"...just like this always."

It seems like whenever I tell myself that I'm not going to do something it always manages to happen, voluntarily, yet much against my will. I told myself that I wasn't going to use whatever it is that I'm doing here as a forum to constantly critique the movies, music or shows that I've just experienced. Not to take away from what many other bloggers choose to write about. I've felt lucky enough to read everything from hilarious insights into the new holiday family flick to near brilliant observations on a particular disc they've just heard. And I love reading these. I'd just usually much rather sit down and talk about a film or a recording than to try and give an in-depth analysis via-blog.

Needless to say, I'm always seeing or listening to something and so these recommendations or criticisms have come up, without a doubt, from time to time. I was okay with this. Sometimes our experiences in a theatre can seem more meaningful than the mundanity of our everyday lives. Which, it should be noted, is never the case. However, I always knew for certain that I was NOT going to join in the fray of bloggers who have endless amounts of wit and wisdom to spew forth on the controversial new award season film "Brokeback Mountain."

I saw this movie a week ago and exiting the theatre, felt quite lucky to have absolutely no desire whatsoever to write a thing about it. I had waited a good long while to see the film with my boyfriend Matt. We had experienced it together and I would certainly recommend it to any straight friends and family members. But, frankly, I wasn't blown away.

"It was boring," was my main sentiment. "They could've shaved a half hour off that thing easy," was another. "The sex stuff didn't even seem that controversial to me. There were more scenes of them fucking their wives than there was of anything involving the two of them of together," was a third. I found the cinematography to be gorgeous, the performances to be deeply felt and the story to be tragic and moving. All things I had expected coming in. But it just didn't seem like the immediate DVD purchase landmark kind of film that I was hoping for.

Only in the past seven days has the full effect of this picture taken ahold of me. There have been moments since my viewing that I've almost doubled over in pain from the remembrance of these characters' lives. Rereading the final pages of the short story I'd first read months ago, my gut wrenched with an aching hollow at the closeness I felt to these men. How easily this could have been any of us in just another time or place. And while I may have walked out of the Kips Bay theatre proclaiming the film a bore, in the days since I have been so haunted by its story that at times whole conversations have been killed due to my absorption. "What do you feel like having for lunch today, Chris?" ..."I feel so sad for Ennis. I feel so sad for him."

Many of you have certainly been fortunate enough to see "Brokeback Mountain" by this time. If not, run out to read Annie Proulx's short story immediately and then see the film as soon as you can. I wouldn't jump up and down on the top of a mountain proclaiming this film a masterpiece. It just didn't shake me in quite that bold a way. But what Ang Lee, and even more so Ms. Proulx, have created is a world so viscerally, numbingly real that you may find yourself revisiting it against your better judgement time and time again. The story of Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar will break a part of your soul, of that I am certain. But with that same certainty I am here to tell you that you will never be the same again.