Dave Cullen: Arts, Movies, Music, Books, etc.

Trying to stomach Studio 60

Tue, 26 Sep 2006 17:04:53 GMT

OK, I watched the first eight minutes of Studio 60, episode two, and I don't think I can take anymore. I'm just waiting for a line of believable dialogue.

The press conference was particularly appalling. And how could Amanda Peet be so bad playing Jordan? Is she ever going to drop that smug smile and the touche-style delivery of every line? Blech.

The most puzzling aspect was the "jokes." Are we supposed to believe that a room full of cynical reporters is laughing their asses off at rim-shot grade cutesisms, or does aaron actually think those lines are funny? Neither one seems plausible. Why would reporters behave that way? I've attended a lot of press conferences--never seen anything like that.

And the annoying part was Aaron constantly cueing us in to how well the press conference was going, by having one character after another watch it and tell us they were doing well. It kinda seemed like Aaron knew he had not written it convincingly enough to convey that to us by watching it, so he felt the need to have his characters tell us.

Sad.

Salon explains why Studio 60 stinks

Tue, 26 Sep 2006 17:04:04 GMT

Salon's great Heather Havrilesky weighs in on Studio 60, and she had a pretty similar sense to me of the downside, though she was bigger on its upside. A chunk:

All of which brings us to Aaron Sorkin's "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" (10 p.m. Mondays on NBC), a show that, on the one hand, tackles the pathology of the professional circle jerk and its resulting mediocrity head-on, yet on the other hand, indulges the incredible self-importance of the TV writer to an extent heretofore unseen on the small screen.

Again, for the same reasons that it's easier to stomach the self-important banter of idealistic politicians and cops and doctors and other high-minded civil servants, it's also easier to stomach TV shows that focus on these kinds of people. On "Grey's Anatomy" or "ER" or "The Wire" or "The West Wing," we tolerate the melodrama that characters drum up about their jobs, we tolerate their all-knowing tones and their self-righteousness and their indignant attitudes because they do have pretty high-pressure jobs that serve the common good, at least in theory, and it makes sense that they're dogmatic and idealistic and stubborn about what they do and what they should be doing.

But self-important banter among magazine editors, just for example? Not so easy to swallow.

Then she spends a few paragraphs on some of its good points, where I think she's overly generous. Then more on the trouble:

The trouble is that, when Danny and Matt stop to gaze around the set of their new show, and the camera circles them dramatically like it's the last scene of Werner Herzog's classic film "Aguirre: The Wrath of God," at least one or two cells in our bodies can't help but rebel against the pomp and circumstance of the moment. It feels wrong, somehow, to romanticize TV writers this much, however talented and witty they might be. Meet a few TV writers and you'll see what I mean. It's not that they're bad people -- many of them are charming and smart and extremely friendly -- but they're richer than God, yet they always seem to be jealous of someone who's even richer and more successful than they are. Plus, even the ones who write for really crappy shows, shows that they should pay a tax for inflicting on the human populace, talk about their bad shows like they're saving the free world. ...

Plus, ask anyone who lives in Los Angeles or works in the industry: Hollywood culture is pretty distasteful, no matter how you slice it. Even though that's one of the points of Sorkin's show, dramatizing what dicks network executives can be or giving TV producers lines like Judd Hirsch's in the pilot -- "That remote in your hand is a crack pipe!" -- doesn't really change the fact that these are Hollywood wiseasses, not heroes.

Yeah, she really nailed it. The "Aguirre: The Wrath of God" reference was perfect. The whole show felt kinda that way to me. I think that ultimately, I resented Sorkin's presence, because half my brain was thinking, You've got a pretty good show here: interesting situation, good characters, etc.--so why the fuck do you have to piss all over it with self-importance, like it's Aguirre: The Wrath of God?

I remembered thinking that West Wing at first turned me off with it's self importance, but at least the characters were facing earth-shattering decisions. Here, not so much.

'The Greatest Story Ever Sold'--what a title. and . . .

Wed, 20 Sep 2006 04:53:07 GMT

And the book looks pretty damn good, too, from my quick stab, tonight.

Frank Rich's The Greatest Story Ever Sold: The Decline and Fall of Truth from 9/11 to Katrina came out today, and is already #2 at Amazon, so you're prolly going to be hearing a lot about it.

I checked it out tonight at Denver's great local bookstore Tattered Cover. Really interesting opening, written in Frank's usual fluid style. And I was really glad to read this in the intro:

This book is not intended to be a harangue about George W. Bush or the war in Iraq, though my views will certainly be evident. What it is instead is a critical retracing of the sophisticated steps by which some clever people in the White House, handed an opportunity and a mandate by the shocking events of 9/11, unfurled a brilliantly produced scenario to accomplish a variety of ends . . .

Thank you! As much as our fearless leader irks the hell out of me, I don't really need to spend time on a detailed analysis of how. The man will come and go as a mediocre to horrible president, and I've already lost interest. He's just not an interesting guy. But, the way the media has been co-opted and participates in promoting these preposterous fictions upon us--that's important.

That's exactly what The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are ultimately all about, and that's why they are insanely popular, and brilliant at the same time. (And most of the press still doesn't quite get them--or chuckles along with them, but doesn't get that they are the butt of the joke more than the politicians. Either they don't get it or can't figure out how to change.)

Those shows do it on a daily basis, bit by bit, but so nice to have someone pull the whole picture together.

And what a gutsy move by his publisher to devote 100 pages to a timeline, showing side-by-side what the white house was saying internally, and the alternate reality they were pitching to us. That's worth the price of the book all by itself. (The book says the timeline will be updated continually at his website. It's not live yet, but there's a "coming soon" sign.)

So far, so good. I'll let you know more as I get further.

Meanwhile, he's going to be the guest on Fresh Air on NPR Wednesday.

And here's the PW review:

Starred Review. This blistering j'accuse has vitriol to spare for George Bush—calling him a "spoiled brat" and "blowhard"—and his policies, but its main target is the PR machinery that promoted those policies to the American people. New York Times columnist Rich revisits nearly every Bush administration publicity gambit, including Iraqi WMD claims, Bush's "Mission Accomplished" triumph, the Swift-boating of John Kerry and the writing of fake prowar letters-to-the-editor from soldiers. He uncovers nothing new, but his meticulously researched recap-cum-debunking—complete with appended 80-page time line comparing administration spin to actual events—builds a comprehensive picture of a White House propaganda campaign to bamboozle the public, smear critics, camouflage policy disasters and win the 2002 and 2004 elections through trumped-up security anxieties. Along the way, he pillories a sycophantic media (Bob Woodward gets spanked hard), spineless Democrats and an infotainment culture that happily accommodates the Bush administration's erasure of the line between reality and fiction. Sometimes Rich's critique of Republican politics as cynical image-manipulation goes overboard, as in his "wag the dog" theory of the Iraq war as a Karl Rove electoral maneuver; more often, though, it's on target. The result is a caustic, hard-hitting indictment of the Bush administration, timed to make a splash in the upcoming election campaign. (Sept. 19)

Amazon link here.

Wednesday Update:

Frank was on The Colbert Report last night, and NPR's Fresh Air today (the first 3/4 of the show). Listen to Fresh Air show here.

Comedy Central repeats Colbert endlessly through the next day, and a lot of stations play or replay Fresh Air at night, so you still have time to catch both. He was great on both.

(And if you watch Colbert, tune in two minutes early to see the preview on The Daily Show. Nothing to do with Frank, but it involves Stephen's word-a-day calendar, which I won't give away, but it still has me snickering just remembering.)

About that Survivor casting

Wed, 20 Sep 2006 04:39:43 GMT

you know, if you're going to cast a show along ethnic lines, it seems pretty lousy to pack two teams with A players and the other two with a lot of duds.

that white team has one jock, though hard to say yet how smart he is, and i don't see a lot of other potential. the sorority girl and the "alternative" "rollergirls" are likely to be worthless on all fronts. they always cast dorks with little to offer as writers (bastards!). seems pretty weak.

the black team was the only one with zero apparent brawn, which is a pretty basic component. it's hard to know from one puzzle, but the first indication is that he didn't cast the brightest bulbs. but then he never does. from day one MB has cast one dumb black person after another, especially men. (dumb lazy black is his most frequent cast move of all, followed by flaming homosexual and mean, hypocritical vocal christian.

i feel worst for the christians, believe it or not. the first few seasons i loved chuckling along to how nasty the hard-core christians they were, the very soul of hypocrisy. by about the third one, i realized it was just bigoted casting. of course you can make every christian look like an asshole, every homo look like a queen and every black man look dumb and lazy if that's how you cast them. it's revolting.

and i have no problem with ANY of those people getting cast. does he have to make it nearly every time? mark burnett's idea of a homo seem to equal a boa. if you're not belting out showtunes, you don't get cast. so what a surprise that the apparent gayboy turns out to be a fashion director. mark, what a departure for you. but at least he's a hunky, athletic one. that's a first, isn't it? (with all the gayboys packing the gyms, you'd think he could have found one before. and something tells me the hard-assed, muscled, outdoorsy gayguys are the ones applying a lot more than the drag queens. i don't think most drag queens really want to be on survivor. and yet, mark finds the marys and only the marys.)

Survivor goes racist?

Wed, 20 Sep 2006 04:38:53 GMT

I would say, no. I thought the early protests about dividing the show into racial/ethnic teams was a little premature: why not see what they do with it, whether it's revelatory or racist. So far, so good. Though some of the casting aspects have always sickened me. (More on that in the next post.)

These comments made real-time as I watched Thursday (I just can't stop myself), posted now:

I just started watching the first ep, and I literally get the chills at the beginning. I will get irritated as it goes, but the whole idea of the social experiment of Survivor is just incredible. It was one wonderful idea. (That needs some heavy tweaking, but there's time for all that.)

I'm about 20 minutes in, and so far, the cultural-split stuff has been fascinating to watch in so many different ways. It was interesting to see the Asians being almost bewildered by the lumping of them, with good reason. What they basically seemed to be saying was, "uh, we're half the population of the planet. you whiteguys may see us all as one thing, but we're a whole bunch of different cultures." they are probably the most culturally mixed of all the teams.

also fascinating to hear "cowboy" introduce himself and they're all ultra whitebread assimilationist names, like brad. (and is brad the big gayboy? i'm wagering on it.)

several of the asians seemed uncomfortable with the asian jokes, stereotyping and grouping, wanted nothing to do with it, and the black group was nearly the opposite, doing a chant about Representing.

it does some kind of unfair that the deck seems stacked physically heavily in favor of the asians and latins. the blacks have a couple big fat guys, the whites have a couple jocks, and the asians appear to have two muscle studs and possibly two female athletes, and the latins have a pro athlete and a young guy who looks like he could be the smart version of bobby jon, who will hurtle himself full-bore into anything. climbing that tree and getting the coconuts was kind of amazing. and i laughed my ass off at jp calling him jungle book.

and jp . . . he seems whiter than me, culturally--as do several of the asians. which is kind of interesting. i'm surprised/sad burnett did not cast an oreo or two on the black team, though i'm not surprised. he's been casting stereotypes on this show since day one. (stereotyping every stripe imaginable, whether it's blacks, homos, hillbillies, evangelicals . . . he's kinda gross that way.)

it is interesting so far to see how some of the groups do approach things very differently, though, and especially in how they see themselves.

it might get VERY sticky down the road when alliances come into play, though. god, picturing it getting ugly and the whites cutting down a group of blacks or whatever . . . that could be unappetizing. it will be interesting to see if things like white guilt come into play, though, and if some of them can't bring themselves to do it (or do it publicly).

i have a feeling burnett will mix up the teams soon, though, and then we'll get to see which people stick to the ethnic/cultural lines and which do not.

but so far, very interesting show.

Amazing Race, revived

Wed, 20 Sep 2006 04:22:49 GMT

god knows why those emmy morons gave the reality-show award to amazing race, a once-great show that turned in two pitifully boring seasons this year. (especially when project runway was the best show of any genre on TV all summer--except maybe the colbert report.) the family edition was a disaster, the challenges had grown easy, the show predictable, and the crucial casting element just awful--way too much stunt-casting with way too many brands of nasty shouters, no one actually interesting, much less likeable.

so. i tuned in to the new season, just in case they overhauled it. (i wrote the following sunday night on my laptop as i watched. i'm a little delinquent in posting.)

ten minutes in, and i'm greatly relieved by the casting.

they really have assembled some interesting groups, at least at first glance. and glad to see they went all the way for some true diversity this time: three different asian cultures represented instead of one token "asian" group for half the world's population. the indian team looks interesting--and nice--and the muslims are likely to provide a different perspective. and my first reaction to the east asians was negative, because they were bragging about where they went to college--gag me; even though i'm sure the producers put them up to it--but i got a good chuckle when they said they were heading to the homeland and then cracked up that they weren't chinese.

unfortunate that they had to cast yet another apparently annoying, self-absorbed, conceited and stereotypical gay couple. why do they have to keep dipping into that same well?

the lesbian and dad was much more interesting, though i gaped that a parent could be so insensitive to say he was disappointed in his daughter on national tv. i was appalled before he said why--i was thinking, "god, what could she have done? robbed a bank? killed a person?" oh, she was born gay. what a crime. what a dick.

part of me thinks it will be interesting to watch them work some of that out, but mostly i think he's got to be a real dick to do that, and i hate watching the dicks on this show. i predict he'll find infinite ways to illustrate what a dick he is.

model/recovered-drug-addicts is also a clever category that i would not have considered. (i was disappointed they only used model for the subtitle ID during the show.) they could prove to be totally vapid, incredibly preachy, or really self-aware and interesting. i'm hoping for the best. and always nice to get some eye-candy, though i'd prefer them with a little meat. they're not too into the beef-casting on this show, though, especially compared to, say, survivor. (where they're half naked most of the time, so it's more relevant.)

who am i forgetting?

oh, more single moms: always nice to have, but they tend not to be with us long. (doesn't this show tend to cast rather weak black teams? there was that one really strong team in i think the second season (or the first?) that almost won, but since then, i can't remember any strong ones.)

god, the coal miners. interesting choice for color, though again, we're only likely to see them briefly. and that poor woman. she basically said that her husband has always been in charge, but on the race he's going to have to learn to be 50/50. god, she has a world of disappointment coming. i applaud her goal and her positive spirit, but lady, if you married a guy who expected to be in charge, and then you let him run the show your whole marriage to-date, do you really think an ultra-stress race around the world is the best moment to radically redefine your marriage? and you think it's a good idea to televise the inevitable war? timing is everything. and he's not going to change overnight, girl. god, i hope she doesn't actually believe what she said, though she seems to.

oh, casting the one-legged woman and her new boyfriend has potential. she does show signs of being the preachy martyr type, but hopefully they were just editing in the worst of her interview moments and she'll let her abilities speak for themselves most of the time.

this seems like a 100% more interesting cast than the last few lame seasons. at least these people have potential. the last couple groups were just incredibly dull, and almost all unlikeable.

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and let's hope phil wasn't wildly exaggerating about the changes. this show desperately needs some. not that it was a bad format; it's just getting a little tired for those of us who have been with them since the start. in years past they only made the tiniest of tweaks, most of which had virtually no impact. hopefully they really realized they should switch things around a bit before they have lost all their audience. we'll see.

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ok, halfway through. the early elim was definitely cool. it will be much more exciting knowing that people are vulnerable at every moment. though i doubt they'll use it much, and i fear it means more dreaded non-elim rounds, which i loathe.

but it sure beats knowing that the first half of the show makes almost no difference. (it will just usually make no difference.)

meanwhile, one of the most hilarious lines ever: Do muslims believe in Buddha? Good God.

which reminds me: two airhead-chick teams? what was the point of that? (and why are 80% of the airhead teams they cast young women?)

but what was the deal with the muslim guys not shaking hands? (or just not with women?) either way, i lived in muslim countries for two years and never heard of such a thing. an unusual sect? i guess we'll never know.

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OK, I'm an hour in (took a long break to do some work), and have to say I'm really enjoying this one.

Really glad the prettyboys appear to be pretty bright, and also seem quite nice. So far. (It was touching to see them choked up about the other team getting kicked out so unexpectedly.)

And I may have spoken too soon on the single moms. This pair might be a lot stronger than a lot of the moms they have cast. They're definitely strong-willed, and appear to be pretty sharp. And kind of funny. I really like them so far.

It was a shame to see the muslims go so soon, but I already found myself rooting for the Korean guys. I think I'm going to like them.

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oh, and the dating people . . .

i guess if you're dating and Amazing Race casts you, you can kiss your relationship goodbye. it basically means that the producers watched you interact, stifled their laughter in front of you, and howled it up as soon as you left the room.

they generally only seem to cast completely dysfunctional couples. why can't these people see how awful they are for each other?

the one-legged woman, and her man--i don't know. she broke my heart climbing up those stair with her malfunctioning prosthetic leg. i wanted her to win so badly for a little while there. but other times, she rubs me kinda wrong--and WHAT is she doing with that control freak? he can be so awful to her. the brick-laying was revolting to watch. he wants her to be his handmaiden--never mind that he was fucking it up.

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OH NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

i finally finished. i can't believe Team Karma is gone already. i loved them.

oh well.

surprising to see such a tough challenge thrown at them in the first round. many of the challenges have gotten incredibly easy the past several seasons--especially the early rounds--and it was really boring to watch. (last season one challenge was to ride in a helicopter and admire the scenery. they've had more and more like that. the absolute nadir was the family season, where half the challenges seemed to be watching them be essentially spectators.) the producers really seem to have reinvigorated this series. i can only hope it continues.

it was kind of amazing to watch them all overcome that wall. so many of the teams were sure they couldn't scale it.

nothing really matched that one-legged woman. wow. (dramatically it was a shame she went so soon. whose hardship could compete with that?)

though the wonder in seeing her finish it was tempered by the sadness that she's probably doomed. she was lucky--or skillful--to be well out in front, and in a huge field on this one, but sooner or later, she's likely to face a challenge like that--or even a footrace, or a simple staircase (they have a LOT of staircases on this show), soon after an equalizer, and she's going to get left in the dust.

but what amazing fortitude. and who knows, maybe she'll last longer than i think. plus, it's not necessarily winning for everybody, especially her. if she can outlast half these teams, and experience things like scaling the great wall of china, i think she'll go home a happy woman.

but on the downside, is she so enamored with her hero/provider that she never noticed what a big homo he is? sometimes he seems SO gay.

and speaking of that . . .

the prettyboys? anyone? sometimes they seem like total straightboys, but then there are moments . . .

i feel a little bad for saying that, because i think it's actually cool that two straightguys can be that close. but i did get a vibe sometimes, especially from the darker-haired guy. i think he may have a thing for the other one. maybe. or just wishful thinking. (nothing like last season, where those two fratboys were just jonesing for each other's bods, and protesting way too much that they were straight.) probably not with these two. but maybe.

the show actually feels re-invigorated in a whole lot of ways. like zipping us right to china, and giving us the great wall in ep 1. most seasons they seem to fritter around in more ordinary settings for a long time, before we can work our way to something exotic. (though way back in season two, didn't they go almost straight to argentina? it's been awhile.) nice to see them plunging right in, in a whole lot of ways.

oh, and new funniest line from the episode. when the squabbling daters jump into the cab and he says they want the great wall, and she clarifies, very sternly, the great wall of china. hahaha! too much!

Rough start to Studio 60

Wed, 20 Sep 2006 04:16:50 GMT

i'm halfway through the studio 60 pilot and i'm finally warming to it a bit.

the first 15 minutes were horrible.

what exactly is it about every aaron sorkin production that everything seems so incredibly high and mighty and self-serious? is it that control room operators supposedly flip their switches and cue their cameras every night with the sternness of houston space central on the first moon launch? or that every Important Person struts down every hallway and thrusts open each doorway into a burst of light as if he's augustus entering the senate to declare war on marc anthony?

i was rolling my eyes and clutching my stomach at week after week of that in the first 30 seconds. you can just feel the self-importance reeking out of it.

i stuck around because on The West Wing, he wrote some great yarns and created interesting conflicts for several years and i got numb to the self-importance and forgave him for it. it's just a bitter pill to have to swallow again.

but then . . . he kicked off his series with a lame rip-off of Network? except in a supposedly realistic setting? the thing that made network work--one of the many things--was that it was slightly over the top. it played as a heightened version of where we were heading; this--i think--is shooting for hyper-realism.

the other thing going for network was that it was original. the fact that the 60 script alluded to its ripoff for a nearly a minute straight--way too long; felt like an endless apology to the audience--and then peppered throughout the show didn't really help. it didn't feel one bit real when judd hirsh did it, because it just felt like he was re-enacting some lame version of network.

god, could he come up with a worse way to start his series? i don't know? the dinner scene sure rang false. maybe they really have dinners like that in hollywood (though aren't the networks run out of new york, by the way?)--but it sure didn't feel real.

the face-off with jordan and the wings guy--i wasn't really buying that either. it's soap opera, though, so maybe i should just enjoy it on that level. it would be easier to take it that way if it didn't drip with all this Self Importance, though. it looks like it's going to be more like Dallas than St. Elsewhere, so why not cop to that in its mood?

nothing has really felt real so far, particularly the dialogue, which is frequently razor sharp, but . . . i think they sharpened that razor too much. it's all too cute; none of it sounds real.

i did started warming when matthew perry came on, though. he's got a presence--i think he's under-rated, which is understandable--i was never a Friends-hater, but it was never a great show, and he was far better than the material.

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ok, i finished.

interesting choice of ending/denouement, but i missed the moment where they hurled their knit caps into the air. (shouldn't that overblown queen/bowie music have been ". . . you might just make it after all"?)

Write it or dance it

Sun, 10 Sep 2006 02:25:17 GMT

So it's Saturday night, and I'm not going dancing, which is a little sad, but I've got a book deadline. Sometimes I think I should take a month off anyway--from dancing, I mean--because I appreciate it more. Not just a little more, like Christmas as a little boy. I've done that, gone as long as a month without dancing before and it's ecstatic to feel alive again, but I'm not much in the mood for starving myself while I'm working on a book.

Huh. I just realized that two weeks is about my limit for either of them without serious withdrawal pains. It was a couple years ago that I began to notice that was my writing limit. I can take three or four days off from writing and just love the freedom and the laziness, but around that fourth day, heavy restlessness starts to set in alongside it. I week and I'm really starting to feel it, having trouble sleeping more, snapping at people--out loud or at least in my head--by the start of the second week and just getting unbearably grumbly by two weeks out. Fourteen days and I'm into full-scale self-loathing. Not quite world-loathing--I don't hate the rest of the world, you people just annoy the crap out of me at that point, but I despise myself.

The trouble with pausing on the writing is that it's this weird cosmic-joke kind of dynamic where the further I get from it the more desperately I need it but the harder it is to jump back in. It's just getting out of the pool as a kid all over again, a million fucking times, the same thing--water feels great while you're in, but dry off and get readjusted to the air and it's just hell getting yourself back in again.

I guess an economist would plot the curves out meeting somewhere at two weeks. If one of a thousand different reasons hasn't pulled me back in by that point, the inertia is overwhelming, yet the loathing is even stronger and I force myself back in just to strip it away. One good day and the sun is out again.

OK, now that I think through all that, I realize the dancing I can go much longer. Two weeks I was thinking about as the period I rarely go without, but it has none of the withdrawal stuff. With dancing, the timing has more to do with the proximity of a weekend, and if I take one away, I nearly always let myself have the next one. And I am going a bit stir-crazy by that time, so I know I need it and it would be counterproductive not to, but I'm just restless and agitated and somehow incomplete, nothing approaching the self disgust of the writing withdrawal.

Oh, I just meant to come here for a minute, actually. Just wanted to say that I popped Waking Life into the DVD player for my dinner break, watched the first 15 minutes or so while I munched my homemade burger and veggies and was deeply in love with it already, especially loving the pithy little diss of the ridiculous post-modernist crap, until I hit one remark that irked me. This woman was talking about language and how fascinating it was, but as an aside said how incapable it was of describing most of what it is we feel and experience. God, I hate it when people say that. "No," I want to say, "it's not the language that's incapable. Perhaps it's you." Hahaha. I know that's a little harsh, but my point is that any one of us may be at a loss in a particular situation to convey it, but that's a measure of our inabilities. Someone, somewhere, sometime is going to capture it. Or could if they were in your shoes.

Couldn't they? I think that belief is somehow hardwired inside me as a writer--I have to believe it's possible so that I'll keep giving it a go. I keep coming up short from the full grandeur or simplicity I'd like to capture from each crucial moment, but it's only that belief that I can somehow reach a little further next time and convey it that keeps me clacking away. But for some reason I started rethinking that for a moment this time.

I thought back to the last beautiful perfect moment I couldn't describe, which was last weekend when my friends Daniel and Alejandro came up from Albuquerque unexpected to visit and I took a few hours off to go dancing with them, and . . . well, it was magical, as always, or as usually. I'm not going to attempt to convey it, but the ecstasy of the dancefloor was matched only by the sheer joy and love (yes, platonic love) I felt emanating from them and bouncing oozing out of me in return. And I remember feeling at the moment out exquisite it was and that I noticed at that moment how indescribable it was and that I had no interest in trying to capture it in words, at least not then.

So thinking back on it just now, the Waking Life dialogue faded into the background and I recalled how great it was when I first discovered the dancefloor when I was 19, and how I had all that pain and anger and glee and God knows what other kind of teenage nonsense all bottled up inside me, and the dancefloor was the one place I could express all of it. Purely. And that's the exuberance I've felt from it ever since. It's the one place in the world I feel most alive, and most expressive. All this stuff inside me that just has to get out. That's the only way I know how to say most of it. This way, with the keyboard is a distant second. Distant? I'm hesitant to use that word, because while true, the phrase conjures up the usual meaning which is one thing way out ahead and then all the others somewhere behind in a pack. The situation here is actually one out ahead, the linguistic one way behind, and then a much longer gap before the pack arrives.

Hmmmmm. I may have to rethink that. Sorry. Sex has got to be in there somewhere. And smiles, smirks, squeezes of the shoulder . . . Well, maybe that's the pack. Dancing seems to rank first in my life in terms of satisfaction, followed by writing, and then all the rest of those others.

So it occurred to me--this was all I really wanted to say--that I have this lifelong craving to dance for the same reason I have to write. So how come all the other writers aren't littering the dancefloors? Why aren't the professional dancers writing novels in their spare time? Seems odd.

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A little aside. Still wondering if I'll ever be able to write a satisfactory story about dancing. To convey with one the power of conveying in the other, that's a toughie. I've tried. I wrote a story about it in grad school--didn't hate the attempt, but didn't do it justice, either. Maybe I should just try to capture a little piece of it next time.

That's why I admire the film Billy Elliot so much, though. Captured it. Totally. I was awestruck there in my theatre seat: They did it, they capture the ecstasy of dancing to a little boy. Of course they were not limited to words. Much easier to do on film, I think, but someday maybe I'll do it on the page.

I'll let you know.

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OK, break's over. Three more pages to get out before I sleep tonight. Normally that would be a lot, but I know just what I want to say, and worked out the finer points on my bike ride just before dinner. Damn, I missed the sunset to spend this time with you. I miss most of them, but it was just started and I had this urge to sit out on my balcony in the cool breeze and just soak it in, but I also had to say this, so here I was.

If Ed Helms were funny

Sat, 11 Feb 2006 06:24:16 GMT

Then the Daily Show would be funnier, too.

So many of their great correspondents keep graduating. Which is fine, because they keep finding great new ones, and we get to see the old ones in other things.

But then there's this Ed Helms situation. The show will be rolling amusing along and then Ed appears. And everything grinds to an immediate halt. In theory, his bits are funny, it's just that they're . . . not.

At first I thought he would grow into it, because they often do. They I realized he wouldn't, and they'd realize the mistake they made and move him back to writing or whatever they've done before.

But they seem to be going the opposite way. He's one of the few correspondents they've had without an ounce of humor, yet lately they seem to be using him every other day.

Strange.

When does that hidden kiss become the shameful kiss?

Tue, 17 Jan 2006 06:36:38 GMT

The wonderful NY Daily News writer Wayman Wong posted this tonight on my Brokeback Mountain Discussion Board, looking back on the Globes ceremony:

I'm thrilled for the movie. I'm thrilled for Ang Lee. I'm thrilled for Diana Ossana and Larry McMurtry. But couldn't someone in their acceptance speech even acknowledge the simple fact that the movie is a love story about two guys, and they're thrilled at how audiences have reacted to how universal that story is? Neither the word ''gay'' or ''homosexual'' ever came up. Look, I'm not asking for anyone to read a GLAAD statement or wave a rainbow flag, but something. . .

http://davecullen.com/forum/index.php?topic=285.msg13230#msg13230

Yeah, I was feeling a little of that too.

But I really starting getting irked when the film-summary/mini-trailer they ran for Brokeback a best pic nominee also skirted it. It's been one thing to omit it in the ads--if you're selling something, why grab the one aspect most unsettling to most of the audience and stick it in their face? But this wasn't (supposedly) about selling. This was supposedly a show about awarding the work, not selling it. (I know that's really naive, I know it's not true, but at least it ought to be a mixture of awarding and selling.)

At what point is it both dishonest and implicity copping to a self of shame not to admit what the hell it's about in the damn segment devoted to it?

I'm starting to feel more and more like this is the closeted movie. One of those ridiculous cases where everyone knows the guy's gay, but everyone pretends. In certain circles. Fine to discuss it, awkardly, on talk shows but not in the ads and not on awards shows?

For once they actually showed the clip of the boys getting close to kissing, so it was suggested. Suggested, great. Still, we get shots of the guys kissing their wives and dancing with them, but they still can't show the kiss that's at the heart of the movie? One of the other nominated films showed a bedroom shot and they can't show a kiss?

This really would have been the time. Just show the damn kiss!

One of the many crucial reasons for straights to see this film is to see two guys can kiss without the world coming to an end. For a lot of people out there, it will be the first time they ever see two men kiss. That's a real problem. Millions of us kissing each other every day of the year, but we're still doing it in hiding, so they're still unnerved by it, because it's been sanitized out of their lives.

That part of our lives is still very closeted. Not the sex, not gross PDAs--nobody needs to be seeing that--but the simple tender, everyday moments of happy couples holding hands, exchanged a brief kiss in public without a second thought. For thaty 99% of all gays 99% of the time still closet ourselves.

And it's a fully self-propogating system, because the straight people will always be unsettled by it and rightfully so if we keep hiding it.

Half a billion people watchig, they claim. Show them the damn kiss.

Maybe at the Oscars.

I won't hold my breath. But maybe. At least they'll be all done worry about any effects on the oscar race by then. They'll be worrying about getting the max box office bump out of the oscarcast, though.

And yeah, that's important to me, too. I'd rather see people actually get to the film and be taken in by the whole experience than just see one kiss, out of context, and out of emotional involvement on tv.

So maybe they're right, it's unpragmatic to do it.

Maybe I'm just getting angry again, that the longer this goes on, the more times they have to quake and wonder "should we show the kiss?" "should we mention the gay word?" it just reminds me how damn preposterous the whole situation is that most of the country has been sticking their heads in the sand and pretending millions of men in this country don't kiss each other, much less fuck.

It's freaking annoying. And I know I've been getting ahead of myself, feeling like straight people are finally starting to see it as this film rolls out--and not turning into pillars of salt!--but man, do we have a ways to go.

Which all leads me back full circle to Brokeback Mountain. What a wonderful, wonderful gift to our world this film has become.

My Nigga Moment

Mon, 09 Jan 2006 03:20:17 GMT

I've been loving this Boondocks TV series.

Makes me kinda squeamish sometimes, though. If this were written by a white guy, it would have been cancelled after one episode, and any TV executive involved in greenlighting it fired in disgrace.

But it's freaking funny.

And . . . how do you say this without sounding REALLY white . . . ? I'm understanding better.

Thought I understood the race stuff pretty well. Not well enough, apparently.

So I'm loving the show, for a whole lotta reasons. But the Nigga Moment episode--officially titled "Grandad's Fight"--that one was just too much. Grandad gets beaten up by a mean old blind man, and humilated for it. Everyone involved is black, including the narrator, who tells us and grandad about twenty times that it's just a nigga moment--where two niggas find themselves in a situation where they find themselves driven to act stupid, and it always ends badly.

Halfway through I literally felt like I was going to throw up. And all i could think was: I don't care how black the writer is, it's still freaking racist.

And I sure felt racist chuckling at it. And it was hard not to, it was funny. But good lord. Man, did I feel dirty.

I turned it off, but didn't delete it from the tivo.

Came back about a month later and decided to finish. More nigga nigga nigga, dumb niggas, stupid niggas, Goooooooood!

But finally, the episode climaxes with gramps and the blind guy in a rematch that ends horribly, followed by a mini riot among the crowd gathered to watch. Riley--the angry (eight year old?) grandson who set up the whole disgusting fight and took bets and charged admission and then instigated the riot to get the hell out of there when it went sour--stands back, looks at the mostly white crowd acting like idiots, and says, ruefully, "niggas!"

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Wow. Nicely done. Almost sounds heavy handed describing it now, but it sure lured me in. And enlightened me, too. And not just about white people, but about us, too. And the whole idea of niggas. Or one crucial nigga idea, at least.

This is the first show in ages that makes me feel like a nerdy white guy, and/or a white-guilt kinda guy. Discomforting, because I thought I was way past all that, but I guess that means I wasn't.

And it's funny as hell.

(FYI, It's on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. Sunday at 11, I read at one point, but I have no idea. That's what your tivo is for.)

Mrs. Henderson Presents

Wed, 21 Dec 2005 15:54:08 GMT

No time to say a lot, not much worth saying.

Really lightweight, annoying little trifle.

Mainly for tittering old ladies feeling a little naughty. A breast! they're going to show a breast! Oh my!

Junior high school humor for senior citizens. Quite the unfortunate combo.

And completely confused in tone. First half did not belong with second half.

What the hell hell happened to Stephen Frears? The Grifters and Sammy & Rosie Get Laid (nothing like it sounds) are two of my all-time faves. Been quite awhile. High Fidelity had moments, but felt pretty light. Dirty Pretty Things so tedious it was barely watchable.

I saw Mrs. Henderson at a sneak last week, and Stephen actually appeared after to answer questions, but I couldn't even bear to stay for much of it. (Plus most of the questions he had answered the same way on Charlie Rose a few nights earlier.) It was mainly too depressing, though, to watch such a great director talk about this silly little confection that wasn't even sweet.

And yes, Judi Dench was her ususal wonderful self, but perhaps a bit too usual. But how can you tell, really, when you're not really interested in anything coming out of her mouth after the first 20 minutes.

Sin City is vile

Mon, 19 Dec 2005 06:56:02 GMT

I just noticed Sin City showing up on critics' year-end top ten lists. (Chart here.)

Ugh. Gives me the shivers.

Really revolting film. And stupid, too, at least the first 30 minutes. First film I ever walked out of. My initial reaction here.

That little post also comments on the miserable experiment that was the film Yes, my second-ever walkout, two months later. Roger Ebert put it 9th on his list. Huh. One of us has a big problem.

Brokeback Mountain wins NY Critics: Pic, Director, Actor

Mon, 12 Dec 2005 17:24:41 GMT

Brokeback wins biggest yet at most important award outside the Oscars! NY Film Critics hand it Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor. Heath Ledger finally gets his due, from the most important source. (And was 2nd with LA, the next most important.)

Nice!

Brokeback swept both awards that really mean something: NY and LA film crits. This is SO sweet.

(Thanks for the emails, so I didn't have to monitor. Gotta get back to work. That's all till tonight.)

They say Ernest Hemminway blew his brains out because . . .

Mon, 12 Dec 2005 04:46:53 GMT

. . . it was the only way he could stop himself from damaging his good name any further.

That line always made me so sad. Sure hope I never get there.

But it occured to me tonight as I treated most of the Survivor finale as radio while I made dinner, watered the plants and blah blah blah.

Remember when this was a great show? A huge pop culture phenom, and a fascinating psychological experiment? That first season was just one of the most brilliant things ever devised for television. Just blew me away.

Who's ever going to remember that now? It's just this tired old show running through the exact same motions.

Not sure why I still watch, except it's hard not to hope. I usually end up watching it around Saturday or Sunday morning, over breakfast or lunch or something, when all the better shows for the week are expended. Sure wasn't about to sit through three hours of it tonight. Watched about five minutes of the reunion tonight. Who cares?

I used to.

Well, reality TV had a great run. A handful of really interesting shows, along with all those reams of dog crap. And there are still a few gems out there. I still enjoy the Apprentice, and watched the opening of Project Runway's second season over lunch today--that show is something to behold. Even for a homo without my fag licence. I don't get fashion, I've never been into fashion, but this show is really interesting. No time to analyze why, and plenty of people have already done it, but I loved the first season, and already hooked again.

'Official critics' darling, Brokeback Mountain'

Mon, 12 Dec 2005 04:22:19 GMT

Oscarwatch began its latest post this way: "Ladies and gents, we now have our official critics' darling, Brokeback Mountain."

In the last 24 hours, it has won best picture and director honors from the LA and Boston film critics groups, made the AFI top ten list (no winner is picked), and trounced most of its rivals on the Broadcast Film Critics nominations by leading the pack with eight, double any other film except Crash (with six.)

Philip Seymour Hoffman also seems to be cleaning up the Best Actor awards for Capote--he was stunning, though I still prefer Heath; and Ang Lee for director; and Murderball is doing well for documentary; and everything else is still a very mixed bag.

Tomorrow comes NY Film Critics and National Board of Review (the former at 5:30 a.m. PST), then Globe noms on Tuesday. Full awards schedule here.

The more these awards pile on, the more media attention Brokeback gets, and the more it becomes The Film that everyone is talking about. It's The Controversial Film, and The Supposedly Great Film. That's a a strong pull for the curious. This is quickly becoming the must-see film for anyone who wants to be part of the cultural conversation. That's so cool.

I would love everyone in America to see this, because I really think it will open their eyes. I know that's not going to happen, but virtually everyone is getting exposed to it, and getting the conversation going is a huge accomplishment.

Now I just hope Brokeback can win NY. All these other awards and noms are nice for publicity and fun to watch the Oscar horserace play out if you're into that--I'm an addict--but they don't really mean a whole lot, outside their impact on those other events. As awards unto themselves, that I would really care about winning if I were a filmmaker--or when one of my books gets made into a film--there are really only two outside the guild awards and the oscars: LA Film Critics and NY Film Critics. We'll hear from the latter tomorrow. If Brokeback could grab both, that would be sweet.

Monday Update:

National Board of Review: Brokeback won Best Director and Supporting Actor for Jake, and made top ten list. (Good Night won best film.) Hoffman won yet again.

NY Critics to announce any minute. I will be out, but Jim will post in the comments

---

(For comments on this, best to go to the latest Brokeback comment thread. See my Brokeback Mountain page.)

Brokeback Mountain breaks box office records

Sun, 11 Dec 2005 01:14:00 GMT

First a little background. Brokeback Mountain is using a strategy called "a platform release," where a film opens in a few theaters (five, in this case) to build buzz, and then rolls out gradually. The key number to watch in the early weeks is the per-theatre average. Anything above $10,000 is great for an arthouse pic, but to really blast off into the stratosphere, they are looking for $20-30,000. The biggest average ever for an indie pic was Syriana, with $74,900, just two weeks ago. (Which would be almost impossible without a major movie star.)

So the first-night results for Brokeback . . .

From BoxOfficeGuru's Saturday update posting this afternoon:

Opening to muscular results in platform release on Friday were a pair of awards contenders sure to post sensational averages this weekend. Focus Features debuted Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain in five theaters and grossed an estimated $192,000 for a jaw-dropping $38,000 average in just one day. Meanwhile, Sony premiered its Japan-set drama Memoirs of a Geisha in eight sites with an estimated $226,000 for a strong $28,000 average. Despite playing in only a handful of theaters, both pictures should pop into the North American Top 20.

Even a modest weekend multiplier of 2.6--(meaning sales will be slower Sat & Sun than Friday, but fairly close)--will give Brokeback a weekend theater average of $100,000.

That would put it 9th in the all-time top ten, right above Aladdin.
It will rank as the all-time champ for live action films.
It will be the biggest indie platform ever, 33% higher than previous champ Syriana.

Sunday Update:

It did set those records, with a $108,910 average. From BoxOfficeguru:

Exploding in platform release with one of the most spectacular grosses ever seen for a limited release bow was Ang Lee's cowboy love story Brokeback Mountain which debuted in only five cinemas but grossed an estimated $545,000 for a jaw-dropping $108,910 average per theater. The Heath Ledger-Jake Gyllenhaal drama has been showered with praise by critics and is already one of the top contenders for the Academy Awards, Golden Globes, and other prestigious prizes. This weekend, it was selected by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association as the best picture of the year with Lee also winning the director's trophy.

Focus Features launched Brokeback Mountain in three New York sites plus solo houses in Los Angeles and San Francisco this weekend and will expand on Friday to approximately 60 theaters nationwide. The gradual roll out is common for acclaimed arthouse films that need word-of-mouth and awards buzz to spread before convincing moviegoers in other parts of the country to open their wallets. The R-rated film can solidify its early frontrunner status if it receives major kudos from the Broadcast Film Critics Association, the New York Film Critics Circle, the National Board of Review, and the Globes which all announce their nominees or winners over the next two days giving the industry a clearer picture of the best films of 2005.

Monday Update:

BoxOfficeMojo ran a full story on Brokeback's record-breaking opening. Excerpt:

Director Ang Lee's cowboy love story rambled into three locations in New York City, one in Los Angeles and one in San Francisco and rustled up the highest per theater average on record for a live action movie.

Brokeback Mountain corralled $547,425 over the weekend, or a potent $109,485 per site. The average ranks ninth overall among the top weekend averages since 1982, behind animated features including The Lion King and Pocahontas. Adjust for ticket price inflation, and only Evita and Edward Scissorhands inch ahead among live action pictures, although each played at two venues where high averages were easier to achieve.

Distributor Focus Features' president of distribution, Jack Foley, reported that The Grove in Los Angeles, where Brokeback Mountain is showing on three screens, was the picture's highest-grossing venue. The New York theaters were each over $100,000, while the Embarcadero in San Francisco was over $80,000, according to Foley.

"It's overwhelming, basically," said Foley. "From what we understand, the sell outs began mid-afternoon. We had a good representation of males as well as females, and people from 35 years old to seniors." Foley added that women will be the key to the picture's future success.

Next weekend, Focus rolls Brokeback Mountain out to around 60 theaters, including 20 new markets like Chicago, Detroit, Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, Miami, Seattle, Denver and Washington, D.C.

"Our biggest problem is going to be exhibition," Foley noted. "Brokeback Mountain's not ready [to expand widely]. I don't want to go up against King Kong any more than I am. We have to play to our strengths. Exhibitors are going to be in it for the quick money. We're in it for the long run. We have a film that needs very careful management."

According to Foley, the next wave of aggressive expansions will start on Jan. 6 with a plan to be at more than 300 theaters by Jan. 27, right before the Academy Award nominations are announced. Foley noted that the picture could go wider before then depending on how it is received in the meantime.

Tuesday Update:

ok, the monday box office results are in. and . . .

Brokeback made another $103,256 on Monday, which translates to a per-theater average of $20,651 for the day. That is unheard of for a weekday. It is one of the all-time best days ever for an indie film, including weekends!

Unbelievable. I think Focus figured they could sell out most of those theaters on the weekend, but continuing this on a Monday? Wow.

(And I have to brag for a minute. All these sites are now posting about the record, but as far as I know, I am the first one to make that call saturday, based on the friday numbers, and again sunday. all the box office sites used great big adjectives, but did not note the records until a day or two later.)

Link for day-by-day data on Brokeback from boxofficemojo here, but you have to register (free), to get to it.

Wednesday Update:

Brokeback did another $99,152 on Tuesday, that's $19,830 per theater, again, near-record levels even if it were a Friday night.

Brokeback Mountain wins top LA Film Critcs Awards

Sun, 11 Dec 2005 00:51:27 GMT

Brokeback Mountain grabbed best picture and best director.

Heath Ledger took second for Best Actor. Phillip Seymour Hoffman won it for Capote, which I also loved a great deal.

Full list at Oscarwatch.

A whole wave of more awards coming in the next three days: NY Film Critics, National Board of review, AFI top ten list, and noms from Golden Globes and Broadcast film critics.

Full calendar here.

I take back everything good I said about Amazing Race Family

Thu, 08 Dec 2005 04:33:59 GMT

OK, just a quickie.

It's no secret that Amazing Race Family was a horrible mistake, so I won't belabor the point. But since I expressed enthusiasm for the new interesting windows it opened at first, let me go on record retracting. It did have lots of potential, and blew it.

Worst of all, almost no interesting people, except The Hypocrites, that horrible Weaver family that goes around dissing everyone and wondering why no one likes them, invoking Jesus' name at every opportunity, but apparently oblivious to all he stood for.

And the challenges? Sorry, "challenges"? Last night they had to dress up and get their picture taken. That must have been stressful. Just awful. Enough.

Reality is almost dead. But I sure do love Boondocks.

Casanova--Blech!

Thu, 08 Dec 2005 04:07:09 GMT

I went to a sneak preview of Casanova tonight, starring Heath Ledger, directed by Lasse Hallstrom. Went with high hopes. Supposed to be a romp. I love to romp.

I guess it comes down to whether the adjective "cute" is more likely to sound like a compliment or an insult to you.

This was extremely cute. Cute enough to vomit.

Farces either hook you along or they don't. What an excruciating two hours for me. But lots of laughter all around me, and to my amazement, quite a bit of enthusiastic applause over the credits. Women, especially seemed to love it. (I could hear lots of them laughing, and commenting regularly out loud. And gushing praise to the studio woman with the clipboard on the way out asking for comments.)

Spent two hours wondering if it would hurt his Oscar chances -- during the interminable time I had to employ my brain in just about any other activity, praying for it to end. He was OK, I guess, pretty good, maybe, so hard to tell when I didn't buy a minute of it, so that included him, so how could I possibly assess. Apparently lots of people enjoyed it--and surely him, he was quite the center of it--so he probably won't damage himself.

(Jeremy Irons, though, may never recover. Though I guess he was supposed to be over the top, so he played it over the top, whatever.)

Too many words already on that.

Indie Spirit Award Noms just announced

Tue, 29 Nov 2005 17:30:39 GMT

Taking this quick writing break to spread the good word, announced just in the last hour. Nom list. Press release.

I was happy to see two of my favorite small films of the year, Mysterious Skin and (to a lesser extent) Me and You and Everyone We Know nominated. (Skin for best director for Gregg Araki--quite the coup; and Me & You . . . for best first feature and best first screenplay.)

Most of the big awards were dominated by films also in the running for Oscars: Capote, Brokeback Mountain, and Good Night and Good Luck tied for second (with a couple others) at four noms.

Brokeback Mountain was tied for second : Best pic, actor, director &sptg actress. (Sorry Jake, nothing for you.)

My one shock was that the Brokeback Screenplay was neglected. I thought Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana did the nearly impossible -- took an amazing, award-winning story and improved on it. How often is the movie richer and more complex than the book? (Granted that the "book" was only 30 pages. But in most hands, it would have been fleshed out with pale filler. This version made me wish Annie would have written it much longer.)

This will of course, help Brokeback--perhaps more than any of the other well-known pics, as it has a special credibility problem with straight audiences. This may help ever so slightly to legitimize it as "a great film," instead of just "the big film for the gays." Every bit of cred helps.

And it may help a bit more in the Oscar race, as the only film with more noms, "The Squid & The Whale," is out of serious contention.

David Poland's Brokeback Mountain 'conversion'

Sun, 20 Nov 2005 19:28:08 GMT

You all may be familiar with David Poland's influential 20 Weeks To Oscar site.

Apparently he has had quite the turnaround on Brokeback--and it just leapt from #8 to #2 in his rankings this past week, a startling change.

I'm in a rush, so I'm just going to post these links with commentary from Greg in the comments (original links from Rick):

I had read Poland’s initial review, in which he was tepid on the film and outright critical of several aspects of it: http://www.moviecitynews.com/reviews/brokeback_mountain.html

What I hadn’t read were his subsequent treatments. This is where things got wacky. His musing on Telluride were odd (http://www.thehotbutton.com/today/hot.button/2005_thb/050906_tue.html), having much less to do with the film than, well, less than insightful musings about cinema and society. Oh well.

Then came this bizarre e-mail dialogue between Poland and a reader (http://www.thehotbutton.com/today/hot.button/2005_thb/050907_wed.html). As an op-ed exchange, I think Poland really lost his marbles. What was he trying to communicate? I admit that I abandoned the jousting after the third volley, but did note with journalistic distaste Poland’s final paragraph—a cheap “empty chair” shot.

What really got me was his final installment (at least I hope it was his last: http://www.thehotbutton.com/today/hot.button/2005_thb/050930_fri.html). That he continued to be under whelmed by the film wasn’t bothersome. I take Poland at his word that the film didn’t move him in an emotional sense. What struck me about his re-review was that he really did seem INVOLVED in the story—in exactly the way a short story ought to engage the audience. His musings about what was left untold went well beyond a tradecraft critique of “what should have been.” At first blush, I read his rewrap as evidence that he doesn’t even understand the admittedly uncommon format (at least to most American moviegoers). Perhaps in an obtuse way, that was his point. If so, it was a strange way to make it.

Watching Brokeback Mountain -- just about perfect

Sun, 20 Nov 2005 19:20:14 GMT

Watched Brokeback Mountain last night. Wow. Just about perfect.

Every bit as moving as the short story, and then some. They really fleshed out the characters, and I empathized with them more strongly. Enough that I'm not angry at Ennis anymore. I totally understand why he did it. How he thought he had to.

The problem with preconceptions is that it was hard not to sit there in the first half hour thinking, "Heath Ledger is doing fine, but 'a revelation'? Not quite getting that." (And there was plenty of quiet time to think.) But by the end I had forgotten all about that, and I was just in awe.

And Jake. Jake was just a joy to behold, every moment he was on screen. He really was. And that was his job--that was his character. And what a wonderful character to light up this movie. Would have been so much darker and flatter without him.

The women were great, too, and I'm so glad their characters were fleshed out. The book focuses on two lives ruined, but you get a powerful sense here of it tearing up all four. And to a lesser extent, hurting the daughters as well. Michelle Williams, in particular, is heartbreaking.

Oh, God, speaking of heartbreaking. My favorite scene in the book, hands down, was the reunion on the landing after four years--where they were so overcome with seeing each other, they grabbed each other and kissed passionately in broad daylight.

It was just as powerful on film, but topped by several others. I guess that says something extraordinary right there. The far-and-away best scene of one of the most beloved stories I have ever read, was bested about three times in the film. Would hardly have thought that possible.

The second night they get together out on Brokeback was . . . well, like nothing I've ever seen before, but only in the sense that I've never seen it with men. Picture one of the all-time great romantic moments on film, and then imagine it finally challenged by something just as beautiful, complex and tender with two men. Finally. First time ever ever ever I didn't have to imagine a stand-in for the woman up there.

It was just amazing. They had "gotten together" in a late-night drunken situation that Ennis was completely unable to deal with in the morning. Or the next evening. He tells Jake he's not queer, that it was a one-time thing and that's that. But he can't stick to it. When he comes into the tent, he's completely at war inside. Trying desperately not to do it, but his heart begging him to finally accept what it feels. It is so hard for him, his struggle is so palpable, and Jack is so perfect with him. God me balling again just remembering.

And their last climactic scene together and what comes after: that is just so intense, slammed me in the skull so hard so many ways one after the other after the other.

Just devastating.

And I'm not going to say a whole lot here, but I do believe Heath's finest moment comes when Ennis visits Jacks parents and gets some news from his mom. What he doesn't say. What he works so hard to hide. God. That poor, poor man. How can you possibly blame that guy?

---

So a strange thing happened to me after the film, while Ang Lee was interviewed onstage. (Streaming video and a news story on it here -- Thanks Mark. And FYI, Annie left early from the book signing, so I missed here. Didn't talk to her or Ang. Damn. But they sat across the aisle from us, and during the credits I got a chance to at least walk over and thank Larry and Diana for doing such an amazing job. They really fleshed this incredible story out.)

So the interview was great. To listen to him is to know you are in the presence of a true artist, whatever you think of this particular film. (Or The Hulk.) Late in the discussion, the Denver Post critic brought up they gay question a couple times, dealing with the gay issue, the gay this the gay that. It was oddly jarring for me. So weird to hear it called a gay film or a gay love story or gay anything. For the last two hours, I had just been lost in an exquisite love story.

I know, I know, I have scoffed right here about people saying it's not a gay film: What! It's two men in love having sex. That's called gay. The entire story revolves around the forbiddenness of their love--because it's gay--the whole tragedy is centered on the problem of the men being gay.

Yeah, I have said all that. And it's all true. In that sense, it is a gay film, in two distinct and crucial ways. But I'm now seeing the other point of view, too. It's also an aching love story between two people who just happen to be gay.

The other great romantic movie of the decade--Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind--was also a gripping love story of two people fighting desperately both for and against their problematic love for each other. But it wasn't a film about a memory-erasing device was it? That was just the vehicle, the problem to present for these two people to fight madly for the love being ripped away from them.

Exactly the same thing here.

All I know is, that in spite of knowing full well for the two-plus hours that it was the revulsion of homosexuality that was driving these two tragic lovers apart, I truly forgot about it being a gay thing. The love story was just too intense. It didn't matter what was driving these two guys apart, it was just about the intensity of the love between these two guys.

So I was literally startled to hear her using the gay word while I was still basking in that afterglow. Maybe because the concept of "gay love" is offensive to some part of me that is sick of hearing it distinguished from "love." It's exactly the same. For two hours I had not been watching gay love, I had just been watching love.

It didn't feel like a gay film. It just felt like home.

---

Update:

You guys kept adding so many comments (thousands), that long after this post, we started a whole Brokeback Mountain Discussion Forum.

And for links to everything imaginable, see our Ultimate Brokeback Mountain Guide.

Nine hours still Brokeback Mountain!

Sat, 19 Nov 2005 16:22:02 GMT

I've got to finish a chapter, get my hair cut, pick up my pants from the dry cleaners, and then I get to meet Annie Proulx, and possibly Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana and Ang Lee.

And then I get to watch Brokeback Mountain.

Yeaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!

Stayed in working last night, worked my ass off all week, feel wrung out like a dishrag, but I got lots of copy so I'm happy and I like myself again and tonight is my night off. And what a night! Going dancing afterward. (Yes, I've been really good all week, so I get the whole . . . night . . . off! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.)

But not yet. If this chapter is good, then I will really go happy.

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(By the way, new Brokeback comments thread here.)

Update:

A few comment threads have now filled up. Check out my Brokeback Mountain page for the latest thread link.

A strange pain inside

Sat, 19 Nov 2005 16:15:31 GMT

I remember exactly what I was doing the first time I heard it.

I was a computer systems consultant for Arthur Andersen, in Dallas, Texas. It was a new project assessing the systems at an eyeglass manufacturing plant way out in Mesquite. Only a (half hour?) drive from downtown, but a world away. Mesquite is the home to the major rodeo in the area, with everything that implies.

The partner on the job was coming from another client, so I was going to drive out separately. He would introduce me to the CEO and CFO I we would tour the plant.

It was a blazing hot Dallas afternoon. I worked on the 52nd floor of a 70-story building on Main St. Had to park three blocks away. When I got to my car, I pulled my jacket off and laid it on the passenger seat. It was my double-breasted olive Hugo Boss knockoff. My favorite. I was drenched in sweat.

I blasted the A/C on max, unbuttoned my sleeves and alternately hands on the wheel, so I could raise each arm in turn and get a long blast of cold air into my shirt to dry down.

Halfway there, not quite dry, this deep, booming, slightly gravely woman's voice came on the radio. Johnette Napolitano. I had heard a couple Concrete Blonde songs by then, but had never been swept away.

The first two lines she laid down in about the calmest, soothingest tones I'd ever experienced. The first word, just the name Joey seemed to stretch out forever.

Then BAM! she leapt up four octaves into this piercing, pleading, gut-wrenching lament:

Joey, baby -- don't get crazy

Detours, fences . . . I get defensive

I know you've heard it all before --

So I don't say it anymore

I just stand by and watch you

Fight your secret war.

Although I used to wonder why --

I used to cry till I was dry.

Still sometimes I get a strange pain inside

Oh, Joey, if you're hurting so am I.

Joey, Honey -- I got some money

All is forgiven. Listen, listen

And if I seem to be confused

I didn't mean to be with you.

And when you said I scared you,

Well I guess you scared me too.

But we got lucky once before

And if you're somewhere out there

Passed out on the floor.

Oh Joey, I'm not angry anymore.

I had to pull over.

Not to listen to it, when it was done. Spent, totally spent. I literally pulled over on the shoulder of the expressway, stopped the car and breathed. Didn't cry, but felt like I was about to. Like I already had, actually. That whole fierce ride of that song was like one intense dry-heaving cry.

Only time a song has ever forced me to pull over.

Hadn't heard it in years. Hadn't thought about it. Was just rifling through a stack of old CDs late last night, and my heart soared. Put it on just now over breakfast. Wow. I've missed her.