Brokeback Mountain has been out for 6 weeks and is about to fall out of the Top 10. It has made 32 Million which isn't bad I guess, but it's hardly a blockbuster. I think my issues with Brokeback Mountain is that people are going out of their way to shove this film down people's throats and heap praise and awards upon it despite the fact that it...gasp...might not be a good movie.

 

Brokeback isn't really falling out of the Top 10, as this weekend it's going to be sitting in either 3rd or 4th place, after being in 9th last week. The movie has averaged either more or around $10,000 per theater for all 6 weeks it's been out, even as it reached higher levels of saturation, and it only cost $14 million to make, and next to no marketing costs. So you really can't argue whether or not the movie is a success, as it as already turned a profit for the studio, something more movies don't do until they hit the home market.

So all week long there were stories about how thanks to the Golden Globes and a new wider release it was going to be the number one movie in the country.

 

Then it turns out it wasn't even in the top 4.

 

So what's the spin on it?

 

Last week's Golden Globe Awards provided a big box office bump for its winning films, most notably "Brokeback Mountain," which ranked fifth in weekend ticket sales.

 

The film, which follows the 20-year forbidden romance between two rugged ranch hands, won four Golden Globes, including best motion picture in the drama category and best director. It earned $7.8 million, an increase of 35 percent over the previous weekend.

Not a single mention of how short of expectations it fell, just a positive spin like that exceeds expectations... even after you couldn't turn on a TV all week with a story (read that "free advertising") about it.

 

P.S I'm not against the movie being made or against it having wide release or anything of the sort. What annoys the piss out of me is this wave of making it out to be something more than it is simply because it has a gay theme.

Isn't the movie still in a limited release situation? I know it was making more money per showing than a lot of films out at the same time but it was only in like 1/4th of the theaters.

 

I just scanned imdb, here you go:

 

 

Brokeback Mountain retained its position at the top of the midweek box office for a second day in a row Wednesday although playing in just 682 theaters. The Oscar front-runner earned $740,000 -- $105,000 more than second-place Glory Road. The film is due to expand to 1,194 theaters this weekend -- nearly doubling the number of venues after slowly expanding over the past six weeks. Daily Variety said that the decision to accelerate the release pace was taken in order to take advantage of excitement over the film that was generated by the film's win at the Golden Globes and would likely expand even wider if it garners major Oscar nominations on Jan. 3

 

 

(emphasis mine)

 

That was on Friday's update so the numbers for the expanded release aren't even fully counted yet I would think.

 

 

I wonder, do theaters in Utah "annoy the piss out of you" for refusing to show the movie, or does it just bother you that people are talking about gay cowboys?

All i'm saying is that people say Brokeback Mountain this and that. Let's give it every award and call it the most daring movie of the decade and all .... That I can live with. But for God's sake at least admit it when it turns out not everyone gives a shit!

Most movies that feature gay themes usually have characters that are queens or effeminate in some manner. The fact that Brokeback has two manly men in a manly profession doing what a lot of people consider the most unmanliest deed seems to rattle a lot of chains.

I follow box office history and trends pretty closely, so I'll try and touch upon this Brokeback Mountain situation. During the week from Mondays through Thursdays, you get a more mature, adult crowd going to the movies, which is why Brokeback shot up to number one. Everyone knew that come Friday, Underworld: Evolution which is in three times as many theaters would take the top spot, so a number one finish was out of the question. The way that the Top 5 ended up had Brokeback finishing 5th with $7.5 million, but the movie was only in 1200 theaters and averaged a healthy $6,200 per theater. In 4th you had Last Holiday which grossed $1.2 million more, but also played in twice as many theaters, and it's per theater was only $3,500. Next up you got Glory Road, which essentially finished up the same as Last Holiday, both movies proving to have no legs and will be pretty much finished by the end of this week. In second you got the kids movie Hoodwinked, which played in over 3,000 theaters, averaging $3,500. Therefore regardless of numerical placing, Brokeback did twice as well as the three movies that landed directly above it because it played in so few theaters in comparison. And as for the number one slot, like I said earlier, no one thought any movie other than Underworld would have been up there.

 

So sure the movie techincally wasn't the second highest grosser of the weekend, but you can't say that a movie produced for $7.5 million and started out playing in less than 100 theaters, which is will on it's way to grossing well over $70 million, fell short of expectations. In it's 7th weekend in release, it pulled in the same amount of money that it cost to make the movie. That's actually pretty hard to do in this day and age.

All i'm saying is that people say Brokeback Mountain this and that. Let's give it every award and call it the most daring movie of the decade and all .... That I can live with. But for God's sake at least admit it when it turns out not everyone gives a shit!

Passive aggressive much?

I understand that. I'll elaborate.

 

There wasn't much initial love in this love story. Their first sexual encounter came as a simple result of an anal insertion. No kiss. No build to it. They just woke up in the middle of the night and fucked. Very weird.

 

I think I might have liked the movie more without all the hoopla, but for the first 30 minutes or so of the movie, every time they're in a scene together, you're just expecting them (not really wanting them to, but expecting them to) to jump each other's bones at a moment's notice. That's what ended up happening, so I guess expectation is the creator of disappointment after all.

 

I can understand marrying their wives out of obligation to society, or whatever you want to call it. It was a different time. I don't think they loved them, and I think that's part of the story, so I can accept that. But did they care about them at all? I finished the movie and wasn't even sure if the two leads were even good people with good intentions or not. And really, all I kept thinking was that they had only themselves to blame for 90% of the problems they had making a long-term relationship work. There's no one else at Brokeback Mountain that could see them long enough to have a problem with them. It's a gigantic ecosystem where only they exist. So why couldn't they continue living there? I guess that would be too easy, and wouldn't allow the plot of the movie to occur.

 

The scenes with the children really bothered me, at least with Heath Ledger's character. Jake Gyllenhall's child was pretty much ignored -- no consequence, no thought ... he was willing to leave it all behind and stick his wife with his responsibility just for the opportunity to be with his secret lover. All that's known is that his father-in-law was a major control freak and didn't see him as "a man". The only time in the entire movie I found myself rooting for him was when he stood up for himself at Thanksgiving dinner.

 

Heath Ledger's character was more willing to make choices, but even then, it was too little, too late. He blows off his daughter's pleading for him to take a more active role in her life, ignores her request to move in with him, constantly sticks her mother with all the difficult tasks of being a parent and leaves overnight constantly to have an affair.

 

#1 - He's married.

#2 - He has children.

 

The rules change at that point. He acknowledges that, but it's less out of moral obligation to do right by his children and more out of just obligation period.

 

As much as I hate to say it, Hollywood is just glorifying this because it's a gay-themed movie. Sure, the acting is great, even phenomenal at times, but the fact that the movie's main characters are so reckless -- and here's the key, they *know it and don't care* -- makes this a major turnoff for me.

I'm bringing this back from the dead since I just watched the DVD last night.

 

I think Loss missed the reason why they couldn't live together at Brokeback, Heath's character tells the story of his father forcing them to see the body of one of the two guys living together and assumed to be gay. A fairly big subtext of the movie (IMO at least) is how he deals with having feelings he was told in the most graphic way possible is wrong. His comments later about feeling like the whole town is looking at him seems to reflect that. I think that might even be the reason he didn't want his daughter to live with him since he didn't want her to get taught the same lesson he was.

 

 

I do agree, the scene with Jake's character and his asshole father in law at Thanksgiving dinner had me rooting for him to punch the bastard in his smug face.