Woo hoo! Finally went and saw Brokeback Mountain, THE gay pseudo-cowboy movie of the year. And what better place and time to see it than a Monday afternoon in the Crystal River Mall with my mother and 20 old people. Uh yeah, for some reason I always imagined snuggling down in the Chelsea Clearview surrounded by hip gayfer boys but no ... luckily I had this charming old lady behind me to narrate the entire way through in case I missed key plot points. Examples:
"Those are sheep."
"That's a sheepdog."
"He's a sheepherder."
"It snowed."
"He's cold."
I note that I am in no way exaggerating. I wondered if she would narrate EVERYTHING for us and waited with baited breath wondering if she would mutter "He's boning him." But I suppose she was finally struck dumb. Or maybe she was still contemplating the miraculous sheep, I don't know. When that two-timin' Jake Gyllenhaal went off with his Mexican money boy she did at last say something somewhat interpretive:
"He's going to get AIDS."
Which, of course, he wouldn't since it was the 1970s.
The movie itself was pretty depressing and I spent the last few maudlin minutes contemplating the strange and wide range of films put out by this Taiwanese director. I mean, "The Ice Storm" to "Sense and Sensibility" to this?! Wow. The soundtrack rocks and I will be buying it -- or I should say I will be asking for it for Christmas next year because I'm too cheap, even for wailing cowboy tunes, which would make a nice addition to my life in Thailand. A fitting additoin I would add since they are definitely into wailing cowboy tunes themselves, both American and homegrown (see Isaan music).