XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX SUN NOV 06, 2005 19:28:02 ET XXXXX
HOLLYWOOD ROCKED: 'GAY COWBOY' MOVIE BECOMES AN OSCAR FRONTRUNNER
Arriving with nudity and explicit gay sex scenes between two cowboys, UNIVERSAL/FOCUS FILMS's BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN has quietly become an award season frontrunner, interviews with Academy members reveal.
"It could very well be the last film standing at this year's Oscars," a top Hollywood producer not associated with the film explained from Hollywood.
"There was not a dry eye in the house at the screening at Telluride [Film Festival in Colorado]," says the producer, who asked not to be named out of respect for the cast and crew of the producer's own Oscar contender. "Watch it come out of the gate at the Golden Globes with super controversy."
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS critic Jack Mathews predicts the gay cowboy movie, which takes place in Wyoming, may be "too much for red-state audiences, but it gives the liberal-leaning Academy a great chance to stick its thumb in conservatives' eyes."
Director Ang Lee's movie staring Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger won the Golden Lion, the top prize at the Venice Film Festival earlier this fall.
But will a movie even Madonna calls "shocking" sit with the heartland?
Playwright and lifelong Wyomingite tells the STAR-TRIBUNE of Casper this week that she has never encountered a gay cowboy, and doesn't think it's right for Hollywood to portray Wyoming as a state with gay cowboys.
Her message to the writers of BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN: “Don't try and take what we had, which was wonderful -- the cowboys that settled the state and made it what it was -- don't ruin that image... There's nothing better than plain old cowboys and the plain old history without embellishing it to suit everyone."
Meanwhile, Michell Howard of the state's Travel and Tourism Division says her agency is already hearing a buzz that people in other countries are expressing interest in visiting Wyoming because of the film.
“It's gotten rave reviews from the international community,” she said. “I don't know if they're more tolerant or something, but they're viewing it as a great Western movie.”
Developing...