The Journal Star this morning ran a big, front-page spread about Brokeback Mountain. Is Brokeback Mountain another one of those stupid movies that you have to either love or hate, depending on your socio-political leanings? Is it, in other words, another The Passion of the Christ or Fahrenheit 9/11?
It annoys the crap out of me when movies get sucked into a situation like that. For one thing, it's annoying because if you go see the movie (or even merely want to see the movie), you obviously share the opinions of the movie's most fanatical supporters. The opposite also becomes true. And it becomes virtually impossible to judge the movie on its merits. If you dislike TPOTC you are clearly an anti-Christian new-age bigot; if you dislike F9/11 you must be one with Bushitler.
The situation is especially obnoxious to those of us who do not fit into the all-too-constraining left-right (blue state/red state) political paradigm. I hate telling somebody that I enjoyed (or disliked) a movie, only to receive "the look" that telegraphs quite clearly that the individual now considers me to be one of the enemy. I've received "the look" from folks of all political stripes, making me, I guess, everybody's enemy, if only because of my movie preferences.
Anyway, back to my point. I think what really sets one of "those" movies apart is its rise to mainstream status in large part because of its non-mainstream content or perspective. A gay cowboy movie certainly qualifies as "non-mainstream" by most any definition. But did Brokeback Mountain become more mainstream primarily because of its non-mainstreamness? I think a pretty strong argument can be made that it did. If you sift through the reviews, you'll find that the movie itself is far from perfect: "flawed but groundbreaking", "the movie asks a lot of an audience", "though it's sad and sobering it's still only a rough draft of a great movie", and so on. Indeed, it seems it's the gutsiness of the topic, not the overall quality of the film, that's driving Brokeback Mountain toward its Oscar front-runner status, and also to the top of the box office charts. The movie is gaining momentum as a protest piece, just as The Passion of the Christ and Fahrenheit 9/11 did in their own ways. Brokeback Mountain is, in other words, most definitely one of "those" movies.
All of that makes me wonder if I want to see the movie or not. Even with its imperfections, it is apparently a pretty decent movie. I'm willing to shell out a few bucks to see a pretty decent movie. But I have a pretty sizable queue of movies I'd like to see, and a pretty limited amount of time in which to watch them. I suspect Brokeback Mountain will end up being a rental. That's probably the easy solution anyway: I'm not giving money directly to those gay-loving liberal Hollywood types, but I'm stilling seeing the movie, which ticks off those gay-hating conservative types. That seems the best way to please and anger everybody all at the same time, which is pretty much my way these days.
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I try not to see movie decisions as giving $ or supporting a political agenda. I saw both Farenheit and Passion and in hindsight (after the initial theater experience wore off) neither I thought were particularly good. Much more entertaining was all the hype and debate surrounding each flick, LOL.
Anyway, I am actually looking forward to seeing Miami Vice. I am no longer a big “action movie” fan really. The last such movie I saw was “War of the Worlds” which was dreadful in my opinion. But I pretty much like most Michael Mann films and it will be interesting to see how he takes an old creation and spins it for today’s audience.
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