It seems that Matt Drudge has declared war on Brokeback Mountain. We talked a bit about it yesterday in a thread about Jarhead, but that was before the Drudge article. With the current hotbutton issues of same sex marriage and gay rights making the news, this movie could become the whipping boy of the right.
If you haven't heard of it, it's the latest movie from Ang Lee (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) and is based on a short story by Anne Proulx. The plot is simple. Two cowboys meet up one summer while tending sheep in Wyoming in the 1960's. They fall in love and spend the next 20 years hiding their relatioship from their families (both marry, have kids). The screenplay was written by legendary western writer Larry McMurtry (Lonesome Dove, The Streets of Laredo) and stars Health Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal. It has all the markings of an Oscar favorite and Drudge knows it. It will be coming out in December, just in time for the awards season.
"Arriving with nudity and explicit gay sex scenes between two cowboys, UNIVERSAL/FOCUS FILMS's BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN has quietly become an award season frontrunner, interviews with Academy members reveal.
"It could very well be the last film standing at this year's Oscars," a top Hollywood producer not associated with the film explained from Hollywood.
"There was not a dry eye in the house at the screening at Telluride [Film Festival in Colorado]," says the producer, who asked not to be named out of respect for the cast and crew of the producer's own Oscar contender. "Watch it come out of the gate at the Golden Globes with super controversy." "
http://www.drudgereport.com/...
It's already won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and it was reported to have been the best at the Telluride and Toronto film festivals.
It has been suggested in some of the reviews (the Village Voice, the Guardian in the UK) that this is the type of movie that can change minds and hearts. But could it work in reverse as well? If Drudge is bitching two months before it opens, will the movie become a rallying cry for the Right? Or will it just be brushed off as another example of Hollywood Liberalism. Does Hollywood even have the power anymore to make a difference in how people think. Just curious to hear what people think.
