Posted on 12/09/2005 4:28:35 AM PST by jjm2111
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 wider exposure for the film's themes of love, friendship and family ties.
[snip]
Gyllenhaal and Ledger say they are less concerned about their futures than the film's, which was directed by Ang Lee and based on Annie Proulx's story about two cowboys who meet in 1963 wrangling sheep in Wyoming and form a bond that transcends time and transforms their lives.
Ledger, whose career has suffered from several recent flops, also said the role gave him the opportunity to mature. "If you just be safe about the choices you make, you don't grow," he said.
[snip]
Critics have raved. Roger Ebert told Reuters: "Brokeback will become the kind of movie that you hear about at dinner parties that you feel you have to go see. [in the liberal Northeast]"
[snip]
But many industry watchers are skeptical of its crossover potential in a country divided into conservative states mostly in mid-America and the South and liberal states on the coasts.
"(But) we should probably recognize there are some areas and some groups that will oppose this film."
[snip]
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Why is this news? It's an arthouse film. Arthouse films by defintition don't make tons of money. That's not why they're made. If Ang Lee wanted to make a typical Hollywood blockbuster he could have easily done so - no controversial themes and more explosions.
All the poseurs will have to see it...! Good grief, what a pretentious jerk.
another cock'n bull story.
There was an SNL skit from a few years back that parodied Ebert's show that had him doing reviews of gay porno flicks.
"Gives new meaning to the term 'cowpoke'..."
It's why cowboy jails are called "pokies"
Oddly, the movie distributors want family friendly movies that will bring in moms and dads and kids, who will want popcorn and candy we can sell from the concession stand, where we make our money!
In the fall, the NYT (or a similar liberal publication, I don't remember which one at the moment) wrote how this would be a period of 'message movies'. No, not Narnia or Potter, but 'Brokeback Mt' and 'North Country'. Of course, NC was a bomb, and though it will have the prizes/reviews, BM will too. Guess the benighted people aren't taking to the right messages too well.
I think his last attempt was "The Hulk". As I recall his numbers were more "Art House" than "Blockbuster".
Referring to the movie as BM...seems particularly appropriate.
From a review in the Village Voice:
"What seems less real, despite the months that separate each of Jack and Ennis's reunions, is the unfailing high voltage of their sexual connection. It's not implausible for two people who love each other to continue for 20 or even 60 years to love each other. But it's rare for people to stay sexually interested in someone they love for much longer than two years. If things were otherwise, the world's oldest profession would probably be arms dealing."
Well Roger got lots of sex with women courtesy of his buddy Russ Meyer (Playboy photographer and King of the Nudie film).
Of course at least one of these women was an escort. Don't know how many of them hooked up with Roger because they were actually attracted to him.
Roger is a liberal who has gone off the deep end since Siskel died. Without Siskel to shame him for sullying his profession, Rog will give a movie a thumbs down for having the wrong politics (even though he swore to his progressive buddies that he could never do that).
Look at his bitter review of the movie from a few years back about the man on death row (who in the plot turned out to be guilty). Rog said that this movie shouldn't have been made and certainly not set in Texas. He liked the director. He liked the cast. He hated the politics.
He hated Team America too. A fair enough thing for a critic to say but he was offended by the targets of the humor (liberal actors).
I know what Rog can do with that thumb of his...
Well that's fine, but when you do "edgy" work you have no right to demand mass acceptance. You understand going in that your work will only appeal to a select audience.
"I bet you can squeal like a pig."
Oops. Wrong movie.
...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.
EEEwwww..... I'm off my Heath Ledger kick!
For the guys...
When are you going to the movies to see this one?
LOL....ICK....LOL....ICK!!!
Imagine the disgust of some average Joe picking this up at a Blockbuster a year from now, thinking it is just a western.
LOL, the oldest lie in the West is "Honest, sheriff, I was just helping that sheep over the fence."
"Gooba gabba, gooba gabba, one of us, one of us..." - Freaks
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