anti-feminism), it just wouldn’t be a discussion, would it? I will neglect to mention that he continues by mentioning the fact that Proulx has been divorced three times, as if that had any bearing at all on how the movie turned out — because I would rather walk on my own two hands than talk about someone else’s foolish criticsms! But hopefully, dear reader, you will grace his words with your eyes for a few moments if for nothing else a good chuckle.

Let’s end now on a high note, with two articles regarding awards. ‘Brokeback’ Gets Top Honor at PGA Awards is a nice short article about the fact that Diana Ossana and James Schamus won the Darryl F. Zanuck producer of the year award for Brokeback. Gratz to them!

GLAAD has also put out their nominations for the 17th annual GLAAD Media Awards, and this article lists those up for awards.

Stay safe bulldoggers, and I’ll see you back here soon!