I saw Brokeback Mountain today. First, I know..."holy crap, Cristian! You saw a CHICK FLICK with your wife during the F'IN CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIPS!?!?!?!" Well, yes. Here's why:

1. Today was Jennifer's only day off this week. Yesterday she had to go to The Woodlands (Why the hell is the "The" in "The Woodlands" capitalized? That makes me hate them even more. Pretenious pricks.) for a color guard contest, and for some reason I agreed to head up there so we could spend at least one Saturday together. So I figured I'd "take one for the team" and hang out with her some more. She put the whole "we always watch sports, I never get to watch what I want to" argument on me; I gave a minor protest, then relented. Little does she realize that every time we go see a movie we see one that SHE wants to see: Harry Potter, The Producers, et. al. But whatever. She gets a little victory today.

2. We have TiVo. Now, normally I'm vehemently opposed to TiVo-ing sports events, especially those of high-importance like the NFC/AFC Championships are, but after about 10 minutes into the Denver/Pittsburgh game, I figured the Steelers were a team of destiny, why fight it, I'll listen to them blow away the Broncos on the way to the theater. So I TiVoed the Seattle/Carolina game, and had to put Desperate Housewives on the timer of the office vcr (the bedroom TiVo was set to record other shows that I can't live without). I told some friends to not call me with updates, or I'll pour jalapeno juice in their eyes. I didn't tell them why, though...

3. I had to see for myself why this movie won so much.

Okay, if you haven't seen it yet, go away. This will spoil it for you. While I appreciate the fact that it may be groundbreaking cinema, I didn't particularly feel this film was deserving of its current status as a watershed film or best of the year. Here's why: IT'S A F*&%$ING CHICK FLICK! I don't care about the gay part. I didn't want to see Cold Mountain. I hated Terms of Endearment. I was bored during this film. Even during the butt scene. If this film had Angelina Jolie instead of Heath Ledger, I would still think this film was average. But since it dealt with homosexuality (or the denial of it), it's now on the AFI top 50? Come on!

I think the butt scene arrived too quickly. I could be wrong, and I already discussed this with my wife, but I didn't see any sexual tension or flirting or anything between the two before that scene in the tent. That moment completely caught me off guard, and not because of the sex. If it were m/f, ok, that would make sense. But one Macho Cowboy (Ledger) and one closet case (Gyllenhall) DON'T accidentally hump out of the blue. I blame Ang Lee for this. He should have established some sort of beyond-guy-bonding relationship between the two, and he failed to do that for me. I mean, it's a BIG DEAL for a guy to bat for the other team all of a sudden, and for Ledger's character to do it so easily seems very unlikely to me. **NOTE: If there were a montage of them brushing hands whilst reaching for whiskey or catching glances of each other while bathing, ok. But there wasn't a montage with sappy violin music. Just a dude freezing outside, then BANG! Doesn't make since to me.**

Plus, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. Maybe it was a testament to how much they loved each other, but they never fought after that first summer together until their last meeting. It was all just lovey-dovey, like a fantasy (that's why chicks dig this film). Too much happiness for a long time (at least, as far as THEIR relationship was concerned), without much strife. Then, and here's another one, BANG! Jack Twist is dead. There's the other shoe! But it took you 2 hours for one bad moment to happen to them? Come on!

Aside from that, there's still a few issues I didn't like with the film. For instance, I truly believed in Ledger's character's faitfulness to his heterosexuality. He was in love with a PERSON, and not a man. I could tell he loved women, but he just happened to fall in love with a person who happened to be a man. Ok? But Gyllenhall's character (Jack Twist) is another story. He's gay. He said he wasn't, but he so was. That's why he never divorced his wife (who was hot, by the way), and kept going to Mexico; he was in denial. But I think Lee should have dwelled more on that to shine a light on the fact that Jack tortured Ennis with his homosexuality by denying Ennis his hetero-ness. I dunno, I may just be talking out of my ass, but I think the film is overrated. And too long. Just like The Shining is too long. It was just a glorified chick flick, and those movies and films just never make it in my book. Just my opinion.

Another thing: Jen and I had to drive an hour to Houston to see it. It's not showing here in Lake Jackson. Big surprise. However you feel about the film, it's meant (the artform, not just this film) to be provocative. That's what art is. See/hear it first, then you can say you hate it. But if you choose to remain sheltered, then you and your children will remain unenlightened to the world around you. So go see a movie about homosexuals. Drink a little. Talk to your kids about drugs instead of pawning that little responsibility off to schools. Make your children into better earth-citizens, and not just cookie-cutter kids that don't know anything about art, music, theatre, literature, or film. Let them live. When I was growing up, I went to a mix of public and private schools. The worst kids (in terms of "if you were a parent of this kid, would you freak out if you knew what they were doing and capable of?") were always, and I mean ALWAYS the ones with over-protective parents, ESPECIALLY at the private schools. You know the type: Never letting Junior go to parties, making them go to church 6 days a week, or prohibiting them to see movies rated PG-13, or never letting them drink Kool-Aid or no video games, or no driving until 18 years old, etc. Then they got to college, and they were the sluts who had sex with different guys every weekend, the drugheads who always went to class high, and the losers who were in school for 7 years (ahem), all because they never got it out of their system. It happens every time, and when I meet these types of parents, I think, "Man, your kid is gonna be f*&%ed up when s/he's 22!"

My point is, show Brokeback Mountain in conservative towns. If anything, it'll piss them off enough to go to the theater to protest, and you'll make money. Works everytime.

Now go raise your kids. Tell them to go vote. Just tell them the truth. Don't lie to them, and expect them to think like you do. Because then they'll go to college, learn a whole lot of stuff, and then hate you the rest of your life. I love my mother, because she let me think for myself. Even though we ended up on the same side of the fence as far as politics, she didn't force anything down my cranial throat. God bless her. I figured all the other shit out on my own.