Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee, 2005)

[Michael]

edit: never mind

[David Ehrenstein]

Over my strenuous objections, Bareback Molehill just won Best Picture of the Year from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. Ang Lee was voted Best Director.

[Grimfarrow]

Just saw that too. That was quite a quick deliberation!

I approve of Dan Futterman's award for Best Screenplay for CAPOTE. It's the best thing about the film - even more than the performance by Hoffman IMO.

I spent brunch today with Jason Anderson talking about this year's best films. Hopefully I convinced him of some choices for the Village Voice poll

[Grimfarrow]

David -

Who is doing the website? Why are some of the announced winners misspelt?

For Music/Score, runner-up is TONY TAKITANI. Great choice, BTW - this would be my choice for Score of the Year.

Cinematography - you either have it as Kwan Pun Leung, Lai Yiu-Fai OR Pun Leung Kwan and Yiu-Fai Lai. Kwan and Lai are last names.

[David Ehrenstein]

I'm not sure who's putting up the information but I bet they're exhausted after today's vote which started at Noon and didn't end until around 5. E-mail them about the spelling and I'm sure corrections will be made immediately.

[kieslowski_67]

BBM just took best picture and best director honors from LA film critics association.

When my wife and I caught the movie at Tononto, we noticed that lots of female audience were crying out loud at the end of the show. I have watched quite a few gay themed movies before and BBM is the one that struck me the most since I watched Techine's "wild reeds' about 10 years ago (unless "talk to her" and "all about my mother" can be listed as gay themed movies). And from an artistic point of view, this is by far Ang's best feature to date.

[David Ehrenstein]

I wouldn't list either Almodovar. He skirts gay themes (pun intended) but never deals with them. Wild Reeds is a very important gay film. It represents Techine's personal coimg out, after what seems like eons of closetedness, and it gave birth to a new director Gael Morel. See his Three Dancing Slaves - a genuinely gay movie rhater than a three-hankie special for fag-hags.

[kieslowski_67]

DE, I am not sure why we need to care so much about whether a movie is a gay movie or not. I don't know the definition, and don't care about the definition. A movie won't become great just because it's a genuine gay movie.

The reason that I like BBM is because somehow the story is universal and Ang is not treating it like a gay movie on purpose. To me, a main theme of the movie is tolerance.

BTW, BBM has so far picked up best picture and director honors from LAFCA and NYFCC, the two most prestigious critics awards in the US for film makers. Throw in the top honors from Boston society of film critics and best director award from NBR, "Brokeback mountain" is the clearcut #1 movie from the critics this year. Case closed.

[David Ehrenstein]

First you say

I am not sure why we need to care so much about whether a movie is a gay movie or not

then you say

The reason that I like BBM is because somehow the story is universal and Ang is not treating it like a gay movie on purpose.

So which is it? Of COURSE you like it because it's not a gay movie. Why do you refuse to fess up to that fact? If it was a gay movie you wouldn't go to see it. It's on the fast track to the Oscar> I predict it will win and so will Ang Lee. Why shouldn't it? It's Ordinary People all over again, with a soupcon of Gentlemen's Agreement and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.

[jorencain]

Of COURSE you like it because it's not a gay movie. Why do you refuse to fess up to that fact? If it was a gay movie you wouldn't go to see it.

This is quite an over-generalization. I'm straight, I haven't seen BBM yet, and I'm not sure whether I will or not. I have, however, seen and LOVED "Maurice", "Fox and his Friends", "In A Year of 13 Moons" (and a bunch of other Fassbinder), "Mysterious Skin" and a handful of other films that I assume would be termed "gay movies". Or maybe they wouldn't be; I don't know and it doesn't really matter to me. I may be understanding kieslowski_67 incorrectly, but it seems that he is saying that sexual orientation of the director or characters is not a determining factor in seeing a movie or not. Regardless, not all straight males are homophobic. Maybe you are able to read through the lines of what people are writing better than I can, but these all-knowing blanket statements seem like a knee-jerk reaction some of the time.

[David Ehrenstein]

I have, however, seen and LOVED "Maurice", "Fox and his Friends", "In A Year of 13 Moons" (and a bunch of other Fassbinder), "Mysterious Skin" and a handful of other films that I assume would be termed "gay movies". Or maybe they wouldn't be; I don't know and it doesn't really matter to me.

Well you have indeed seen a number of important gay movies. And while you say it doesn't matter to you, it certainly matters to me. What Merchant-Ivory, Rainer Werner Fassbinder nad Greg Araki are doing in those movies is genuinely innovative and accurately reflects gay reality. Unlike Brokeback

[rs98762001]

Glancing at this forum's section for Second Run DVD, I noticed that they have brought out a few films that deal quite explicity with gay themes. They include NIGHTHAWKS and its sequel STRIP JACK NAKED, Karoly Makk's Hungarian film ANOTHER WAY, and Shirley Clarke's PORTRAIT OF JASON. I'm yet to catch up on any of them - are they worth it, as "gay" films or otherwise?

[David Ehrenstein]

They're all very much worth seeing, especially the work of Ron Peck, an important filmmaker.

[Jun-Dai]

I am not sure why we need to care so much about whether a movie is a gay movie or not. I don't know the definition, and don't care about the definition. A movie won't become great just because it's a genuine gay movie.

I don't know what great means (and I suspect no one else here really does either), but a film that captures something very real and relevant to the experiences of a sizable section of the/a gay community will have accomplished something significant and worthwhile, regardless of it's aesthetic, dramatic, or entertaining qualities, IMO, and will hopefully in time be considered a lasting contribution to film history, more so than anything Ang Lee has done thus far in his career (though I'm sure he'll get quite a bit more than a footnote as it is).

A film that that stops at being plausible, moving, enjoyable, and cathartic to a predominantly straight audience can at best bring some attention to things that need some attention and at worst reinforce stereotypes and marginalize a group while offering it misguided sympathies. This is why films like Come See the Paradise make my skin crawl, even though I recognize that there are probably a few thousand more slightly better-informed people that had until then managed to avoid learning about the US's Japanese American concentration camps during WWII (that people can go through high school and not be taught about them is a pretty serious problem). Now I'm just waiting for a Spielberg film about the 442nd.

[Michael]

I fail to understand how the bus shelter posters (in NYC) promote this film as "ground breaking". What exactly is new? It would have been ground breaking if it was made in the 50s. But this is 2005.

Let me say this, you would be better off with some of the finest films I've seen this year: Mysterious Skin, Wild Side and Tropical Malady.

[David Ehrenstein]

I fail to understand how the bus shelter posters (in NYC) promote this film as "ground breaking". What exactly is new? It would have been ground breaking if it was made in the 50s. But this is 2005.

SING OUT LOUISE!

Let me say this, you would be better off with some of the finest films I've seen this year: Mysterious Skin, Wild Side and Tropical Malady.

And I would add The Dying Gaul to that list.

[swimminghorses]

Haven't seen the movie yet, but read the short story from the link provided to the New Yorker site.

So these chaps meet in 1960 (in their very early 20's) and the short story ends twenty years later (1980?). Stonewall was in 1969 and these two can't get it together in the 80's. A friend of mine lived with a guy in his 40's in 1980 just after the guy had divorced his wife and within a year became Mr Leatherman N.W (wonder if they still have those things?). The little weepie short story just didn't make sense to me. Perhaps they have had the good sense to move it back a decade or perhaps it is a question of geography.

[Carson Dyle]

I wasn't going to contribute to this thread again, but the last two posts were practically begging for a response.

“Compassionate objectivity?â€

[Lino]

Carson, I had agreed with you a few posts back and I must say I continue to agree with you still. Your points are all pertinent and I hope you continue to post here. I will continue to read your thoughts. They are totally valid and unprejudiced.

[David Ehrenstein]

He was a cardboard stereotypical 50's dad. (Intentionally.) His struggle to come to terms with his sexuality was marginalized. His gayness was nothing more than one of the many trials Julianne Moore had to endure. I'm guessing that if Todd Haynes were straight and he'd made that exact same film beat by beat, line by line, you would have been outraged that Quaid's character was a two dimensional, alcoholic, wife-beating closet case. You would have complained that only somebody straight would choose to tell the story from the wife's POV. Etc.

You're being completely ridiculous. If Todd were straight he wouldn't have made Far From Heaven. No heterosexual would. Far From Heaven is both an evocation of the 50's and a reworking of themes out of Douglas Sirk. Quaid's character is central in that gayness is the one "problem" Sirk movies (and the 50's as a whole) didn't deal with, even though it was standing right there in the figure of Rock Hudson.

Todd (like his co-producer George Clooney) was born in 1961. His ability to capture the look and feel and iconographic import of a time well before he was born (but when gay geezers such as myself were around and rememebr well) is simply amazing.

As for incipient auteur gayness or lack of same, Ang Lee did quite a good with The Wedding Banquet -- aided in no small measure by the fact that he had an openly gay lead, Mitchell Lichtenstein. Sad that Lichtenstein -- like a large number of openly gay actors I can name - wasn't so much as considered for Brokeback Mountain. But not only is the project'sfailure to "hire gay" unfortunate, Lee appears to have forgotten everything we thought he knew about gay men. People who have never had a same-sex experience by the time they reach adulthood (and we're never given any information that they have so we have to assume the negative) dont' go (in the immortal words of Cary Grant "gay all of a sudden" in this manner. Jake takes Heath's arm, puts it around himand bang he's a top! Adding to the stupidity is that we're supposed to expect that he's got the lowest sex drive in human history. He dutifully marries and is same-sex faithful to Jake for twenty years.

Clearly this is the "slash fiction" fantasy of a woman who knows nothing about gay men. And her name is E. Anne Proulx.

There are straight filmmakers who know more than a thing or two about gay life and love. Happy Together by Wong Kar Wai is a perfect example. He goes to the head of the class. Ang Lee gets an "F".

And I'm gay and fairly well versed in my cinema, Queer and otherwise.

Well mother pin a rose on you. And stick that pin in hard.

[jesus the mexican boi]

Posted: Fri Dec 09, 2005 12:26 am

My last word on the subject

...THIRTEEN POSTS and SIX DAYS LATER...

Well mother pin a rose on you.

And stick that pin in hard.

See the movie or don't. But personal attacks are neither warranted nor provoked. Michael expressed his dislike of the film AFTER seeing the fucking thing. Otherwise, you're just like Bill Donahue condemning THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST without seeing a single frame. This is not film criticism. It's an empty exercise in bitching. My last word on the subject.

[The Invunche]

^
|
Member of the year.

[Michael]

Far From Heaven was my favorite film that year.

Same here.

The bottom line is, a lot of you are mad gay people didn't make this film. And because gay people didn't make this film, any supposed inaccuracy is reason to shout from the rooftops that straight people have no business making movies about gays.

No way. That was never in my thoughts. There are lots of crappy gay directors out there. Looking at the gay/lesbian selections on Netflix, I only like about 2% of the whole lot. A straight man made Happy Together and it is one of my favorite films.

Were you outraged when The Wedding Banquet came out

Not at all. In fact, after seeing it the first time in NYC, I liked it so much that I fought to have it screened in my hometown (population of 500).

The sex scene wasn't realistic. Well, name me one non-porno movie that has realistic sex.

Monster's Ball. Don't Look Now. Last Tango in Paris (even with clothes on!). Tons, tons of French films. Why in the world is BBM rated R?

Actually, name me one porno.

Don't have one. Porno bores me.

I do think Ang Lee is an acquired taste.

Don't forget to re-read my comments about Wedding Banquet and also how I support Ang Lee some pages ago. The Ice Storm is brilliant.. you had no idea how much I cried after watching it.

[David Ehrenstein]

But personal attacks are neither warranted nor provoked

.
Sez you.

Michael expressed his dislike of the film AFTER seeing the fucking thing. Otherwise, you're just like Bill Donahue condemning THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST without seeing a single frame.

Honey, I saw this film MONTHS AGO!!!!!

This is not film criticism. It's an empty exercise in bitching.

Tell it to the shade of Francois Truffaut. He built an entire critical career on bitching.

[Napoleon]

See the movie or don't. But personal attacks are neither warranted nor provoked. Michael expressed his dislike of the film AFTER seeing the fucking thing. Otherwise, you're just like Bill Donahue condemning THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST without seeing a single frame. This is not film criticism. It's an empty exercise in bitching.

My last word on the subject.

Oh come on! This is the thread of the year.
Even better than the ones where previously respected posters have gone nuts. In a blaze of glory.