Do Not See Movies About Gay Cowboys in Chelsea Unless You're A Gay Guy.

3.7 stars.
The Brokeback Mountain Obsession is a condition that has lasted three years. I was squealing about this casting with Malsta when I was in ITALY. Perspective. At that point, I was going through a Dawson's Creek renaissance and realized that a) Joey should have been with Dawson from Season 1, Episode 11 to the series finale and b) Michelle Williams was one of the most underappreciated actresses ever. Ergo, I was keeping close tabs on her upcoming projects, and one of them happened to be about Wyoming gay cowboys.
All of this came to a head on Thursday night, when the Malsta, Abbi, Abbi's roommate who looks like a cross between David Duchovny and Morrissey, and I went to the first possible screening of Brokeback - in Chelsea. In the rectal cavity of the gay community. Never ever EVER do what I did. It was beyond frightening. By my estimation, a theater of that size holds approximately 450 people. Counting ourselves, there were eight girls there. If a vulnerable naked teenage girl was looking for the safest place to watch a movie, that was definitely it, although there were two hardcore lesbians in the front row that might have made it interesting.

This...as far as the eye can see.

So the movie eventually starts, and within 30 seconds, the screen goes out of focus. The gays go APESHIT. This one nutjob motherfucker who wore a COWBOY HAT to this bolts up and runs out to alert the projectionist. People are screeching, "Focus!" There was a rumble a-brewing. I haven't been that scared since the guy at the Fern Cliff bodega kept calling me and leaving weird Spanglish messages on my voicemail. They managed to get the picture back to normal, but the gay guys never really shut up. I suppose it makes sense; considering how excited I was about this movie, it makes sense that Chelsea was 1000 times more excited. When Heath drunkenly stumbles into the pup tent about a minute before the first (and really only) sex scene takes place, everyone around us was squealing, "Here it comes! OMG!" So not kidding.

At some point, I should really start talking about the movie. There was no way this could have been as good as I wanted it to be. If you've read the short story - it's probably better. It's more concise, and the movie adds needless development of some of the other characters, which is really annoying. The best parts of this movie are completely focused on Heath and Jake, and it loses focus in the second half when it branches out from that.

The first part of this movie is absolutely insanely incredible. The first hour or so is dedicated to the actual activities on Brokeback Mountain, where Heath and Jake fall in love. The scenery is gorgeous, there isn't any extraneous dialogue and by the time they leave the mountain, it's so obviously not about gay pride or butt loving, although something tells me that 98% of the audience is going to disagree with me on this. They're wrong though, so it's irrelevent.

Heath is insanely good. I told several people that he was Brando-esque (and by that, I am referring to the early 1950s, not to 1990s bloated Dr. Moreau bullshit). If you saw Monster's Ball, it channels a lot of that pent-up rage and sadness, and it's just fucking incredible. It puts Joaquin to shame. There, I said it.
Everyone would be talking about Jake if Heath wasn't god-like. The problem is, his character isn't as strong, and it shows. It's still a great performance, but I don't know what the hell they were doing with that fake Groucho mustache in the 1970s sequences.

You have no idea how hard it was to even find that. Clearly, Jake is destroying all of those pictures, and I don't blame him.

If Michelle Williams doesn't win Best Supporting Actress for this, my faith in humanity will be completely shot to hell. Even though she shows her boobs, which I'm morally opposed to because Dawson alum shouldn't showcase the wares, she has this unbelievable look on her face when she sees Heath making out with Jake. She should win on that alone. But back to the audience for a second. This is another reason the Chelsea audience bites it. When that happens, it's not intended as amusing; she just caught her husband with his tongue in another guy's mouth. However, the gay guys were ROARING at this, and come to think of it, they laughed at several other points in the movie that they shouldn't have. Growl.

My husband only likes to have sex with me if it's anal. I wonder if something's wrong?

Ann Hathaway. Now...she's not as good as Michelle, and she legitimately takes her D-cups and shoves them at the camera, but she was still pretty damn good. Her character has to morph from a giddy cowgirl to a frosty cuntsack by the end of the movie, and she represented like the wolf. The wigs though. Jesus fucking Christ, you'd think that they could have hired real make-up and wardrobe people for this thing, instead of someone like me, but hell, what do I know.

Baby, you're fooling NO ONE.

Towards the end of the movie, Jake yells at Heath for not giving in to love or whatnot, and he says, "All we got is Brokeback." That's really the only problem with this movie. Everything in the second half is driven by that shit on the mountain, and it had nowhere to go but downhill. Literally. Heh. It's still a fantastic movie, despite some extra scenes with Heath's weird fuckbuddy waitress and his daughter, and the scene with the shirts is just the fucking most incredible thing ever. You can find the story online here. It's 17 pages, it'll take you about 20 minutes. I heartily recommend it. The world should see this movie - just not with a bunch of Chelsea boys with raging hard-ons screeching and vicariously having sex with the main characters.


On a sidenote, the amazing badass blogger Karol from Alarming News has agreed to do a blog interview. This will mark the first time we have a legitimate person to interview, meaning Drunk Erin is not allowed to participate.