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OS ANGELES (Reuters) - It has wowed film festivals, won rave reviews and sparked Oscar buzz, but when "Brokeback Mountain," a.k.a. the gay cowboy movie, begins playing to general audiences on Friday, it faces its toughest challenge yet -- wooing mainstream America. [snip] ...Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger, risk alienating fans and sending their stars plummeting if, after watching the pair have sex on screen, audiences cannot see them any other way than gay. Winning over middle America is important for the roughly $12.5 million movie because its backer, art house specialist Focus Features, wants a big box office and...

It has wowed film festivals, won rave reviews and sparked Oscar buzz, but when "Brokeback Mountain," a.k.a. the gay cowboy movie, begins playing to general audiences on Friday, it faces its toughest challenge yet -- wooing mainstream America. Two of Hollywood's hottest leading men, Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger, risk alienating fans and sending their stars plummeting if, after watching the pair have sex on screen, audiences cannot see them any other way than gay. Winning over middle America is important for the roughly $12.5 million movie because its backer, art house specialist Focus Features, wants a big box office...

Independent film Brokeback Mountain is being touted as an Oscar favorite by a source to Matt Drudge. NY 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," reports Drudge. That's surely possible. But 'Brokeback Mountain,' as an Indy film, was pegged by South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone with their foul mouthed little South Park Republican long ago.

Live Q&A with Matt Today! Today is the big day: Matt Stone will be taking questions live in the chatroom from the fans! The event begins at 6pm Pacific / 7pm Mountain / 8pm Central / 9pm Eastern. When the event begins, we'll be providing a link to our Java-based IRC client, or you can install your own: we recommend mIRC for Windows users and MiCE iRC for Macintosh users. While you're waiting, be sure to check our transcript from his last Q&A: click here.

<p>Americans may mean what they say, but they can't always summon the language to say what they mean.</p> <p>I don't know how many times I've heard it, or read it, even in this newspaper: "The proof is in the pudding." "No, it isn't," I want to scream. "The proof of the pudding is in the eating." Cervantes wrote that four centuries ago. And don't get me started about having your cake and eating it, too. You have to have your cake in order to eat it. The trick is to eat it and still have it.</p>

MUCH BIRCH, England — If I had my way — and I shan't," wrote that doyenne of British food writers, Elizabeth David, "my Christmas Day eating and drinking would consist of an omelet and cold ham and a nice bottle of wine at lunchtime, and a smoked salmon sandwich with a glass of Champagne on a tray in bed in the evening." Ah, wouldn't that be bliss! Like Thanksgiving in the United States, Christmas in Britain has grown into an inescapable culinary dinosaur from which you chicken out at your peril — even in an era when a new, lighter...

GUWAHATI: He has his eyes fixed, unblinking, on the radiant sun, and for hours together. Sounds incredible, isn’t it? But it is true.For 24-year-old Dimbeswar Basumatary, a Bodo tribal youth in the northeastern Indian state of Assam, sun gazing is a passion.“It all started by chance when I realized I could stare at the sun without any irritation to my eyes although my family thought I was crazy,” Basumatary told IANS. “I love watching the bright sun as it journeys across the sky.”The college dropout, from Balimari village in western Assam’s Kokrajhar district, 290 km from here, has been a...