Oscar-Nominated Movies

Brokeback Mountain - I was about as unimpressed as I expected to be. This is one of those movies where people have intense, emotional conversations with each other while gazing off in opposite directions, instead of looking at each other. Y'know, the way people in the real world behave.

It also struck me as very obviously being a movie about homosexual men made primarily by heterosexuals. It contains/reinforces a bunch of heterosexual misconceptions about gay relationships - e.g., it's basically all about the sex, the sex is rough & macho, etc. I never got any sense of a romantic connection between them - it's a very Ancient Greek conception of homosexuality, where they're basically masculine camping/hiking/fishing "buddies", except they also have sex.

I can see why it had some mainstream appeal - it's a very safe movie for straight people. Sure, they're gay, but they're also basically disgusted by their own behavior, at least at first. It certainly doesn't present their relationship as in any way normal, which would have been much more groundbreaking and risky. And, at the risk of giving it away, it follows the normal mainstream Hollywood Rule of Gay Relationships: It must End Badly, preferably with the death of at least one partner.

I guess I've just seen so many other good little independent movies actually made by gay men, that this just seemed unrealistic and stereotyped, and surprisingly prissy about it all.