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Night at the Movies: Brokeback Mountain


Scrivener
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I actually saw this quite a long time ago but just never got around to giving you guys a review. With the Oscars right around the corner, I felt it was my sovereign duty to get myself and everyone else up to speed.

In short, and as much as I hate to admit it, Brokeback Mountain is a fantastic movie. I know what you're thinking "how could you say that about a GAY MOVIE"... well, the thing is - this isn't really a "gay movie" - at least not in the sense you mean. That is, it is not an agenda movie - but a convincing, detailed, and believable character study.

At the beginning we find that both characters: Ennis and Jack, are pretty screwed up guys with pretty horrible childhoods. They both show up for a summer sheep-herding job and end up working together. Isolated on the mountain, Jack slowly works on Ennis until he makes his move one cold night after calling Ennis into the tent.

After the Brokeback job they go their seperate ways. Ennis gets married (he was engaged before the Brokeback job) and has a couple kids, Jack on the other hand, makes plenty of failed passes on other guys. Eventually, Jack meets a rich cowgirl and takes advantage of her and marries her almost exclusively for wealth. Then, being a made man, he hunts down Ennis and seduces him into going back to Brokeback on a "fishing trip." Unbeknownst to them, Ennis' wife sees them kissing outside and bottles it up until she breaks. In contrast to Jack's situation, Ennis and his family were pretty poor, but they held together by the sheer will of his strong, loving wife. What she goes through is the biggest tragedy of the film.

Jacks wife, while less vocal, quickly deteriorates in her loveless marriage. But wait, Jack can't live on one or two gay camping trips a year and starts heading to mexico to get some boy prostitutes. Eventually, Jack gets himself killed (and his wife lies about it) and Ennis follows up with Jack's parents - who are wierdo country folk themselves.

SO - what it boils down to is Jack being a lustfull, manipulative, predator who destroys both his and Ennis marriages and lives. In the end, Ennis manages to reconnect to his family through his daughter, who wants him in her wedding (and dosn't know about her father and Jack) even though he was never there for her growing up.

The movie is beautifully filmed, scored, and excellently acted. Don't be decieved when people call this a love story because they're just trying to a push an agenda this movie dosn't even touch on. It's a window into a very messed up situation and it's tragic effects on all involved. Really, this is definately one of the best, most haunting, and most memorable movies I've seen all year.

There, I said it.

Coming later this weekend... my review of Capote.

10/10

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My fav of last year was Walk the Line. I kind of stopped watching Bareback Mounting after the 'seducing' which was more of a wrestling to see who gets to be the dom and who gets to be the sub.

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hmmmm, maybe I should go see this then. Scriv is right, I refused to touch this one with the longest barge pole because of the 'agenda' that the media (especially) were pushing. I thought it was a gay movie first and foremost.

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Okay did I just get wrestling, sub and dom and bargepole all in one thread, please tell me that wasnt intentional. I know I'm supossed to be Mr Liberal but I am really just not interested at all to see this movie.

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