Now that I'm thiking about it, I remember my initial reaction to the movie more clearly. I was one of the delayed reaction crowd. Thought it was "good" when I was in the theatre after seeing it for the first time and then couldn't stop thinking about it for days on end. I remember the feeling of withdrawl I would have if too many days went by that I didn't see it again. I remember telling people that the reason I kept seeing it was that "it inspires me to love." Oh! it's all coming back to me! I remember the hours spent nightly on the imdb message board. I remember how great it was to discover Chez Tremblay and how great it felt when I started learning your names and becoming integrated into the community. I remember the exodus to BetterMost when imdb became hostile, the dedicated scramble to preserve our historic posts before they were gone. I have the archive bookmarked although I haven't been there in awhile
I am so grateful that the cult of Brokeback is still here a year down the line.
Howdy Kirk -
What I quoted in your initial reaction paragraph is so similar to almost everything I experienced, I could have written it!
Glad you’ll be goin to Alberta - me too!
This thread actually got me to make a special trip to the library today to look at the San Francisco gay papers from a year ago so I could reconstruct my introduction to BBM with the correct dates! So thank you all for this inspiration!
I first heard about BBM in a San Francisco gay paper, The San Francisco Bay Times, December 1, 2005 issue. It had a full page story with a big photo – the one with Jack lyin on the grass and Ennis standin near him holdin his rifle pointed down towards the ground. This article caught my attention. I read it and it seemed like a movie that I wanted to see, even though I see very few movies. (While I was in the library, I made a copy of this article for my BBM collection, since this was my very first awareness of BBM.) The next week I saw an ad for BBM in the other San Francisco gay paper, The Bay Area Reporter (BAR). The ad had a note that there would be a special screening December 7 at the Embarcadero Theater in San Francisco and that passes would be given out Dec. 5 at 12 noon at the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Office on Castro Street. I took an early lunch so I could get to the HRC at 11a.m. to wait on line so I would be sure to get a pass for two admissions. I must have sensed already, without realizing it, that I HAD to see BBM!!
Unfortunately, not being a movie buff and not readin the small print, I did not realize that the pass did not guarantee admission to the screening. So when my partner, David, and I got to the Embarcadero Theater 15 minutes before the screening, we could not get in! I was very upset and disappointed and felt foolish about not knowing that we should have gotten there much earlier.
I still wanted to see BBM so I told David we should go to see it after it opened here December 9.
Meanwhile, one of his friends E-mailed David a link to the short story and he forwarded it to me, since he knew I wanted to see the movie. I was debating whether I should read the short story before we saw the movie. Since I often have trouble following movie plots and remembering characters, I decided to read it first. I know I read it on my pc December 17 – and cried and cried! Unfortunately I did not keep my ticket stub, but fortunately I charged it and I just located my Visa statement showing that I first saw BBM the next day, December 18 at the Stonestown Theater in San Francisco!
I think this must have been the first time or close to the first time I ever charged a movie ticket instead of payin cash! The next week I just HAD to see BBM again, so one day when David had other plans, I left work early to sneak off to a late afternoon matinee . . . and the rest is history!!
