January 11th, 2006

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Movies
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Christian Movie Reviews and Brokeback Mountain

Continuing on today’s apparent gay theme, I should’ve written a full review of Brokeback Mountain. I didn’t, probably because for me, writing reviews takes longer than most posts, and because writing really positive reviews isn’t that fun.

Suffice it to say that it would crack the top five of my top ten films of 2005. I’ve always loved Ang Lee’s work, and he doesn’t disappoint here. It’s a gorgeous film, with truthful performances and a sparse, telling script.

I’m a fairly obsessive reader of movie reviews. Occasionally, out of curiousity, I visit some Christian review sites. As I’ve written before, I’m astounded by the incredibly detailed descriptions certain sites use to itemize a film’s content (“15 strong profanities, one light profanity, and references to urinating”).

I went looking for reviews of Brokeback Mountain, a film that wasn’t likely to sit well with conservative Christians. What pleased me was that I was also able to find thoughtful, tolerant analyses that didn’t immediately dismiss the film as homosexual propaganda. Here’s a selection from across the board, arranged from the tolerant to profoundly homophobic:

  • Hollywood Jesus’s video preview and reviews: “An intriguing case study of the damage caused by a lifetime spent forsaking Connection?”
  • The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Office for
    Film and Broadcasting    : “While the actions taken by Ennis and Jack cannot be endorsed, the universal themes of love and loss ring true.”
  • Plugged In Online: “That sexualization of love—and our growing cultural acceptance of it—is gradually making valid, chaste love between two men or two women harder and harder to accomplish. “
  • MovieGuide.org: “As we predicted above, there are sure to be many leftwing awards for this twisted, laughable, frustrating, plotless, and boring piece of homosexual, Neo-Marxist propaganda. If only the leftists, radical feminists and Communists would show the same compassion for the wives of homosexual perverts like these two characters, the world might be a better place.”

Bonus link: The queerest, funniest (and, uh, pretty vulgar, if you’ve got timid ears) audio review of Brokeback Mountain you’re likely to hear.

Comments: 9 Responses so far

Fausto Fernos
January 12th, 2006
1:24 am

VULGAR???

hey thanks for the link! We love the link. The link is king.

I loved Brokeback Mounting (listen to the podcast for other ways of saying the movie’s name) and cried like a baby too.

Will you post your pic on our frappr map?
http://www.frappr.com/feastoffools

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Martine
January 12th, 2006
7:08 am

That last audio review is something! Hilarious!

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Jon Swift
January 14th, 2006
8:02 am

Brokeback Mountain is not gay:
http://jonswift.blogspot.com/2005/12/brokeback-mountain-not-gay.html

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Chris
January 15th, 2006
9:10 am

Darren: I heard that Brokeback Mountain was actually shot in Canada. Can you confirm this.

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Maeve
January 18th, 2006
7:46 pm

I did not like how infidelity was glorified and romanticized in Brokeback Mountain. Hollywood has a habit of doing this with many movies, where infidelity is passed off as a grand, sweeping and romantic love. This movie focused primarily on the two principal characters and showed them as slaves to their lust. The wives were reduced to plot cliches and their pain and the pain of their children was viewed as collateral damage. Ang didn’t spend very much time exploring those issues OR how the men married those wives. The wives and children were looked at more as obstacles. I’d think that would be outrageous in any movie. That’s why I had a hard time looking at this movie as a great ‘lovestory’. If the two principal characters had been a man and woman, I highly doubt anyone would have been touting it as a lovestory. I think people would have been screaming for the wives to get rid of their cheating husbands.

More of my disappointment with the movie was in how it twisted the concepts of marriage and fidelity and worked hard to demonize the other people in the movie and to glorify only the two male characters. It felt unbalanced. I know the writers WANTED me to feel sorry for the two principal characters, but all I could see were two dishonest, unfaithful men who were destroying innocent people.

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Brad
January 19th, 2006
9:46 am

I don’t think this movie glorified anything, except maybe the Rocky Mountains. This movie was about these 2 men, who fall in love, and what happens because of it. This movie was about Ennis Del Mar, and how his paralysis turned his life brittle and lonely. Empathize. Imagine.

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Maeve
January 22nd, 2006
5:02 pm

you completely missed the point of the movie. they did not marry happily and then find love outside of the marriage. the found love, and married unhappily which they had to do because they could not stay together because they were two men. OF COURSE if it was a man and woman, it would be different. there would be no reason to “cheat.” they could be together without problem. i thought this movie was amazing and a complete and utter triumph of film

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Raj
February 1st, 2006
2:01 am

3rd best movie i have ever saw… so touchin

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Jake Williams
February 23rd, 2006
7:18 am

As a bisexual man that has had sex and fallen in love with both sexes, I saw Brokeback Mountain and the movie misses the point that it is completely wrong to cheat, regardless of the reason. With both men it showed in the movie that they enjoyed sex with the opposite sex so it wasnt a case that they could not have an enjoyable sex life with the opposite sex. Today’s liberal society overdoes acceptance of homosexuality. Its the person that one falls in love with, not what they have between their crotch. One also should find as life goes on, that ones decisions one makes and deals with and the family that depends on them is whats most important. Ennis was already in love and planning to marry his wife prior to meeting Jack. The couple seemed very happy in the movie with a few stresses (dont we all have). I found it apalling how Ennis just took off and had sex with Jack after not seeing him for 4 years and put his wife through that hell! What about his decision to marry her and have several kids?? What about trying to make this marriage to this wonderful young woman better, and appreciating her??? Dah! So perhaps as in this movie, one would have preferred to have done something else other than marry some one. You dont just treat that person like garbage. A huge part the movie misses is that a huge part of any relationship is living with the person (again regardless of the genitalia between their legs) over years and putting up with the stresses. Jack and Ennis only spent one brief summer when they were young together. A lot of gay relationships do not last (and non gay). I think whether a relationship lasts has alot more to do with the psychological aspect than the sex part. Since they were both so disrespectful of their female partners and their marriages did not work, I put a high probability on their relationship also not working if as Jack had wanted they had lived together long term. Its too bad society missed the point of this movie of how wrong it is to cheat. Instead live with your decisions, try to make the best of what you have and try to make what you do have better (which Jack and Ennis did not do and look at how the story ends).

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