Cowpoke

It's now here.

Brokeback Moutain opens nationally today. I've heard about the film for nearly two years now. At one point, Gus van Sant, who is openly gay, was set to direct it. Except for a few films that don't bear the idiosyncracies of Van Sant (most notably, Finding Forrester, but to a lesser extent, Good Will Hunting), Van Sant's films have been challenging to follow, especially such minimalist offerings like Gerry, Elephant, and presumably, Last Days.

Ang Lee was then set to direct. Ang's films range the gamut. He followed up the hugely successful Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon with the less than successful The Incredible Hulk, parts of which I caught recently. It was hard to say how this film would Brokeback would turn out, but early word is that it's picking up awards at various end of the year critics awards. The last gay-themed film with this much buzz, was the quite different Philadelphia, with Tom Hanks playing a successful lawyer whose career is derailed when he gets AIDS, and his law firm decides to fire him.

Some people saw that film as Demme trying to appease gay fans. Demme had directed Silence of the Lambs, which was critcized as anti-gay; the serial killer that was the bad guy (are any of them good? but Hannibal was meant to be somewhat sympathetic, it's the other guy, Buffalo Bill, that's the real bad guy) was seen as possibly gay, or perhaps desirous of being transgendered (there's a famous scene, where he crosses his legs hiding his masculinity, trying to be like a woman, which was mimicked by Brad Pitt, caught on photographs by papparazi, back when he and Gweneth were still a couple).

Brokeback Mountain is a very different film. Where Philadelphiia deals with several hot-button issues: AIDS in the workplace, acceptance of gays, comparison of gay discrimination and ethnic discrimination, Brokeback Mountain, ostensibly, plays itself more simply, as a tale of forbidden love. In this respect, it echoes Crouching Tiger where the leads played by Chow Yun-Fat and Michelle Yeoh are unable to show the love they have for each other due to respect to a former friend, and learn to regret the noble decision they thought they were making.

Where so many recent films about being gay now focus on how it's no big deal, this film goes back an era, when it was a big deal, when people who engaged in gay acts may have not felt excited about what they were doing, but instead, ashamed.

Usually films that are released at the end of the year are jockeying for awards. Many Academy Award winners have been released in December. Million Dollar Baby (and its nearest competitor, The Aviator), Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, Shakespeare in Love, Titanic were all released at the end of the year. In fact, the most noticeable Academy Award winner that was not released in the summer or late in the year, was Silence of the Lambs, which was released roughly in March of 1991. That's extremely early in the year for a film to win Best Picture.

In fact, it was Shakespeare in Love, a December release, and beneficiary of a huge Miramax ad campaign that managed to upset Spielberg's epic Saving Private Ryan for Best Picture. Spielberg's film was released in the summer. Since then, many films with Oscar buzz are released in December.

To give you a sense of when films are made, Jake Gyllenhaal, (think I finally learned to spell his name), did Jarhead, which was released about a month ago, after Brokeback Mountain.

There's always the sense that this film has been overhyped, and watching it may be a letdown. Still, Ang Lee, for the most part, does make films that are satisfying to watch, so I'm at least expecting that.

Oddly enough, there's been little mention of many other rival films coming out to compete against Brokeback. The most notable is Peter Jackson's King Kong. Still, Brokeback Mountain appears to have the early buzz. Other than those two, I don't know of anything else. Sure Narnia is out, but no one expects it to win awards, except possibly in special effects. Last year, it was Million Dollar Baby vs. The Aviator. This year? Well, we'll see.

Now the question is whether I should watch it Friday night, or wait until later. It'll probably be a bit crowded to watch it on Friday night, I'd imagine, although it's rather chilly. Still, I don't have much planned that night. It'll depend on how I feel.