January 12, 2006

• THURSDAY WHATEVER

  Brokeback Mountain

  I was going to wait till next Wednesday to digest this film but I just saw it this afternoon and I need to kind of process my way through it now and get it off my mind. Everybody already knows the sensational buzz about it and has seen the standard photos and has probably either already seen it or decided they’re too squeamish to see it or too homophobic or whatever. Whoever The Critics are, they seem to have approved and Joe Public and the Mrs. are just going to have to get over it (whether they see it or not). Hopefully, they will. Here’s what I expected from the hype – outdoor scenes of mountain grandeur (check), tastefully done sexual encounters between two very not gay Hollywood hunks (check), an Award performance by Heath Ledger (check), an engaging performance by Jake Gyllenhall (check), and a deep and enduring and in the end unfulfilled love story between two humans (check). What I got on top of that was something like this… The delicate discovery between these two men of how injured their early lives had been and the compassion that they found in each other that was unique among all their other relationships, the sense of yearning that builds between lovers of any age or sex when they are kept apart too much and too long, and in this case the absolutely undeniable reality that this particular union invited death. We all know what can happen to gay men in Wyoming, the setting of most of the film. Or pretty much anywhere for that matter. And in the end, the conclusion of Ennis Del Mar that a life alone in a tiny trailer in the middle of nowhere with the jacket of his dear friend hanging inside his closet door is better than any other. That’s the best I can do to explain it. If there was ever a time when You Had to Be There fits, it’s when you see this film. It deserves every award it gets.
  

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  Deep Thought: “Frank knew that no man had ever crossed the desert on foot and lived to tell about it. So, he decided to get back in his car and keep driving.”
  Today I am grateful for: This being the first minute of the rest of my life.
  Guess the Movie: “You’re the only one small enough to get in and out of that thing. All you have to do swim inside, jam a pebble in the fan, and swim out. Once you do that, this tank is going to get filthier and filthier, and the dentist will have no choice but to clean the tank himself. He’ll put us in individual baggies, then we roll out the window, down to the ground, across the street, and into the ocean. It’s foolproof!” Answer: Finding Nemo, 2003. Winner: Eliminate_the_Impossible.
  The Impeachment of George W. Bush
  by Elizabeth Holtzman
  Finally, it has started. People have begun to speak of impeaching President George W. Bush – not in hushed whispers but openly, in newspapers, on the Internet, in ordinary conversations and even in Congress. As a former member of Congress who sat on the House Judiciary Committee during the impeachment proceedings against President Richard Nixon, I believe they are right to do so. (Rest of story here).

  • 9:02 pm
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