Are People Afraid To Criticize Brokeback Mountain?

[Cruel_Sandwich]

Posted: 1/30/06 at 10:36pm

It seems as if Brokeback is amassing a cult of Wes Anderson fan-like pretentious assholes who find it necessary to brutally cut down anyone who defecates upon their holy shrine of a film?

I mean, sure, I loved the movie. It's the second best film of the year (Syriana is number one). But I am not about to say that it didn't have its flaws, and the moustache symbolizes that completely.
Updated On: 1/30/06 at 10:36 PM

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 1/30/06 at 10:38pm

Are you high? Have you not been reading the Brokeback threads? There is vitriol on both sides.

[broadway86]

Posted: 1/30/06 at 10:39pm

I didn't mind the moustache at all, but I know what you're saying. I've seen examples of it all over IMDb.

[Kringas]

Posted: 1/30/06 at 10:39pm

Have you never looked at a BM thread on this board?

[Cruel_Sandwich]

Posted: 1/30/06 at 10:39pm

I just wish people would stop using it as a political statement rather than what it actually is: A good movie.

[theatrebabe]

Posted: 1/30/06 at 10:41pm

...as deos Ann Hathaway's hair. What was with that??

But, I think you're right. It's like, if you don't like the film, you're automatically labled homophobic.

Not saying that everyone is going to lable you this way.

This was a poorly worded post, but I'm very tired.

[Cruel_Sandwich]

Posted: 1/30/06 at 10:42pm

Bad bad bad bad moustache. They couldn't have done worse if they had a giant hand on the screen dragging pencil shavings over Gyll's lip with a magnetic pencil.

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 1/30/06 at 10:42pm

Didn't you ask this once before?

[respeck]

Posted: 1/30/06 at 10:44pm

Ann's hair rockeed my world! What are you talking about! Best part of the movie, hands down!

[broadway86]

Posted: 1/30/06 at 10:45pm

...as deos Ann Hathaway's hair. What was with that??

While it may have looked shocking, her wigs were dead-on.

[theatrebabe]

Posted: 1/30/06 at 10:46pm

Haha. Well, it did provide a little amusement during the phone call at the end.

By the way, I love your user-name, respeck.

Updated On: 1/30/06 at 10:46 PM

[MrMidwest]

Posted: 1/30/06 at 10:47pm

I finally got around to seeing the movie tonight. You can put me down on the list of people that it didn't do much for.

[LaVieHilary]

Posted: 1/30/06 at 10:47pm

I still need to see it but I have seen the previews, read the reivews, watched the awards shows. That movie may be "contraversial" but I must say that it sure looks like it has a great story to tell. Oh yeah and it is all over the boards with both pros and cons

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 1/30/06 at 10:53pm

AnnE Hathaway. With an E.

[Auggie27]

Posted: 1/30/06 at 10:54pm

I applaud your creating this thread ... but curiously, I now find the backlash so ubiquitous ... it's more like, you're not cool if you LIKE the damned movie. I think it may be the opposite of your thesis: it's way past the point of labeling someone as homophobic. It's far more chic in gay circles to be "curiously unmoved..." by it. Or, as a friend said, to see it, dry-eyed, as "a gay movie for straight people." (I'd say the opposite, that it stops the step n'fetchit-ization of gay life, by focusing on the heart, not the window-treatment fixation supposedly in every gay psyche... but I'm trying to step back and be anthropological.)

And it's not just here. I suspect the film will be re-analyzed enormously in February, in the Oscar countdown (assuming it gets the 8-11 nominations tommorrow morning.) I will go out on a limb and say: the backlash is so extensive, it may well cost the film the Oscar. Ang Lee may win, the screenplay may win, but the Best Picture may be another film. There, I've said it.

There are too many people in all depts of the academy who simply feel the hype isn't earned. Stay tuned.

[Plum]

Posted: 1/30/06 at 10:55pm

Erm, I'm pretty sure I'm on the record as saying I was less than wild about the film, and I never had any trouble. Unless I just said that to people on IM or something.

[DG]

Posted: 1/30/06 at 10:59pm

When I voiced my 'less than enthusiastic' opinion, I was hit in the face with 'I don't see how ANY gay man couldn't love this movie!'

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 1/30/06 at 11:06pm

I liked the film--and I have no reason to feel ashamed for such. And, I don't think anyone should feel ashamed for not liking the film.

But forget all that----go see Transamerica! Good film. Brilliant performance. And that bane of some's existence--important stuff going on.

[BlueWizard]

Posted: 1/30/06 at 11:07pm

I'm with Auggie -- we're in full backlash mode right now.

[Kringas]

Posted: 1/30/06 at 11:14pm

Is it possible that it's not so much backlash as it is clarity?

Prior to the alleged "backlash," many pro BM-ers were quite sanctimonious and condescending towards those who didn't care for it. Now that the cracks are beginning to show, those very same people are backpedaling, making excuses as to why this once surefire lock for Best Picture might now actually lose the gold.

There are too many people in all depts of the academy who simply feel the hype isn't earned.

Perhaps it isn't. It shouldn't detract from your experience with the film.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 1/30/06 at 11:17pm

Exactly. Nor does it mean that those of us who feel the hype is unearned are bigots. But then again, I don't have fly-like mosaic-vision, so mayhaps I am unable to look at the film on the requisite number of levels.

[MrMidwest]

Posted: 1/30/06 at 11:21pm

http://community.livejournal.com/teampornstache

[PalJoey]

Posted: 1/30/06 at 11:22pm

Thank you for posting this, Cruel_Sandwich. It was very brave of you to speak up for the rest of us. I think I can admit it now:

My name is PalJoey, and I am afraid to criticize Brokeback Mountain.

Updated On: 1/31/06 at 11:22 PM

[vbplayer]

Posted: 1/30/06 at 11:22pm

...will this debate ever end? It was a film, like many other films. It will be loved by some, and not by others. Let it run its course, good or bad. It won't change anything in the long run...really. I liked it, it made its point, whatever that point may be. So did many other films before it. I have my own take on it, so do you all. And there are a million different takes on the same movie to push every opinion aside that you don't agree with. Let it be what it is. A movie.

[Plum]

Posted: 1/30/06 at 11:23pm

Thus proving once again that as soon as you think of a concept, there will be an LJ community for it.