My 2 cents

[eumelia]

"Brokeback Mountain" is indeed worthy of praise. Not!
What the hell?!
In very few words the movie was;
a) Contrived
b) Slow
c) Boring
d) Not original at all.

To go into detail, I'll start with the technical issues that bothered me;
1) The editor of this movie should be ostracized from the movie making community. The movie was choppy, disconnected and filled with many a "When did that happen?" moments from me. The movie could have been a lot more enjoyable if the editing hadn't been really sucky.
With a budget as big as they had, Ang Lee should have been able to make a visual masterpiece like he did in "Bouncing Bunny, Hiding Hippopotamus".
2) The music; I may not have played an instrument in a while, but Composer sir, there is such a thing in your profession known as Variation... say it with me, Va-ri-a-tion!

The acting was good, because it was subtle, but there is such a thing as too subtle as hagar_972 said in her post "was there a movie and I missed it?". The "Gay Love Scene" made no sense to me, because it was so sudden, yeeees, there were the deep gazes into each others eyes, the casual nudity and all, but please, a man, a manly man in a 60' does not offer his ass to his pal just like that... and was I the only one concerned about the lack of lube!?

There were many funny bits (only because ot was all so ridiculous and derivative), when Ennis and Alma make love and he flips her over with no warning, I'm sorry the look on her face was too priceless. If a guy ever did that to me with no explanation he would say goodbye to his balls, very rude indeed.

The conflict at the end should have come before they even made love, I felt it made no sense that they could have carried out an affair for so long, with out fighting it out.

It could be that I'm simply too far removed from the Americana iconography that was dripping from the movie (The Cowboys, the big cars, the Fourth of July etc.), but there is nothing new and amazing in this movie, it has broken no boundaries or social conventions, there have been many gay oriented love story movies from around the world for years.
The one closest to home is "Yossi & Jagger" which is one of my favourite movies in general, perhaps because it is Israeli, or perhaps it was one of the movies I bonded over with my father, but the premise was the same, forbidden love that cannot become true.

In conclusion, "Brokeback Mountain" is mainly a disappointing piece of unoriginal Americana that keeps the mythical gay romance a stereotype. Homosexual love, specifically when the two are super masculine, almost iconic in their testosterone glory, cannot endure, nor can it be resolved by anything other than death.

My 2 cents about the future Oscar Winner.
Woe, I say, Woe onto the foreign press and Woe onto the Academy of motion pictures.


BTW Uri Klein loved it... I'm so not surprised.

Comments

[krazyhippie.livejournal.com]

I was very torn. I thought it was a decent story, but mostly just while they were on the ranch that first summer. Except for the "love" scene, which felt more like rape watching it (and yes, the lack of lube and the roughness he used with jake's virgin asshole made me want to cry), the rest of it was okay. It WAS hard to buy their relationship from that, though. The development of it was half-assed. But after that summer it just got worse. There were parts that touched me, but overall it seemed loosely connected. Like they were showing one event, then another, but you weren't really sure how they transitioned from scene A to scene B, or what they had to do with each other, or what happened in between that you were somehow expected to assume.

And it was really hard for me to feel badly for Heath's character after Jake's died, what with him being a violent and emotionally distant asshole the entire movie.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

*nods in a agreement*
The best thing about going to the movie was that we were a whole bunch (not a straight one among us) and we just had a ball laughing out loud and whispering outrageously to each other.
I sat next to my friends Avihuh (sweetest man I've ever met, all my other gay guy friends are so mean!) and we both gave each other scandalized looks at the lubelessness in that scene, I felt bad for jack.

[trouble2urh3art.livejournal.com]

In a sense I agree with a bit of what you’ve said. Yes, I enjoyed the movie a great deal; I was most definitely engaged both emotionally and mentally with the characters. Yet I felt that there was something missing. The plot to me seemed a bit pushed, where the only reoccurring scene was their time in the mountain, particularly them sitting by the fire and not really bringing up more issues that could or would arise if they were to be caught. I also felt like they didn’t really show a lot of subtle emotional scenes. Simple gestures like touching or kissing would have given it a more personal feel.
Overall I thought the actors were brilliant, they certainly made us engage with them at an emotional level, which shows their flexibility in breaking free from their regular mould in terms of sexuality.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Core!!!!
Where have you been?
Everything okay?

The most fun I had was sitting next to Avihuh, my very gay, very good friend, and giving each other "looks" throughout the movie.

[trouble2urh3art.livejournal.com]

Where have you been?
Everything okay?

everything's fine, thanks for asking.

I've just been really busy with projects and work, and believe me when i get stressed with all that i can forget about everything else..literally. So i stay away from all the chat rooms (which i never generally use anywayz) and LJ (which since i've made an account, has been a HUGE, disraction)

Avihuh is such a unique name. cool.
One of the other names i find insanely awsome is Joaquim, i will name my son this, if i ever have one, or Kuerton.