Brokeback Mountain Week 2: Weekend Gross Up 330%

Brokeback Mountain expanded to 69 screens (theaters) from 5 last weekend. As a result, it's gross almost quadrupled.

Additionally, for the second week in a row, Brokeback is again the #1 movie in the country in terms of per screen average, selling at an astonishing $34,000 per screen. King Kong, by way of comparison, in its debut weekend, sold tickets at the rate of $14,000 per screen.

Brokeback Mountain could be on its way to becoming a box office phenomenon for an independent movie.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/

Read the New Yorker review last night and I'm sold. Heath Ledger is supposed to be brilliant.

http://www.cafepress.com/scarebaby/658010

I really didn't need to see another movie filled with self-loathing gay closet cases pretending (lying) to be straight to their wives and children while fucking around on the down low. And I know there are people in the mid west who will kill and maim people suspected of being gay - did I need to see another gay bashing on the big screen? Not at all.

Sorry, but it fell WAY short for me. WAY short. I was totally disappointed for what was billed as a love story when it was really a study in psychological and physical traumatization.

It was not worth the entrance fee for me - your mileage may vary.

I haven't been interested in this movie mostly because I am not a fan of love stories. I find your review interesting though. Thanks.

To understand how rare it is for me to go to movies - the last one I saw in the theater was Farenheit 911!

This movie sounds great!

...I hope it does really well. If it does it means Hollywood will make more gay themed movies. It means we'll become more "mainstream", and straights will begin to see us as something other than a stereo type and secondary characters!

It officially opens here at the Tivoli next Friday. There will also be a special premier next Thursday to benefit PROMO, but it is already sold out. (Fortunately, I already bought the tickets.)

I saw this last night with my cowboy.

It was a very moving love story.

I was a little nervous - half the crowd was not "family" and the theatre serves alcohol so there was some twittering and giggling at the beginning that kind of put me on edge. I knew that there would be some racy scenes, and I was worried that they would not be done well or tastefully or perhaps too faithfully, but they were done just right in the context of the story. The second "scene" was not necessarily "sex" so much as this marvelous tenderness between two humans.

And once all that is out of the way, you have the whole rest of the film to see that "same sex" love isn't nearly just about sex, and sometimes you don't really get to choose who you fall in love with even when it's impossible.

Heath Ledger acted a part that any one of us who have rural relatives know was absolutely true and believable. I was blown away here, recognizing cousins and uncles, pieces of myself, and mannerisms of a time when displays of emotion other than anger were considered a sign of weakness in men, and seeing the power of those emotions here in much more subtle conveyances.

It was an exercise in humanity, in what it means to deal with what WE deal with even today. Nobody believes that cowboys or soldiers or firemen or emergency room doctors or judges or lawyers or CEO's or janitors can be gay and not be effeminate or weak or fit some other pre-conceived notion of anti-masculinity. It was a love story about two humans in love, at a time and a place in their lives that wouldn't let them live that life together, about bad timing and missed opportunities, how when enough of that happens it can be too late and all that's left is memories and regret and loneliness, that sometimes when you need just one more chance it won't be there.

And you fall in love with them a little bit too - I found myself really really hoping that it would turn out differently, that it wouldn't turn out so damn real and believable, that there are always happy endings for people who are true to their hearts, because we know that's not always true.

It was a great movie, see it if you can.

It's not just sex! I tell me relatives that. I joke with them and say, 'oh...you and the wife and getting some every night' and they acknowledge that being married isn't about sex all the time. And I tell them the same with being gay. It's about two people being together as one in many more things than sex.

Here in New York its playing in several theatres but I realize that in other parts of the country it is either non-existent, or people have to travel long distances to get to a town where it is being shown. The movie is well-cast with great care and attention to detail down to the smallest roles. Ang Lee is a provocative and interesting director. Heath Ledger gives a performance I frankly did not think he was capable of, based on his previous work that I've seen. He is first class in this --- really superlative acting. And I do not throw around praise and artistic bouquets lightly.

"Heath Ledger is just almost really beyond description as far as I'm concerned. He got inside the story more deeply than I did. All that thinking about the character of Ennis that was so hard for me to get, Ledger just was there. He did indeed move inside the skin of the character, not just in the shirt but inside the person. It was remarkable."

Their is no higher praise for an author to give

Good for the medium, and a great way to piss off the fundies. :evilgrin:

I keep thinking about the reception for "Making Love" back in...well, I think it was like 1982 or 1983. In that movie, Michael Ontkean and Harry Hamlin kinda semi-fall in love, but it was about love, though the box office reception for the film was fairly spotty. Still, it broke significant ground and I get the feeling that Brokeback goes much deeper and with much more feeling in this script. It's a movie long overdue - and I could give a crap about the reeling fundamental stupidoes who will rage about this film - LOVE is God's creation, even if the fundies can't get past empty lip service to the concept.