Well, considering I've already made about 15 posts, I probably should have done this a while ago. But I remember introducing myself somewhere else so all is good perhaps.
Alright, I'm a Tremblay refugee as well. Still in disbelief about all the shit that went down on IMDB; which is why I, and many others, are thankful to have great administrators here.
Let's see... I've been noticing a lot of posters here are at least 30. Well, odd man out here, I'm 16. 'Fun' age, huh? Okay, I'm from the U.S. I'm thankful to live in such a liberating country, even though there's a lot of instability in our government and society. (Far too much.) I believe in some sort of Christianity but I don't attend church -- I cannot
stand those damn hypocritical Bible-thumpers. I'm not completely sold on their preachings and hopefully, I never will be. So agnostic would be a more suitable term to describe me as.
Okay, first heard of Brokeback Mountain well over a year ago. I was searching on Yahoo for upcoming releases and saw a genre entitled "Gay/Lesbian." I thought to myself, there really have never been all that many gay/lesbian films. I mean, I remember Boys Don't Cry, I saw Monster (doesn't count all that much, I know), I had heard of a bunch of campy-looking material far out of my alley like Trick. But that's all I could come up with. So I clicked on Brokeback Mountain and saw the line-up for cast...
I was then indifferent to Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal (though, today, I hold them in such high regards). But I had always liked Anne Hathaway and Michelle Williams. Hathaway I had seen in The Princess Diaries and I just thought she was cute in it; she did fine with her part. As for Williams, I admit to watching the first two-three seasons of Dawson's Creek when I was around 9 years old and she was the only actor on the show who I thought really had any noticeable talent. I didn't start counting down the days still BBM was released but I did keep it in mind; I wanted to see this one.
And I kept it in the back of my head all through summer and when it premiered at the Toronto Film Festival to critical and audience acclaim, I became very intrigued to see it. It was one of my most-anticipated films for it's season, it's only other on-par competitor Memoirs of a Geisha (which I watched last night and I enjoyed it, I just missed Brokeback throughout the entire thing
).
So because I live in suburbia I couldn't see it when it came out on December 9th, even though I really wanted to see this film. It came to a nearby theatre in mid-January and in it's premiere weekend at my local theatre, I rushed out and saw it (I still have the ticket stub). I knew what I had seen was a really good film but it wasn't until later when I realized how amazing this movie really is. I emerged from the theatre quietly devastated by the ending, thinking "Oh, god, that was sad. I wish it didn't end like that." This wasn't unfamiliar territory for me; I remember walking out of Million Dollar Baby and feeling so sorry for the characters.
But this, clearly, was different. I got over Million Dollar Baby in no time; after 5 minutes or so, I was back to reality though I really liked that film. With Brokeback, I soon got an overwhelming migraine and ended up feeling ill that night. (Coincidence? I think not.) The next morning, I went to school and everything was going fine. It was actually a good Monday or at least, it would have been had I not been feeling so miserable. I felt awful about what happened to Jack and Ennis and the entire day I felt completely beat down, and I had no such understanding of what I was feeling. That day, I got home from school and just burst into tears.
The next day, same. Same with the day after that and just about every day for the next two weeks. I was now spending all my time on the BBM boards on IMDb when they were at their peak. I thoroughly enjoyed posting with other Brokies who were in a similar state of devastation; mycatsmom even started a "When does the devastation end?" thread that had over 200 replies (about 10 of which were mine).
I've since then spent an infeasible number of hours online in search of all things Brokeback, watched the movie 4 more times in theatre, played the CD countless times, bought three different versions of the story (one is Close Range, the other is the Story to Screenplay edition), lost many hours of sleep (including the bookending hours of last night's slumber), had many Brokeback dreams, even experienced
denial in my Brokeback Fever. (I simply, one morning, refused to believe that Jack was dead. I thought Lureen made up the
entire story.) I've never had such an extreme reaction out of anything before this film.
I know I rambled on about things that you guys already know and have experienced but ever since January 22nd (told you I remembered the date), but this is what's completely taken my life by the throat now. And as overwhelming as it becomes, I am thankful for it.
So... in other words, yeah, I
used to have a life.
www.jlodown.com
