Hype
I'll admit right off that I cry easily at movies. It doesn't even have to be really sad; the last time I watched Back To The Future, I teared up when Marty told Doc he was going to miss him. I have a very quick tear reflex. Please don't tease me about it, because I will probably cry.
So anyway, Ella and I, being the only two people in Cambridge who haven't yet seen Brokeback Mountain, decided to remedy that situation tonight. Ella had been warned to "bring lots of kleenex," and before the movie we discussed the ease with which both of us cry at movies, and stocked up on tissue, and settled in to watch.
And it was a very good movie. There were a lot of technical and cinematic and thematic aspects of it that make me want to see it again, because I know I will appreciate them more the second time. And it was a very sad movie - of course I cried. Every damn time they showed those shirts, up sprang a bunch more tears. But I didn't cry for the entire last hour of the movie, which was what I had kind of steeled myself to expect. I was sad, yes. Very much so. But it pretty much just a few sniffles compared to what I went through the first time I read the last chapter of the latest Harry Potter book. And the second time. It's a book set in a fictional world with magic potions and centaurs and wizards, and it made me have to stop reading partway through to find a new kleenex box and wash my face.
But every time I started getting sad near the end of the movie, which is about human characters living in the real (albeit past) world, I was so distracted by Jake Gyllenhall's awful, awful mustache that I forgot to cry. Also distracting, though to a lesser degree, were the fake sideburns they gave Heath Ledger, and my extreme confusion at finding out they were supposed to be in their forties by the end of the movie, despite the fact that the only visual evidence for this was the slight frosting of Jake's hair and the weird (though well-done) crusty makeup under Heath's eyes.
But the mustache was the most distracting part. It was sad in a very different way than the movie is sad, and those two types of sadness kind of clashed with each other. During a scene when the characters are actually crying themselves, half of the time I was too busy being freaked out by the way the mustache made Jake Gyllenhall look like Nic Cage, and the rest of the time I was amazed that that fly or mosquito on Heath Ledger's neck was staying there for the duration of the scene.
It might just be that I'm a bad moviegoer. Or that I did actually watch the movie correctly, and it's supposed to be more melancholy than outright sad for the most part. In any case, I don't so much feel that the movie let me down than that I let it down. So maybe when it comes out on DVD I'll watch it, curled around a box of kleenex and sneaking glances at my copy of The Half-Blood Prince whenever that mustache comes onscreen.
But I still do get choked up thinking about those shirts. Maybe they should get the Oscar.
So anyway, Ella and I, being the only two people in Cambridge who haven't yet seen Brokeback Mountain, decided to remedy that situation tonight. Ella had been warned to "bring lots of kleenex," and before the movie we discussed the ease with which both of us cry at movies, and stocked up on tissue, and settled in to watch.
And it was a very good movie. There were a lot of technical and cinematic and thematic aspects of it that make me want to see it again, because I know I will appreciate them more the second time. And it was a very sad movie - of course I cried. Every damn time they showed those shirts, up sprang a bunch more tears. But I didn't cry for the entire last hour of the movie, which was what I had kind of steeled myself to expect. I was sad, yes. Very much so. But it pretty much just a few sniffles compared to what I went through the first time I read the last chapter of the latest Harry Potter book. And the second time. It's a book set in a fictional world with magic potions and centaurs and wizards, and it made me have to stop reading partway through to find a new kleenex box and wash my face.
But every time I started getting sad near the end of the movie, which is about human characters living in the real (albeit past) world, I was so distracted by Jake Gyllenhall's awful, awful mustache that I forgot to cry. Also distracting, though to a lesser degree, were the fake sideburns they gave Heath Ledger, and my extreme confusion at finding out they were supposed to be in their forties by the end of the movie, despite the fact that the only visual evidence for this was the slight frosting of Jake's hair and the weird (though well-done) crusty makeup under Heath's eyes.
But the mustache was the most distracting part. It was sad in a very different way than the movie is sad, and those two types of sadness kind of clashed with each other. During a scene when the characters are actually crying themselves, half of the time I was too busy being freaked out by the way the mustache made Jake Gyllenhall look like Nic Cage, and the rest of the time I was amazed that that fly or mosquito on Heath Ledger's neck was staying there for the duration of the scene.
It might just be that I'm a bad moviegoer. Or that I did actually watch the movie correctly, and it's supposed to be more melancholy than outright sad for the most part. In any case, I don't so much feel that the movie let me down than that I let it down. So maybe when it comes out on DVD I'll watch it, curled around a box of kleenex and sneaking glances at my copy of The Half-Blood Prince whenever that mustache comes onscreen.
But I still do get choked up thinking about those shirts. Maybe they should get the Oscar.
posted by Katherine at 9:57 PM
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