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Gay viewers' take on "Brokeback": It's really just a simple love story
Seattle Times ^ | Friday, December 23, 2005 | Jose Antonio Vargas

Posted on 12/23/2005 5:39:51 PM PST by presidio9

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To: MillerCreek

And let's get something else straight: Love between two men can certainly be the focal point of a beautful. Films like Papillon come to mind. It is depictions of homosexuality and homoeroticism that are, without exception, nasty.


121 posted on 12/27/2005 8:06:47 PM PST by presidio9 (Islam Is As Islam Does)
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To: Burkean
I was talking about the film as a work of art, not as a purveyor of any agenda

Appreciation is in the eye of the beholder.

Excerpt:

review Brokeback Mountain Brokeback Mountain: Brokedown Ideas

It’s long overdue, but I think the Brokeback Mountain backlash is finally gearing up. Widely hailed as the best film of the pre-Oscar season, and fresh from winning the top award at the Venice Film Festival, Brokeback Mountain is the current must see movie. The critics, sheep that they are, herded onto the bandwagon over opening weekend, following the cues that this is the film you’re required to like. Kudos to the marketing department at Focus Features -- the buzz was perfectly spun. Brokeback was the one you don’t question -- the Sideways of 2005 -- it carried the pedigree director and the pedigree subject matter, and was based on a pedigree short story from a pedigree short story author which first appeared in a pedigree magazine. It smelled of class, and so the zombie-fied reviewers gave it the stamp of approval, the sticker of USDA prime. But amongst people I know, the dissatisfaction and disappointment are beginning to grow. Promoted as the “groundbreaking” gay film meant to change the world, the audience is slowly realizing it has instead been sold a bill of goods.

The reviewer would say that you are attempting to sell a bill of goods -I do not buy this 'art' bill of goods -the 'art' of adultery and homosexual activity is nothing new and surely nothing to acclaim...

122 posted on 12/28/2005 12:55:07 PM PST by DBeers (†)
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To: DBeers

I'm just calling a spade a spade. Just because something is considered a work of art, or even a well made work of art, does not mean that everyone should buy into it, appreciate it, or even condone it. I certainly don't carelessly watch or suggest films that promote immorality, adultery, etc. Sadly, the Oscars are full of best picture winners that embrace such practices--back to 1932's Grand Hotel, and including such "classics" as Gone With the Wind, Casablanca, The Lost Weekend, From Here to Eternity, The Apartment, etc. Personally I think we as a society are just too wrapped up in films as a touchstone of our lives and civilizations. They're just another work of art, like a novel, or a painting, a vase, or even a piece of furniture or a building.


123 posted on 12/28/2005 4:49:16 PM PST by Burkean
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To: presidio9

Well, love between two human beings is worthy.

This film ("BM") is not about "love" but about lust and deprivation and abuse. Unfortunately, that's what's appealing to those who find it so. Homosexuals consider an array of abusive behaviors of themselves and others as "love" and that's also the point as to why many of the rest of us consider their choices as deprived. Not to mention blind to the calling of God.

"BM" is NOT a film about "love" between two men, it's a film about depravities and abuse. Dressed up with bows, still depravity, still abuse, all those lives, including their own, destroyed, denigrated, consumed by all the wrong motives and behaviors.


124 posted on 12/29/2005 12:36:48 AM PST by MillerCreek
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To: escapefromboston

Hi, escapefromboston:

According to Boxofficemojo.com and RottenTomatoes.com, it cost around $14,000,000 to make. It's made a little more than $7,000,000 so far. All it has to do is better than breaking even (cost vs. gross) to be declared a winner.

Jack.


125 posted on 12/29/2005 12:45:17 AM PST by Jack Deth (Knight Errant and Disemboweler of the WFTD Thread)
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To: Nick5

A lot of people "familiar" with the "movie business" regard the trades as being unfamiliar with the movie business, so, you lose on that perspective.

You can't argue with the reality of box office. And exhibitor responses (upon which box office relies). You're suggesting that the FOX column by Friedman is rejectable because it's not, in your perspective, "familiar" with the "movie business" but I do know that FOX has a lot and offices right there in that "movie business" and actually makes a lot of business IN that "movie business."

I would have agreed with you had you taken off on the actual columnists, Friedman, however, given his eccentricity -- he does appear disconnected on many an issue but in this one column, earlier linked, he has quoted box office stats about "BM" and about those, they aren't lying, regardless of whether or not FOX, or Friedman, like or dislike the film, "BM."

"BM" is crap. It's like champaigne to people who think Gatoraide is a healthfood drink.


126 posted on 12/29/2005 12:51:24 AM PST by MillerCreek
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To: Nick5

Like I wrote, "BM" is champaigne to people who think Gatoraide is a healthfood drink.

You work in the film industry, you are accustomed to the tastes and perspsectives of "a lot of gay people" and you've come to regard Gatoraide as a healthfood drink.

Quite seriously, there are a lot of conservatives (the actual ones) who work in the film industry who also participate on FR and elsewhere on the internet and we don't care for this film for all the reasons so well and previously expressed.

The film ("BM") will and has been playing well before audiences who are compelled by situation and target to predetermine toward being emotionally moved -- as in, reinforced -- by this film.

The film ("BM") will not play well if it even plays at all before other audiences and those other audiences are the majority of movie goers. There may be the mentionable target audience of young teen males who go to ridicule the subject matter but that's the only margin of change I can perceive here, and, perhaps, the other audience who will attend because they're mistaken by what they're going to see onscreen after the grandiose (and misleading) trailers that have now appeared on some cable stations.

In all due respect, "work(ing) in the film industry" and "being around a lot of gays" as you say you do and are is no basis upon which to write a review of this film. It means little other than you are noticably influenced, that I'd place you among that audience I previously described as those who are predetermined to "like" the film and be emotionally reinforced by what you see. It makes your world, your immediate experiences and surroundings, make sense, it reinforces to you that the world is "like the film industry where I work, that the world is sympathetic to this lust and abusive behavior I see before me just like the many gays I work around..."

But the average viewer is going to avoid this film. And they are.


127 posted on 12/29/2005 1:00:23 AM PST by MillerCreek
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To: Motherbear

The film contains graphically enacted anal sex between two male homosexuals.

That is NOT included nor mentioned in the advertising. IF it WAS, how many who have already been in theatres to "see" this film that is, supposedly, about "love" would be there?

The film contains graphically enacted anal sex.

It's pornography and it's no more about love than road dirt is about heaven.


128 posted on 12/29/2005 1:04:48 AM PST by MillerCreek
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To: little jeremiah
Yeah, and on Christmas Eve, no less. As if I'm surprised by that.

To certain opiners on this thread, we know who you are:

Image hosted by Photobucket.com

129 posted on 12/29/2005 1:09:24 AM PST by MillerCreek
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To: little jeremiah

That (^^) was not about YOU, little_jeremiah...
~;-D


130 posted on 12/29/2005 1:09:57 AM PST by MillerCreek
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To: MillerCreek

You and I seem to live on different planets. Having some kind of political affinity for something has no relation to being moved by it, at least not for me. You may disapprove of homosexuality and the media that don't condemn it, but the movie sure as heck isn't crap, it's a great piece of filmmaking by any standard, and I'm not the only person on this thread who feels that way. I just plain don't see anything wrong with homosexuality in any way. The gay people I know lead lives that are no better and no worse, in terms of generosity, productivity, spirituality and their contributions to the community than the straight people I know. Jeffrey Dahmer was homosexual and Stalin was heterosexual. Aaron Copland was homosexual and Mozart was heterosexual. Evil and good, genius and villainy, ugliness and beauty are evenly distributed through all varities of humankind, and even all sides of the political spectrum. I volunteer at a nearby shelter for runaway kids, of which there are many in Los Angeles. Many of the kids are gay, because that's a big part of who gets beaten and abused and forced to hit the road. They are no different from the straight kids who are on the streets because of other kinds of abuse and neglect, trying to rebuild their lives, trying to get jobs and get off the street, but emotionally damaged by the shame and physical pain that have been heaped on them by bigoted, unloving parents. Do you think those kids are sinners? Do you think they CHOSE to be a certain way that would make their parents turn against them so viciously? I don't want to believe and can't imagine that you think their parents were right to beat them and throw them out into the world at age 11, 12, 13. I do know that I've been ZOTTED on this thread for an opinion that has been formed from simple observation of stuff going on in the world around me.

I'm curious: What do you think of the actions of parents who throw their gay kids out on the street?


131 posted on 12/29/2005 9:54:16 AM PST by Nick5
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To: MillerCreek

I should add that when I first posted on this thread I hadn't ever taken the time to read the full list of "isms" the founders of Free Republic stood against. Now that that list has been brought to my attention, I'm not sure that my conservative instincts are of the right variety for this site.


132 posted on 12/29/2005 10:44:24 AM PST by Nick5
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To: Nick5

I intend to see it for all the reasons you state. I just hear it's a good movie. I'm not pro or anti gay. I must confess I am not looking forward to the tent scene or the kiss -- a big "ick" factor for me -- but I believe the acting is amazing, and it's beautifully filmed.


133 posted on 12/31/2005 10:31:33 AM PST by Inkie (Attn Dems: Loose Lips Sink Ships -- but hey, I guess that's your goal))
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To: Inkie

I had to cover my eyes for a portion of the tent scene. But it goes by fast.

Happy New Year!


134 posted on 12/31/2005 1:38:17 PM PST by Nick5
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