The Brokeback Mountain Post

Tarzan Boy – Baltimora

Last week, I watched Brokeback Mountain with Jess.

If I had to use one word to describe this movie, what would it be?

GAY?

Correct!

AROUSING?

More correct! No wait, less correct. LESS.

But let the record show that she did not make me watch it with her, and she made clear that my use of the “you forced me to watch a gay cowboy movie” card in possible future arguments would not be valid. Which seems like a fair trade off, considering all the times I made her sit through entries of my “Greatest Movies Evar List”, including classics including – but not limited to –Transformers (which even by my own admission, goes right downhill as soon as the Autobot City insanity is over), Kindergarten Cop, Dirty Work, and of course the frequent viewings of Van Helsing (otherwise know as The Greatest Movie Of All Time). So this isn’t to complain that I watched Brokeback Mountain – I went into it with full consent.

Still, I did have a bit of trepidation in entering the threatre. For one, what if I saw someone I knew? I wasn’t so much afraid of the possibility that there would be someone that recognized me…but that there would be someone that I would recognize…which would make for an awkward 134 minutes that neither of us would acknowledge to ever have happened. I mean I’m here with my girlfriend – what’s your deal, fag?

Also…this movie was gay. And it’s not like The Birdcage gay. It’s Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, not Robin Williams and Nathan Lane. That’s an important difference. Like Larry David said, “If two cowboys, male icons who are 100 percent all-man, can succumb, what chance to do I have, half to a quarter of a man, depending on whom I’m with at the time?” It’s like being jumped in a dark alley by a large black man or by a flock (herd?) of ninjas. Both are possible, depending on what part of town you’re in (and what your chosen profession is as well, I guess – ie. Power Ranger) but you’re much more afraid of one because it appears as a more credible possibility.

And with that random bout of homophobic racism out of our systems, let’s carry on.

Just walking into the theatre was awesome. Out of a theatre that seats maybe like…a hundred people, there were about ten people there. It surprised me – I would have expected more pull from a two week old movie about gay cowboys showing at the same time as The Chronicles of Narnia, King Kong, Munich, and Cheaper By The Dozen 2.

Everyone was at least forty five or fifty. Walking in, I saw two old ladies with very short hair sitting together (blatant bull-dykes), a married couple that included the only other male in the theatre (who I assumed were secure in their sexuality and just enjoyed watching movies…fuckin’ bull-dykes), and various small groups of housewives scattered around (all bull-dykes of varying degrees of literalness).

Then while we were sitting around waiting for the movie to start (Movie trivia’s the illest. What Friends alum starred in films with Bruce Willis? Answer: Courtney Cox, Alpha Dog (2006)), this skinny Asian kid poked his head in the theatre, went back out, looked around nervously and threw up in the washroom (I’m imagining here), and returned five minutes later to sit behind us, set to watch Brokeback Mountain alone. At this, I giggled to myself.

As I understand it, critically, it was a good movie. Well directed, great cast, beautifully shot scenes, a haunting, immensely emotional and moving film, and the ending gets you right there – Jess caught some dust in her eye (bull-dyke), along with the rest of the theatre. But as a guy whose top five favourite movies include Commando, Van Helsing, and Street Fighter, all that was completely lost on me.

So here’s some random notes about the movie, in point form notes because I’m getting tired. Some minor spoilage, but I’m assuming that not many of you are going to go out and watch this movie anyway.

– Just in case no one got it the first, second, and third times around – this movie is gay. I had to have sex with a female Malaysian bear after I got home just to settle up.

– It’s not R-rated, so there aren’t any explicit sex scenes. They’re just very implicit.

– You cannot move during sex scenes. You have to freeze. No shuffling in your seat, no sips from your oversized and overpriced fountain drink, no nose scratches, no jerking off, nothing. Because if you move during a sex scene, that either means you’re uncomfortable, or you’re really into it. Especially for gay sex scenes. You have to show that you’re completely okay with gay people, like “Yeah, I see guys fucking each other all the time, ain’t no biggie. I have tons of gay friends. I’ve fucked them all!” So don’t move. Unless you’re really into it…which I guess it’s okay to move then.

– For every gay scene, there’s a boobie scene to balance it out. But to me, that’s a lot like eating a hot dog. No matter how many toppings and condiments you put on it, you’re still sticking a foot long piece of meat in your mouth.

– Anne Hathaway boobies. The last time I saw her it was in commercials for The Princess Diaries. Weirded me out a little bit.

– Just in case it isn’t obvious already, I’m going to attach a male nudity warning to this movie. Since watching an old Romeo & Juliet movie in Grade 10 English and getting hit with a Romeo ass shot while the entire class was expecting a Juliet one, I’ve strongly believed that these warnings should be mandatory.

– Heath Ledger doesn’t open his eyes once during the entire movie. Also, despite the fact that the movie spans twenty years, no one seems to age. All they do is add an extra inch to their sideburns each decade. And it’s still convincing. Now I understand how no one could tell Superman and Clark Kent apart. Because Clark Kent married Lois Lane and Superman had sex with guys.

– …on second thought, that didn’t make much sense.

– No matter how gay these cowboys are, they still manage to get ridiculous looking girls. What does it say about the heterosexual male population when these guys get women that look like that while literally not even trying? They’re just getting pussy THROWN AT THEM. If I had watched this movie a year ago, I would have gone crazy. Then again…if I had watched this movie a year ago I wouldn’t have had a girlfriend to watch it with…and so I probably wouldn’t have been bothered that much about getting girls.

– “I wish I knew how to quit you!” That’s a line I’m going to be trying out for the next month or so. Give it a floor run, see if it plays.

Not much else to say. Good times, good movie, good stuff. Really gay though.

“Were the handcuffs totally necessary, officer?”
“Well, actually, that was your husband’s idea.”