Brokeback Mountain

Brokeback Mountain is a great new movie is coming to theaters next Friday, December 9th. While I'm typically not a fan of romantic movies, and almost never go to a theater to see one, Darren and I are making a point to see this one in the theater on opening weekend. Why?

1) The short story this movie is based on won a Pulitzer Prize
2) It has won the top prize at the Venice Film Festival
3) Movies are valued on their opening-weekend box office proceeds
4) This is a touching story of love - between two men

I have excerpted part of a Newsweek article about this movie. The full article can be found here. I encourage you all to read about it and help support Brokeback Mountain next weekend. Narnia also comes to theaters next weekend, so it will be a tough battle! Narnia is sure to be around for at least 3 weeks - why not see it when the theater is less crowded? :)

"Based on the short story by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Proulx ("The Shipping News"), "Brokeback" is the tale of Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal), two ranch hands who, in the summer of 1963, are hired to herd sheep on Wyoming's Brokeback Mountain. There, separated from the rest of the world, their laconic friendship develops, almost by accident, into a sexual relationship. As the summer ends, the two men are forced to separate, and they discover that their feelings for each other are stronger than they imagined. Jack dreams of buying a ranch together. Ennis thinks they'll be killed if anyone suspects their relationship. And so they marry women and have children, and for 20 years live apart, seeing each other only on rare camping trips, trying to hold on to the innocence and beauty of that first summer on the mountain. Inevitably, the longing and frustration, the years of repression, lead to a devastating conclusion.

Its raw masculinity, spare dialogue and lonely imagery subverted the myth of the American cowboy and obliterated gay stereotypes. It has already earned the top prize at the Venice Film Festival and is almost certain to be an Oscar contender. More than that, though, "Brokeback" feels like a landmark film. No American film before has portrayed love between two men as something this pure and sacred. As such, it has the potential to change the national conversation and to challenge people's ideas about the value and validity of same-sex relationships.

The day Jake Gyllenhaal was cast in "Brokeback," the chatter around the industry was not about what a wise choice he'd made. "It's the most stupid move he could make," said one top producer over lunch that afternoon. "It'll alienate his teen-girl fan base and could kill his career. What a waste." Gyllenhaal and Ledger don't dodge it. The kissing and the sex scenes are fierce and full-blooded.

After seeing the movie, Gyllenhaal says, male reporters will enter a room to interview him and almost always follow the same routine. "They come in and they're all, like, 'I just want you to know I'm straight'," he says, and laughs. If they've been moved by the film, he says, they often rationalize it by saying things like "Well, it's really more of a friendship." No, it isn't. "It's a love story," Gyllenhaal says. "They're two men having sex. There's nothing hidden there." Ledger has a theory about why the movie makes some men uncomfortable. "I suspect it's a fear that they are going to enjoy it," he says. "They don't understand that you are not going to become sexually attracted to men by recognizing the beauty of a love story between two men."