Brokeback Mountain is here! Join us for part one of the Ang Lee-gacy!
"Lee-gacy" is here! And yes, we're covering Ang Lee, y'know, that bloke that played the CGI Hulk in his movie. We don't cover HULK in any capacity other than by mentioning Ryan's favourite behind the scenes featurette of all time but we do cover 3 films that happen to be in sequential order.
First up we have a film that probably needs no introduction. You know what this film is the minute you mutter its title; BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN. It's simply a masterpiece. You've got Heath Ledger, you've got Jake Gyllenhaal, you've got it all.
It doesn't take much to have Ryan and Laura in tears but if you're not emotional at any point in this film, you might want to talk to someone about getting that swinging stone removed from where your heart used to be.
Ryan: So here we are. We back in the chair.
Laura: We're back in the chair. We just had a brokeback breakfast and we're ready to party.
Ryan: Pizza.
Laura: Don't tell everyone we had pizza for breakfast. It's Toddlers.
Ryan: I mean, I'm a toddler.
Laura: I know. Well, hello there. Welcome to On the BiTTE the podcast that uncovers full frontal male nudity in cinema. My name is Laura, and I am joined by my wonderful co host, Ryan.
Ryan: I'm just wiping away my tears. I know it's been a hard week.
Laura: It's been a hard week. It's been a hard breakfast.
Ryan: Uh, that we just had good old heart. The hard old the good old fashioned hard breakfast. Yeah.
Laura: We decided to have pizza and a bit of crying for breakfast today because we decided to watch the 2005 drama romance Brokeback Mountain.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: For right fresh.
Ryan: Early in the morning, we're back to covering, like quintessential, high quality cinema again.
Laura: I love this movie so much. I love it. I love every single moment, every beat, every second of this film.
Ryan: Because I look back on what we've done effectively, I think one of the last few ones has been like, I mean, Jumbo was okay, but the in betweeners, it kind of Broke back Mountain. The in betweeners does not hold a candle to this movie.
Laura: This is a film.
Ryan: They're also very different things. Obviously. I'm aware of that.
Laura: This is a film. In betweeners is a movie based on a TV series.
Ryan: Yes. It does it really well. Also, Brokeback Mountain is kind of like flawless. It's like undeniably flawless. I hate to call things perfect, but there has been from the almost close to 50 episodes that we've done, there's only like, maybe a couple I would have said, oh, that film is perfect.
Laura: Fortress.
Ryan: Yes. Uh, none of them were directed by Jane Campion. Just going to put that out there. That's true.
Laura: Speaking of, uh, what they deemed this movie as a gay cowboy movie, she followed in the footsteps of Ang Lee.
Ryan: Yeah. Um, well, yeah, because she did pirate, uh, the dog. Right, indeed. And that was kind of like a closeted kind of homosexual, uh, cowboy drama fiesta. I always remember when she was going on about that. It was like this original thing that she'd come out with. And it's like, well, this fucking Brokeback Mountain. Well, also, there's the same arguments were made back then that were made when her far less, uh, endearing take on the idea was released.
Laura: Also, there's just people who are gay and they exist in the world and have always existed in the world. And yeah, you can make films about them. And it doesn't have to be groundbreaking. It doesn't have to be a big deal.
Ryan: No, you don't have to make a gigantic fuss about it.
Laura: I remember good film. Like Brokeback Mountain.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: About love.
Ryan: I remember Brokeback causing quite a star when it came out in 2005.
Laura: Of course, um, you have two of these. I don't know. You've got heath ledger, jake gyllenhaal, michelle williams, anne hathaway. There's tons of people in this film.
Ryan: The fucking cast list is crazy. Like Kate Mara's in it. Rooney Mara's sister.
Laura: Um david Harbour?
Ryan: Anna Farris. Um, yeah, just like Randy Quaid. Yeah. Obviously fucking Randy Quaid. Yeah. He's only in it for so long, thankfully. But to be fair, he is actually pretty good in the movie. I'm not going to lie.
Laura: Yeah. Because he's a man you love to hate.
Ryan: Yes. He's got that face. He's got that quintessential Randy Quaid face. And I also kind of said it. There's that scene, obviously, where they're having dinner. And then there's the argument, um, where I'm like Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal's, obviously, on screen, son looks like a miniature Randy Quaid as well. The same returned, uh, face, let's put it that way. Um, we wish Randy Quaid all the best in his so I have nothing to say about no, not a lot of people have very kind words to say about Randy Quaid these days. But anyway, is he alive still? Oh, fuck. Yeah.
Laura: Okay. Uh, I haven't checked in on him in a while.
Ryan: He's very present on social media with some of his views.
Laura: When you say someone is very present on social media, just, you know it's going to be bad.
Ryan: Well, usually that phrase is followed by James Woods. So that's just kind of how it is. Um, uh, we live in very funny times. And luckily we don't have much longer to live, to really have to deal with it much longer.
Laura: We're not here for a long time. We're here for a good time.
Ryan: We are. That's why we're covering things like brought, uh, Back Mountain.
Ryan: Um, so I guess let's get into because we could talk at length about Broke Back. We're going to get to brought back.
Laura: We're going to talk about it.
Ryan: We're going to talk about it. This episode is about brought back mountain. We're going to talk about Brokeback Mountain. But we're going to talk about Ang Lee. Now we're doing an Ang Lee triple. Kind of very similar to what we did with Steve McQueen, um, and Schrader.
Laura: I guess. Steve had three, but Schrader had schrader had more. Several.
Ryan: Yes, Schrader, uh, had, uh, a collection more. But Ang Lee, there's a large amount of films that he's made. He's been very active since 1991. We're only covering, obviously three films that pertain to obviously our interest. And I was like, well, what are we going to call this Ang Lee Triple? Do you have any ideas, Laura?
Laura: I don't. I was trying to, like, you know, it was the Schrader thon. And then we had what was McQueen? Mcqueeners.
Ryan: Mcqueeners.
Laura: Okay.
Ryan: And then I was just which was very clever, love. But that was one that we came up with on the spot when we were recording Hunger. Uh, I think.
Laura: Yeah. And I was having a hard time figuring out. How do you do Ang Lee?
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: And then you have any ideas?
Ryan: Um, so I had two. One of them's really bad. It just plays on the Schrader thon idea, which was I know, I know.
Laura: I was even looking up synonyms for marathon. Like, that's how fucking bad it was. I couldn't think of anything.
Ryan: Yeah. And then I came up with this other one called Lee-gacy
Laura: Ang Lee-gacy I don't hate it. I don't hate that.
Ryan: Yeah, it's bad. It's really bad.
Laura: It's kind of upsetting bad. But I like it.
Ryan: Yeah. Um, I wrote it down. But I mean, it's awful.
Laura: You look at it and you're just embarrassed.
Ryan: Oh, I hate myself. It's terrible. But I think maybe we'll stick with it for just now because I think it has a certain charm. So I think you had another one.
Laura: Are you going to just you're not.
Ryan: No, I only had two.
Laura: Okay.
Ryan: That was it. Yeah, one was a play on something they've already done. And one is like, quintessentially. Just terrible. It's like making me feel lucky.
Ryan: Um, but let's talk about Lee. We're only going to talk about Lee, uh, once. Um, the other episodes will just be getting straight into the meat of the films.
Laura: We'll just pretend like he doesn't exist for the next couple of films.
Ryan: Yeah. I really like Lee's stuff. I've always liked it. Um, it's just really solid emotional filmmaking. Um, I think you know what you're getting yourself in for when you watch an Ang Lee movie. Um, and I'll go through his filmography because not all of them are bangers, let's just kind of put it that way. Uh, quite a few of them.
Laura: I think we're going to cover at least one of them. That's not very good.
Ryan: Yeah. Um, so Ang Lee he's a Taiwanese filmmaker. Um, he's been lauded, he's been awarded, he's been critically appreciated. Um, and certainly brought back is one of those movies. Um, and certainly when I start obviously listing them off, you'll be like, oh, fuck yeah, I remember that one. Um, so this is per Wikipedia, um, kind of in description of his work. So Lee's work is known for its emotional charge and exploration of repressed hidden emotions. And I think that's very important. There seems to be a real kind of he delves into stories that kind of revolve around elements of secrecy and underlying passions and emotions that are kind of brimming under the surface, obviously. Yes. So I guess obviously in Brokeback's case, um, that is very apparent. But I also bring up his movie, The Wedding Banquet that was made in 1993, which is also kind of very similar, where it's about a gay man who marries a woman to obviously placate, uh, his parents. Um, there's a lot of other kind of elements in that movie, uh, in regards to obviously, uh, the individual people and obviously Asian culture and their backgrounds, all that sort of stuff. Um, but that's kind of the simple, long, uh, and short of it. That's what that story is about. Very similar in tone because it's a romantic comedy. Um, because obviously Game End repressing their feelings. It's hilarious. Um, but, uh, obviously in the case of Brokeback, Brokeback is obviously tonally much more of a drama.
Laura: Yes.
Ryan: So the wedding banquet is part of his Father Knows Best trilogy.
Laura: Whoa. Okay.
Ryan: I don't know why it's called that. I'm assuming what are the other films then? So his debut I'm assuming it's his debut. I'm assuming he's had a stuck because I didn't delve too kind of far into like early, early kind of Ang Lee. Um, but his first directorial is a film called Pushing Hands in 91. Wedding banquet is in 93. And then there was another movie that we kind of checked out ourselves, which was Eat, Drink, Man, Woman, which was in 94. And that's what makes up that trilogy. Okay, now this is all pre, uh, coming to the United States. These, uh, are films he made in Taiwan. Um, so effectively, his American breakthrough starts with Sense and Sensibility.
Laura: Oh, yes.
Ryan: In 1995, this guy's effectively making a film year after year after year. At least kind of like between one and two years, effectively. But Sense and Sensibility is, I think, something that everyone would remember.
Laura: It's fantastic film.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: Jane Austen classic.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: Oh, I love that movie.
Ryan: Yeah. That is a really solid probably one of the best adaptions of that book, uh, that exists. Um, he went on to make The Ice Storm, that's a Sigourney Weaver movie in 1997. All I can say about that is, uh, key party. Um, also Ride With the Devil, that came out in 1999.
Laura: Toby Maguire.
Ryan: Yes. Um, and then after that, a very, very famous movie. And I think it's polarizing in a couple of ways. But I think it's also very important is Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in 2000. I remember seeing that movie in the cinema.
Laura: You want to hear something really horrible about me?
Ryan: Well, actually, you say it like that. Like, does it involve genocide?
Laura: Yes. No, I've never seen Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. And as much as I love cinema, uh, I never watched it. I don't know if it was just the hype around it at the time and everyone's freaking out over it, I just didn't care. And I never went back to it.
Ryan: So we could talk about Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon for quite a while.
Laura: I remember when you could I don't have anything to say.
Ryan: Well, I remember when it came out, um, and I appreciated it for the fact that, ah, it opened a really big door into similar films of that genre that have never really had any playtime in the west. I think the best film in that category is a movie called Touch of Zen. And this is kind of like it's a series of, uh, uh, the movies are kind of known for, obviously, their balletic and, uh, acrobatic, uh, their martial arts content. But also they're full of fantastic wirework. And we're talking about wirework that they would not have been able to digitally remove at the time. So I'm trying to remember the actual creators of this, but they had created a way of refracting light through wires, like very thin wire, so that when obviously the characters and stuff looked like they were floating around, you couldn't tell that you could see the wires.
Laura: That's cool. I love practical effect.
Ryan: Yeah. It's, uh, something I read about years and years and years ago. And I remember when, uh, Crouching Tiger came out, there was a lot of kind of cinephiles going out there and being like, well, obviously this isn't the best example of this particular item of the genre, but at least it opened the door for further exploration within the genre, effectively. And I think Chow yun fat's in that movie. He's awesome. And also Michelle Yao is also in that movie, too.
Laura: Academy Award winner Michelle Yao
Ryan: Yes. I wish she won for a better film, but, um, I'm still going to.
Laura: Give it a chance. It's been a while. I'm m still going to give it another chance.
Ryan: Yeah. You can watch it when I'm at work. Anyway, um, he followed up that big movie that was a huge success with Hulk in 2003, eric Bana Uh, probably one of my favorite of the I mean, it's not canon. It's not even canonical. No, Hulk hulk was made before I guess the MCU existed. Um, and I really enjoyed it.
Laura: I don't know.
Ryan: Well, technically, the MCU doesn't start until.
Laura: Iron Hulk is 2003. Yeah, I guess it does start. Yeah. Because the original spiderman, Spiderman Two and Three weren't.
Ryan: Yes. Well, this is back yeah, this is back in the day when the Danny Elfman was doing all the themes for the Marvel movies, the good old days. And the Hulk soundtrack is easily like, I think, in my top five soundtracks to any movie ever. I love that score that he did for that movie. Um, but it's also very silly. It's also very silly, but also it gave birth to maybe my favorite behind the scenes featurette in any medium ever is Aang Lee doing all the motion capture for the Hulk.
Laura: Yeah, you told me that. And I did not know that Ang Lee was the Hulk.
Ryan: He is the Hulk.
Laura: Because nowadays you have the know if it's Mark Ruffalo or, um my God. Uh oh, my God.
Ryan: Eric Banner?
Laura: No.
Ryan: Edward Norton.
Laura: Yeah. Jesus Christ. I'm broke mountains this morning.
Ryan: Yeah, we all got broke.
Laura: But they would typically do the mocap and be the face as.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: I don't know if Angli just got tired of eric Bana didn't want him to do it, and he thought he could do a better job if he just said, I'm going to do it.
Ryan: Well, no, I think when you start using the stars for mocap, um, other than depicting their faces, I think it becomes a very expensive endeavor. So you're not bringing the actor in to do the mocap. You're getting a mocap actor. But I think what happened here in this instance was Ang Lee just wasn't 100% happy with what the mocap performers were doing. So he jumped in and just did it himself.
Laura: Do you know the stupidest mocap choice I've ever seen, where you have the actor and then they do the motion capture? Is Benedict Cumberbatch doing the mocap for Smaug in the hobbit? I don't understand why they needed to do that at all. I think they're just like, so horny for motion capture. Like, well, let's just have him do it.
Ryan: Well, we know why that happened was because of the reaction that Andy Serkis got from doing the Lord of the Rings stuff.
Laura: But ah, he's a humanoid character.
Ryan: That's what I mean. That's why it makes sense.
Laura: Because you have facial expressions. Benedict Cumberbatch isn't a fucking dragon.
Ryan: No, he's certainly not reptilian in any way, shape or form. Unless we don't know. But yeah, I always felt like that was an odd choice.
Laura: You get the funny videos out of it, at least, him crawling around on the floor.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: But that's anyway, sorry.
Ryan: Yeah, mocap is a very, uh I think it's a very interesting process. And I wish I mean, I think they still do it technically.
Laura: Um, just in general.
Ryan: Yeah, I think they do.
Laura: I think it slowed down a little bit more, know, because you know, such a big part of that. And Peter Jackson and that whole Lord of the Rings crew really, really kind of put that in the forefront of how they do that.
Ryan: But I think there's not been a replication of what they did for Gollum for those movies. I don't think there has been another time where that has been either replicated or improved on. I feel like they hit the pinnacle with that.
Laura: Yeah. I mean, uh, first one is the best one.
Ryan: That level of performance.
Laura: Andy Serkis just kept doing it too, because he did it for Planet of the Apes. Didn't he do it? Wasn't he King Kong too?
Ryan: He was kong. Yeah, he was also kong. I think that's also where it kind of starts to get a little bit silly, though, is like, do you need.
Laura: That to, uh, the performance at all? I don't know.
Ryan: I don't know.
Laura: Either way, one of those flashy things. Anyway, I'm still digressing.
Ryan: Yeah, I think it looks nice in a feature. I just don't know. I think its application is again, my whole thing about CGI is that it peaked with Jurassic Park and then that's it.
Laura: Because you also have the mix of CG plus practical. So I think that's kind of the perfect marriage there.
Ryan: Well, yeah, that's where I feel like it should have stayed is where it kind of marries two separate, uh, schools of development and training.
Laura: Absolutely.
Laura: I think the weirdest part about the mocap, especially in Brokeback Mountain, is when Ang Lee kind of jumped in for Heath Ledger. When he did.
Ryan: That was a really OD choice.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: I thought certainly when it was like it was meant m to be super emotional and you're kind of just like, oh, why is he performing like this? But uh, that's a lie. That didn't actually happen. But uh, yeah, we watched a featurette, um, about the making of Brought Back Mountain. And I think Ang Lee found because brought back follows um in the wake of Hulk. Um, so basically he said he wanted to just kind of go back to making a movie. And this is quite a low budget film. Um, he wanted just to go back to a movie to kind of rediscover his filmmaking roots effectively. Because he'd made at least two really quite high know, quite involved pieces of filmmaking. And obviously Hulk. I don't know how well received Hulk was. Just overall I liked it. But there's some hokey shit in Hulk that's maybe a little bit like they were testing the there was I don't know how many other examples. Comic book movies were a fucking joke. Kind of well before Hulk even became a thing. But certainly I think Ang Lee took that movie to a whole other level with some of the editing and stuff like that. Which I still am not 100% convinced of. But uh, yes. Um, so yeah, Browbat Mountain comes out in 2005, and we'll cover the rest of it. Because what's funny about this is that the movies that we're covering actually release in sequential order.
Laura: Indeed.
Ryan: And that's never happened before.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: I felt like I was what was that movie? Uh, it was Benedict Cumberbatch. You had like the enigma box. What was it called? The Imitation Game or something. Okay, whatever it was. Anyway, um, I felt like him when I found out discovered this. It was like I had my notebook and all the equations were going off in my head. And I'm like, they're in order. It was very weird. Uh, uh, so after this, and it'll be the film that we're covering next will be Lust Caution. That came out in 2007. That's going to be a ride. Um, quite literally.
Laura: God.
Ryan: Then in 2009, there's a movie called Taking Woodstock, which might not be a.
Laura: Good one, has Dimitri Martin in it.
Ryan: Yeah. So he makes these three films and then obviously follows, uh, up with, uh, life of Pie, which I think everybody's seen. I haven't seen it. I own the DVD. And it was one of those kind of like, here's a Christmas present. Ryan. This was three pounds in asda. Uh, there you go. I still haven't watched it yet. And uh, that came out in 2012.
Laura: You can watch that while I'm at work.
Ryan: Okay, that's fine. Well, there's also, will you work at home?
Laura: Yeah, I know.
Ryan: Jesus.
Laura: I'll still log it in my letterbox.
Ryan: Okay. But then after that, he makes a film called Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk in 2016.
Laura: Yeah, I saw that on his letterbox this morning. Never heard of it.
Ryan: I have no idea what it's about. Um, and then after that this is a movie that we both saw from 2019. Um gemini.
Laura: Man oh, no.
Ryan: Yeah, it's really bad. That's a really bad movie. Yeah. He's not made anything since then. I'm assuming. He might have something in the works, but I didn't see it. But that movie is fucking gash.
Laura: Make a movie that's kind of bad in order to make something like Brokeback Mountain, then I'm for it.
Ryan: Yeah. Or at least he has to make something that's going to break his soul to the point where he just then has to make something that's kind of like, um, I wouldn't say brought back, like bare bones, but it's pure. Yeah, it's very pure. It's just very good storytelling.
Ryan: And that covers Ang Lee.
Laura: I assume. And I hope you've all seen Brokeback Mountain, but I didn't tell you the synopsis, which I pulled. I'm going to say letterbox three times in 60 seconds. Two modern day cowboys meet on a shepherding job in the summer of 1963. The two share a raw and powerful summer together that turns into a lifelong relationship conflicting with the lives that they are supposed to live.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: The tagline, which I really like is.
Ryan: Love is a force of nature. Because I just remembered it. All right. Yeah. I remembered it. I was like, yeah, I know. I stole it. Love is a force of nature. At least our love is a force of nature.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: It's very, um, animalistic. Um, RA.
Laura: I was doing an impression of the bear from the film.
Ryan: Yeah, that is something. Yeah. We might as well just talk about that now because we saw Cocaine Bear. Um, at some point it came out, um, and we watched it. And there's not a single real bear in that entire movie.
Laura: I guess they couldn't hire a bear to do that much cocaine. So they had to do, uh, Andy Circus. Did the motion capture for the bear. Just kidding.
Ryan: Is that why it felt so, uh, alive?
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: Ah, that movie is utter gash.
Laura: It's a fun movie. It's short.
Ryan: Yeah, it is short. Well, here's the thing. I'm currently trying to track, um, where the inclusion of animal performers starts to stop in cinema, pretty much. Because over the last kind of few years, we've seen one fake bears. And second of all, we've also seen a lot of fake dogs. Remember that Harrison Ford movie that was all on a green screen?
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: Has a fake ass dog in it. Yeah.
Laura: What is that film called?
Ryan: I can't remember. I have no idea. It's called Taste of the Wild.
Laura: I think that's a dog food.
Ryan: That is our dog food brand.
Laura: Yeah, that Harrison Ford movie based on the dog food.
Ryan: Either way, I think it's like wet wild. Like faky dog grumpy. Ah, Harrison Ford movie.
Laura: Well, we've talked about especially this year in their Oscar year, of how many donkeys were on Cinema and how many donkeys were murdered.
Ryan: Yes. And they were all two out of.
Laura: Three of those had real donkeys.
Ryan: Yeah. Well, what was the third donkey? Oh, from Triangle of Sadness.
Laura: Triangle of sadness. EO.
Ryan: Yeah. You barely saw that donkey before. Spoiler alert. It was bludgeoned to death.
Laura: Horrible.
Ryan: And it started screaming, I feel so.
Laura: Bad for all the donkeys this year.
Ryan: Yeah, there's a lot of donkey death in this last award season, which I'm not particularly happy with. Although yeah, because Banshees didn't really get anything this year. But it was still probably everything still probably one of our favorite movies of the awards time, other than maybe the whale, which I quite, um, um, get into let's get into Brokeback.
Ryan: Let's get into other than Ang Lee, who else is involved in crafting this masterpiece?
Laura: Well, it is based on a novel written by Annie Pru. And I was just looking up the cinematographer for this, who is Rodrigo Prieto.
Ryan: Yeah, I looked him up as well. He has shot a ah, shit ton of stuff that we've all seen. Um, so he got his start doing is he Mexican? Well, he did, ah, uh, what was his name? Um Alejandro Gonzalez. Era toto inneritu. Inneritu. Um, he shot ameris Peros, which is Chef's kiss. That movie looks really good. And he did, babel. He also did 21 grams for Inner. Ah, two. Um, so he's well versed in there. But also Scorsese used him. And he shot the Irishman. He also shot silence.
Laura: Um, he actually is, uh, from Mexico.
Ryan: Oh, is he? Okay? Because I think ah, ineretu is also Mexican. Because Ameros Peros is definitely set in Mexico.
Laura: Um, you are correct.
Ryan: Yeah. But anyway, fuck. He shot Silence. And that's one of my favorite films of the last ten years. I think that film looks beautiful. Um, but he also shot Argo, that fucking movie. And, uh, he also you love Ben. I do like myself a bit of Ben, but Argo is like a really weird Ben Affleck like outlier. I think the story is really good. I just don't think the film is fantastic. Um, but anyway, it doesn't really matter. Uh, this is not the so, um, that's that's still to, uh I mean, he also shot Eight Mile. He shot that Curtis Hansen, uh, eminem film as well.
Laura: Well, he just wrapped, uh, killers of the flower moon.
Ryan: Eight Mile.
Laura: No. Well, he did. The Killers of the Flower Moon and Barbie.
Ryan: Okay.
Laura: Yeah, I'm excited about Barbie.
Ryan: In short, I think Brokeback Mountain looks beautiful.
Laura: Brokeback Mountain is a perfect really nice I saw Brokeback Mountain at the Gateway Theater in Fort Lauderdale when it came out. Uh, it was in its limited release, and I think it was either a one theater or, like a three theater cinema. Very small. Uh, it was really amazing. It was, like, really amazing time. There was, like, me and maybe like, six other people in theater.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: So wonderful.
Ryan: For as small as this film is, it feels massive. Where is that?
Laura: It's set in Wyoming.
Ryan: I'm not sure, uh, if those landscapes yeah, okay. Um, and then obviously some of the rest of it is also shot in Texas. Um, but, yeah, the cinematography makes this film feel absolutely huge. Um, certainly with some of the landscapes and what they're able to capture and it's all live, as far as I'm aware, there is no sort of digital reconstruction or anything like that. What they are doing is what they are doing. They are herding these sheep over this mountain. Um, and they're camping out, and they're doing their thing. Um, they're acting like a couple of cowboys, which is what they are.
Laura: Well, they're actually just like sheep herders. Yeah, I don't think they're actually cowboys.
Ryan: That is one of the featurettes on the DVD, is one called On Being a Cowboy. Yeah, that's fine. Um yeah. There's not a single cow in sight. Effectively. I don't know if there's a cow in the movie. There might be.
Laura: There's cows, there's deer, there's coyotes, there's sheep. So I think we've probably mentioned before that we have a dog that reacts to the television, especially animals.
Ryan: Yeah, this one was a nightmare.
Laura: Horses. There's dogs, there's horses. I mean, there's every animal in this film. And it was a nightmare to watch it with him. He's passed out right now from the stress.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: Which is nice.
Ryan: Which is yeah, it's great. I think it's always nice to have a little nap after a stressful session.
Laura: I didn't write a lot about the beginning of the film. I was really worried that I wouldn't have anything to say. Then, uh, I ended up writing a bunch later.
Ryan: Yeah, I think there's a concern with our podcast that when we sometimes cover stuff that's also very good, but it's also kind of very engaging. Um, we don't have very much other to say, and we don't like kind of explaining the story from start to finish, because it's much better to be experienced than to have it kind of explained to you.
Laura: Um, maybe we'll just talk about our favorite parts.
Ryan: I think we'll just talk about it in brief and we'll kind of get to I have a lot of things.
Laura: To talk about, too. I have fun stuff I wrote down. Promise.
Ryan: Yeah, well, I think you were talking about the writer. It's obviously based on a short story. It's co written by, uh what's her name? I think it's Diane Osana. And also a man called Larry McMurty. Um, or M. He's got there's an extra R in there that I didn't say. Larry McMurtry. Um, and he's known for writing something else called The Last Picture Show. That Peter Bogdanovich movie. Um, which I think is exquisite. I really like that movie.
Laura: I thought that movie was fine because it's got Jeff Bridges, the youngest Jeff Bridges.
Ryan: It's got really young Jeff Bridges in it. Um, and it's also got a very young Sybil Shepard in it as well.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: And she's kind of like at the center of that movie.
Laura: Um, all I see is Jeff.
Ryan: The story of The Last Picture Show is much bigger than just the film itself. Um, and I think Peter Bogdanovich is, uh, unfortunately, he's passed away. Um, but yeah, he was a phenomenal filmmaker, film critic, personality actor.
Laura: Um, this isn't the Peter Bogdanovich podcast area.
Ryan: I wish it was. Wish it was bogdanovich.
Laura: This is Broke Back breakfast and we're going to talk about it.
Ryan: Bogdanovich breakfast. No, I want my eggs over easy. And I want my Peter on my Peter.
Laura: Out of the bedroom.
Ryan: Get him out of here. It's such a shame that guy's passed away. But, um, anyway, yeah. Um, no.
Ryan: So I think that lends itself to the fact that the dialogue in this movie is phenomenal.
Laura: I wrote down a lot of lines.
Ryan: Some of the writing is just amazing. And there's some really standout scenes and stuff. Like there's never a dull moment if it's a little quiet. It's deliberately quiet. And you're basically being shown a spectacle. And obviously when gets quite hard and heavy, it's all very deliberate and exacting. And it's all kind of nurtured by quite this exquisite cinematography. So, uh, it's a real delight just.
Laura: Watching their evolution of their relationship between Jack, uh, and Ennis is so nice because it starts out jack's very personable and fun and bubbly and silly. And Ennis is quite quiet and brooding.
Ryan: Mumble.
Laura: Mumble.
Ryan: Mumbling. The birth of Mumble Core.
Laura: Yeah, for sure.
Ryan: Ah.
Laura: Uh, well, to be fair, um, Mumblecore did start much earlier. But yes, this is very much.
Ryan: A little it's a little mumbly to the point where we are hard pressed to figure out what it is. Sometimes Heath is saying, um, I thought.
Laura: About putting the subtitles on at one point, but I was just enjoying it too.
Ryan: Like, I like the fact that this is an easy film to kind of get lost in and kind of drawn in by its story.
Laura: We're still just like, gushing over the film. I didn't pick up my phone during this film. This is one of those you're just loving it. No, getting a boner over this movie.
Ryan: Yeah. They don't make films like this anymore, really.
Laura: Um, you say that all the time, but there's still some good films coming out that really make you feel things, which is nice.
Ryan: Yeah. No, actually ah, maybe that's a lie. I lied there.
Laura: That's fine. This movie is great. But I don't know where you want to jump to. But you get to see their relationship and their friendship evolve. They're just two men up on a mountain.
Ryan: It's like over 20 years or something, their relationship.
Laura: Even just the first summer, really, where they're getting to know each other and kind of breaking down their past and I don't know, just getting to know each other. And that first sex scene really kind.
Ryan: Of comes in, uh.
Laura: Know, you know something's going to happen, but when it happens, it is quite a shock. I mean, to be fair, there's a moment where I've seen this movie a few times, but, um, when you're first watching it, if you've never seen it before, that looks like it could be a full on rape scene.
Ryan: Yes. Um, it's very kind of aggressive.
Laura: Yeah. I mean, you know that you can tell that it is a consensual situation, but it, uh, is rough.
Ryan: Yeah. It just kind of happens, and it's very kind of startling and kind of very kind of, uh, I guess like what was the word you would use? Very manly.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: It's like very kind of like pawn and clawing and hit in.
Laura: No kissing.
Ryan: I mean, that is when I was writing the TV show, um, some of the worst calls that the cops would go to were like, domestics between gay, uh, men. Because it's just two men just fucking beating the fucking shit out of themselves. I remember there was one scene that we wrote, and it was like, uh, if anyone's seen it, it's like the beginning of that, uh, Once We're Warriors movie. It's like it looks like you've walked into Jeffrey Dahmer's house. The walls are covered in blood and stuff like that is fucking messed up.
Laura: Okay? We're talking about Brokeback Mountain. I don't want to talk about blood everywhere. Even though there is a scene where they punch each other, I mean, pretty.
Ryan: Much that scene is just like straight in knee kissing. That's it. Because they don't start kissing till later.
Laura: Absolutely. And it's very I kind of was surprised about almost how mature they kind of take on the whole thing. Uh, I don't think either of them, they're starting to understand how they feel about each other. And it probably came out of nowhere, especially for Ennis, I think, especially for him. But they're very mature about it. I think the next day they kind of had to think and go, wow, that was an interesting evening. But then their relationship just continues to blossom and their love.
Ryan: Yeah. And I think the thing that kind of traverses the entirety of the film's narrative is the fact that they're both clashing with the fact that just by the virtue of the fact that they are two men who love each other and physically want to enact that love, that is enough that will get them killed. In this present era of, uh, where they are, um, they know how dangerous it is. Obviously, Innis has experience from being a child, um, to a similar situation that saw a man being murdered. And the description that they put out there of what happens to that man.
Laura: Is, ah, someone drug him around by his dick until it basically was pulled off of his body. And then Ennis'father took him and his brother to just look at the body in a ditch with his pants down, blood everywhere. Yeah. So, uh, it's a hard thing to have these people know how much they care about each other, but knowing it's just that, I don't know, not necessarily unrequited, but just what's the name for it? Dangerous.
Ryan: Love. Yeah, it's dangerous because it'll eventually get them hurt. But the problem is that because they don't, there's an idealism to the way that what's Jake character is called. Jack.
Laura: Jack, yeah.
Ryan: Ah, Jack. Is it Jack? Quick, isn't it?
Laura: Jack Twist.
Ryan: Twist.
Laura: Jack Twist.
Ryan: We only just watched it like 40 minutes ago.
Laura: I've already been using Jack Twist as.
Ryan: Like, no, yeah, I'm fucking, I'm stupid. Here's my Jack Twist. But, yeah, I think there's a naivety to Jack. Um, he's the main hope. But then obviously Ennis is dealing with obviously the harrowing memories of what will happen if they are caught. Um, and I mean, it just ends up being this quite tragic, very sad. I mean, I was crying through it, um, of just like they're just not able to just take that step because there's no level of acceptance from the outside world, really.
Laura: I think Jack also kind of grew up know, kind of knowing that he was gay. Not that he ever really talks about it, but I think he was just very comfortable with himself and knew and was just trying to be himself. And Ennis didn't know how that would fit into his know, because he already was engaged, uh, to Michelle Williams character. And Jack was just like living his life.
Ryan: Yes, I think that is the main thing here that just drives, I guess drives the characters is that once they do this initial herding, um, this herding, uh, expedition or whatever upon brokeback. Upon brokeback. Um, and obviously their feelings and stuff blossom into kind of more physical interaction, um, with hard embraces. Oh, yeah, hard embraces.
Laura: And very face.
Ryan: I will clasp it against my face.
Laura: Cute. Kind of wrestle tickle fights, topless.
Ryan: Yeah, that sort of stuff.
Laura: Filthy. Randy Quaid's watching them from a mountaintop.
Ryan: Yeah, well, you would think. I mean, Randy Quaid obviously takes it easy on them and he just doesn't let them come back to work for him. Um, but effectively, they pass off. And I'll get to the bit that I think is probably one of the most emotional parts of the movie is that they break off and they obviously they meet women, they get married, they have children, they start living their lives. And there's that one bit where they're coming out of Randy Quaid's office and Jake's looking at him from the rear view uh, the side view mirror and seeing him just like, walking on the road. And then Heath has to dart into a hallway because the knots in his stomach make him feel physically sick. As if he's like something has been torn from him asunder and he just starts to just weep.
Laura: Like half vomit, half weep. He's like having a panic attack.
Ryan: Like he just can't deal with it. Uh, but effectively, what goes on for months and months and months and months, almost like the span of like I think it's like two years or something within the course of the story. Um, I think it's just again, it's just incredibly well written. I mean, to the point where obviously the way that we're able to track time in this film is by looking at their facial hair or their kids. Or at least that's obviously the more sensible answer. Obviously. Um, as you get older men, their sideburns get longer. You can't cut them.
Laura: Shout out to Jake's, sideburns and mustache.
Ryan: Yeah, see, I have sideburns. I also have a mustache that basically details that I'm old.
Laura: Yeah, you're about their age.
Ryan: Pretty much. Yeah. Pretty much.
Laura: At least at the end of the movie.
Ryan: Yes. Um, but, uh, yeah, that's how you track a man's age. It's like when you cut a tree open, you look at all the rings. You just look at a man's sideburns. You're like, ah, yeah, that guy's missed. Yeah, that guy's lived a life.
Laura: Yeah. It was several years since they'd seen each other. And Ennis gets that postcard from Jack. And it's interesting to me. It's like there could be a level of honesty between him and Elma, uh, his wife. And she goes, oh, well, who's Jack from the postcard? And he's like, uh, oh, we were fishing buddies. Because she asked like, oh, does that the guy that you cowboyed together?
Ryan: Which is the true story.
Laura: Why couldn't you just say, yeah, we cowboyed together, and we're friends. But no, he's like, oh, no, we're fishing buddies. Uh, so it immediately starts off with this lie. And oh, it goes downhill from there pretty fast for him.
Ryan: I mean, what would happen if you caught me kissing another man?
Laura: Honestly.
Ryan: I mean, you wouldn't, Ryan, because I'm straight.
Laura: Straight an arrow.
Ryan: But what if you caught me kissing another man? I'm just saying it because I'm straight. This is just a question.
Laura: But when they I'm going to get into that. But when they finally see each other again after that postcard moment, and Anis is so nervous and he's drinking all those beers, waiting for Jack to show up. And he hears the truck pull up. And he sees him out the window. His fucking face lights up like I've never seen before. Runs, uh, downstairs that embrace jack swift.
Ryan: Or sorry, jack twix. Jack fucking Twist of all my years.
Laura: Their faces are so sweet. And you can just tell that they love each other so much, their physically and romantically charged embrace that they have, and they just can't keep their hands off of each other. Uh, and you're like, don't do that. They've never been particularly careful.
Ryan: No. And it does end up being, uh, the makings of their downfall.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: The film does kind of follows this kind of repetitionary pattern where they're meeting and they're doing it, and then they argue, and then they part ways. Then they meet again, and then they have fun, and then they argue, and then they part ways, um, where there's no sense of a solution kind of coming, uh, out of their meeting. Because obviously the ideal situation would be that they hide themselves away from the world and they're able to kind of have their own lives together. But they've created such a foundation of difficulty with having kids and being married and being in businesses and having families and all this sort of thing that it makes it effectively impossible. And they are kind of running two separate sort of lives, like they're kind of diametrically opposed one way or another. Uh, Ennis, obviously, Heath's character is kind of bumming around and is kind of doing OD jobs and getting money and stuff where he can he's, like, ridiculously poor and he's living in a trailer. And then, obviously, um, Jack's married off to quite, uh, successful woman who's obviously got a very successful family. And then they have their own business, and they're obviously quite well to do, and they're earning money and they have their own house and things.
Laura: Fancy man.
Ryan: Yeah. So there is that. But again, those walks of life doesn't seem to prevent them from just doing the one thing that they know what to do and they want to do, which is obviously to meet up.
Ryan: Um, and I guess with these meetings, this is what kind of gets us into the dick scene.
Laura: You skipped over the whole part. I wanted to talk about I'll talk about the dick scene if you want, but I want to talk about when Elma catches them kissing.
Ryan: Oh, okay.
Laura: I want to talk about that part because that part made me have goosebumps. I was, like, physically in pain when that happened. Because you have a marriage and they look like they're doing quite well in their relationship. They've got great sexual chemistry. They've got kids. He looks like a good dad. He loves his kids, he loves his wife. He's doing everything he can to provide for them, even though he doesn't have he's doing his best.
Ryan: Yeah. She has no reason to suspect anything.
Laura: Absolutely not. And it looks like they've probably known each other their whole lives, the way that they interact with each other. And you have this really great foundation in this marriage, and you think that nothing's wrong, and she thinks, oh, I'm so excited. Your best friend Jack, who you haven't seen in years, is coming over. We should get a babysitter. And we're all going to go out and have a drink. And she's, uh, so excited to meet his friend. And she's got her bag on. She looks out the window and sees them kissing so hard up against the apartment building. And it's like that scene from The Simpsons where Ralph takes Lisa out and Bart's like, you can see the moment where his heart breaks in half.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: That's what her face looks like when she sees them kissing. I don't know what I would do. You asked me what would I do if I looked out the window and saw you kiss another man. I'd probably vomit just because my whole world's been shaken. Uh, where it's like everything you thought you knew and you thought you had your life set up in such a way. And it's false not to say that his love for her is false, because I don't think that's true at all. It's just that you're not the love. And it's also just so out with what she ever thought would happen in her.
Ryan: Well, you begin to see the unraveling of the fact that he's not the man that she thought she married, um, and that he has obviously a hidden past that she has not been privy to. And that past is now is now starting to interject its way into their happy lives.
Laura: It's so heartbreaking.
Laura: But yes, we can rough absolutely talk about the Dick scene. 1 hour, uh, six minutes and 43 seconds into this film.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: So I, uh, do also want to preface this with the fact that I do believe that the American release of this film, this scene doesn't exist.
Ryan: Huh.
Laura: Not that it doesn't exist.
Ryan: But hold on. Not that it's weird. It's like that's not surprising.
Laura: Yeah, that's true. It's not surprising. But from what I understand, that I don't know if the scene itself was cut out or if it was just maybe blurred in some way or they did something different to where you don't see a penis in this American release, but in the European and kind of maybe the worldwide release other than America, because we're prudes um it exists. This is when they finally meet up, right after Elma sees them kissing. They go on their fishing trip, and they get to be themselves and be in love and be happy and be together after all these years of being apart. And they just have a little fun boy time.
Ryan: Yeah. They jump off a cliff into some water. Um, and yeah, I think the way I've written it down here is the camera follows them into the water, but all you can see is just only heath.
Laura: Yes. Uh, and also that is not Jake Gyllenhaal.
Ryan: Oh, so that's why it's all concealed, then. That's weird. Yeah. Because he's turned away from camera to the point where it feels like he's.
Laura: His right thigh kind of comes up in such a way, and his face is turned the opposite way.
Ryan: Okay.
Laura: So you don't see that's not Jake. That is a stunt person because Jake was too scared to jump off that cliff.
Ryan: Well, what about Heath? Heath did it, though.
Laura: Heath did it.
Ryan: That's definitely and Heath is the penis that you see.
Laura: That is all real.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: He didn't have a problem with that. That's also because he's an Australian man, and their culture is different than the.
Ryan: I mean, he's also a man of Method as well, or at least he was a man of Method and also.
Laura: Who, good for him. Do the scene. I mean, you're doing work in this film that is challenging. It's a very emotional film. You've got to do a lot of work. So this is probably the least of his worries. And I'm not talking about the kissing. I'm not talking about the sex. That's not what I'm talking about. It's just, like, how emotional this film is. It's a lot of work.
Ryan: There's a lot. Yeah, there's yeah.
Laura: Jumping off a cliff is probably a really fun day.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: He's like, Hell, yeah, I'll get my clothes off and jump.
Ryan: This film is effectively where we're seeing incredibly young versions of people that we're very used to now.
Laura: Yeah. Jake, I think well, uh, he was obviously younger when they filmed it, but.
Ryan: When it came out, felt he's very soft.
Laura: Jake is 25 when the film came out, and, uh, Keith is 26. They are babies.
Ryan: Yeah, pretty much. Pretty much. Because when did Donny Dark will come out?
Laura: It was before this.
Ryan: Yeah, it was before this was like, what, 2001 or something? Maybe so not too far away, not too long.
Laura: Yeah. No. Baby faced. Baby face.
Ryan: He's so young.
Laura: Yeah, he's so young and so soft and young.
Ryan: It was 2001. We were correct.
Laura: Oh, good job for us.
Ryan: Look at us.
Laura: Look at us.
Ryan: Look at us. Um, but yeah, no, I like when these characters meet up and they start enacting, like, their passions and stuff for each other. This is kind of just one of those things that I absolutely love.
Laura: Well, you just see their pure joy. It's like this relief where the only time and place they're able to be truly themselves is alone in the woods.
Ryan: Yeah. Up on brokeback.
Laura: Up on brokeback up on Brokeback man.
Ryan: Because this is the only time where yeah.
Ryan: Because there's a lot of strife, or at least like you're bearing witness to a lot of conflict in these characters, where they're obviously leading a double life and obviously the life they want to lead that they try their best to get, obviously with having families and doing those things is like preventing them from just being able to do those things. And I think the argument they have just before. I think their last meeting together is easily one of the most heartbreaking moments in any film I've ever seen where Heath is almost like pleading with himself to wish that he didn't feel the way he was because it tears him up too much to not being able to fully embrace this.
Laura: And and genuinely has torn that love and that relationship has torn his life apart, like the life that he thought he was going to lead. He's lost his family. Um, and he's just kind of bumming around from job to job. Jake, at least still has he's still married Anne Hathaway. He has his family and he has a lot of money, and he's comfortable. But Jake is also the person that set or jack whatever. You know what I'm talking about? He's the person that is ready to drop everything and live in the woods or do whatever.
Ryan: Yeah. And Monetarily, he has probably technically the most to lose. And, I mean, it makes sense that.
Laura: By means, like, nothing to him.
Ryan: It doesn't mean anything to him. And obviously, by the time the film hits its final few moments, is obviously, uh, jake dies in suspicious circumstances, and we get to see exactly what happens to Jake.
Laura: Um, I mean, imagine just sending a postcard to your best friend and lover and getting it returned with a stamp that just says deceased on yeah. In bright red letters. I mean, what a horrible way to find um uh, uh, but I did want to go back for just 1 second because that scene that we were just talking about, the heartbreaking scene, is where you have probably the most famous line of the film where Jake says, I wish I knew how to quit you. Which I have a quote from Jake, if you'd like to hear it.
Ryan: Okay.
Laura: It's kind of long, but I'll make it. I'm going to just read it. So deal with it.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: Um, he said, that line has moved. It has been mocked. It has been everything in between. But I remember coming out of that scene off that ridge of the hill and seeing a number of the crew, some of whom didn't even know what the movie was even about, crying. And when I first read the line, I was like, what is that? And now I realize that everybody who is loved knows what that feels like. The interesting part of casting us at such a young age was that we didn't completely understand what we were involved in. And that's the beauty of the movie as well.
Ryan: Uh.
Laura: But you're right. Anyway, when that scene happened, that's like one of three scenes that make me cry.
Ryan: Yeah, it's a real shame. Um, and certainly because they come out of having that moment where it's like, make or break and we could have.
Laura: A beautiful life together.
Ryan: And it's still wanting to go through the, uh, same hurdles and stuff and just be like, well, you want to meet and do this or do that? And then it's like, well, it's just too late.
Laura: At that point, they're only in their late 30s, by the way. So they're pretty young.
Ryan: Yeah. But obviously Anne Hathaway and her family find out about Jack's dalliances with men and they order him murdered by you uh, think that's what group of thugs? Yeah, 100%.
Laura: You think she ordered him to her.
Ryan: Callousness on the phone is that I think either Jack or someone else found out. Because there's the David Harbor character who's also in the movie, who also is exhibiting slight kind of romantic traits, homosexual traits, like sexy vibes, like the way he just looks at them and the way that they talk. And again, he makes this proposition that.
Laura: Jack is very good at keeping secret. He's not good. And that's also the difference between Ennis and Jack is that Jack, he's like I can't live off of like two or three fucks up on a mountain. A uh, know, he's like, I gotta get mine. And Ennis is blown away by the fact that this man that he loves for so many years is going off to Mexico to have sex with strangers. And he's like, that's not part of Ennis's life whatsoever. He has his kids and his family and then he has Jack.
Ryan: Well, the thing is with Innis's character is that uh, he exudes a masculinity that ah, attracts women and for the most part does not attract men. Um, which is the opposite of what I would say Jack, is that Jack has a certain sexuality, uh, that does exude more of a homosexual trait and that he is attractive to men who are also gay.
Laura: I think that's just they're both attractive.
Ryan: They're both attractive. But I think he's more outwardly out like that as opposed to say, Innis, who kind of keeps the brim of his hat quite low and his mumbles quite short. But really, there is no one who would look at him and be like, well, he's gay. There's no person there that would probably think that that's kind of so far out of the realms of he just.
Laura: Has his man is the love of his life and that's it. There's nobody else for him.
Ryan: But for me, because of the callousness in the phone call and because of the way that the story is told or the way it is. I still think because of the way that Anne Hathaway delivers that on the phone, she knows about Ennis. I think there's a hit ordered. I think it's either her father or someone from the business who's ordered the hit and they've made up the story about the tire exploding on the side of the road and him drowning in his own blood. All that sort of thing that she says on the phone.
Laura: I am blown away by this hot take. I am I genuinely never thought about that. I thought maybe he went off with like David Harbor, they got caught and it was that situation. We've seen it in the news before where a bunch of fucking idiots beat up a man for being gay and murder him maybe, which is horrific. But either way it's horrible.
Ryan: There's no other evidence other than I think either she just doesn't care and she's done something and she said something and something's happened. Or it's like what you're saying it has something to do with the David Harbor character. Even though we don't see him again after that point.
Laura: Um, I kind of thought that maybe she was just being so callous as we cut. So I don't just we're all just.
Ryan: I think what we find it puts the pieces together. But I think there's Anne Hathaway's character, there's Michelle Williams'character and uh, their lack of sympathy towards their men when all of this starts to kind of unravel and they start to kind of see the kind of tears and the lies and things like that is obviously quite telling. But it's also being a product of the mean. You're dealing with Wyoming. You're dealing with Texas, obviously. And know not everyone's bad, but you're dealing in a time where that is a sin and these are church going people. Um, that is seen as an abomination.
Laura: I just thought Anne Hathaway would maybe made up that story because she did find out. And they're maybe making that story up just to cover up the fact that it was a hate crime and just to maybe save his image or whatever.
Ryan: But anyway, well, the reason I kind of come to that hot take anyway is that because of Ennis's backstory when he was a kid, um, he suspected his own father of potentially doing the murder of that poor man who had been dragged along by his penis until it fell off.
Laura: Right. Well, I mean, that's a big reason why he was not willing to do that. Because what Jack was offering him was exactly what that man had who'd been murdered. He's like, I'm not going to risk my can we'll do our best?
Ryan: I think either way, either take makes sense, um, because of what you're seeing. And I guess it depends on how much you want to read into obviously Anne Hathaway's character or any of the kind of backstory elements of that. Either way, it is obvious that Jack is murdered because they find out that he's gay and uh, he's been having sex with other men. So that's obviously what's been happening there. Um, but I guess, yeah, all kind of wraps up. He ends up going to see, um, Jack's parents who are for the most part sympathetic. But I feel like there's a level of disappointment just in the way that they are where they have known about Jack's secret for many years. Um, just because of the way obviously Jack has interacted with other men and stuff over the years. So there's a level of disappointment there. But I think obviously they still love the fact know it's their son. And I think. They're also kind of dealing with this conflict of, like, well, the wife has gone against the wishes of what the family wanted, and he's not in their family plot. And he's been cremated and he wanted to have his ashes scoured and brought back all this sort of stuff. But I guess it all kind of comes to a head near the end of the movie, is that there's an earlier portion where they had a fight when they were at brought back. And, uh, Ennis loses his shirt and it's all stained with blood and stuff from the fighting that they had. And then he goes into Jack's childhood, uh, room and finds the shirts tucked away in a cupboard. They're lovers shirts, pretty much. Yeah.
Laura: He keeps those, uh, lovers shirts and.
Ryan: He keeps them in his thing. Yeah. He keeps them in his that's the thing.
Laura: Cried.
Ryan: Yeah. It's real sad. It's real sad. But at least the film ends optimistically enough.
Laura: He, uh, does have a little smile.
Ryan: Yeah. Ends optimistically enough.
Laura: Love.
Ryan: He does have his family to fall back on. Like, his kids are getting older. He's optimistic to the future. It's just a shame that obviously things have happened to such an extent that, uh, this is just kind of how it is.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: That's brought back Mountain.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: Yay.
Laura: So at the 70 Eigth Academy Awards.
Ryan: This film won pissed me off as well.
Laura: I know. Get ready. Well, this film won best Director, best Adapted Screenplay and best Original Score, which I love this because Gustavo Santo uh uh, santo.
Ryan: Nice. I'm glad I'm not the only one.
Laura: Santo laya.
Ryan: I'll get it up and I'll try it myself.
Laura: Lala. And I'm Santo. Gustavo, he's the composer. And I'm really sorry. Oh, God. Um, the composer of this film who won the Best original score, uh, scored The Last of US games and The Last of US TV show. Just say it fast.
Ryan: And if I just mumble myself way through it, then it's like I'm a fucking genius.
Laura: Gosh, I'm so embarrassed. I hope everyone turned this off already.
Ryan: Well, I'm looking at the amount of films he scored. He did a Maris Perry. He did a lot of those inner Attu movies.
Laura: Yeah. He worked with him a lot as well.
Ryan: Okay. Um yeah, well, yeah, like I say, well, you just wanted to bring up The Last of US.
Laura: I did want to bring up The Last of US because I love it.
Ryan: Yeah. Well, yeah. That series, the game. Well, the music is pretty great. Um yeah.
Laura: Um, and so the thing that will piss everybody off is that this film lost the best picture that year at the Academy Awards to crash such a.
Ryan: Weird like, because this isn't the first time we've brought this up, I think. But it's like everyone was like this was penned to be, like the big winner that year.
Laura: Absolutely.
Ryan: Like, huge. Absolutely massive film. And everyone was rooting for it. And it won all the big awards. It should have won everything. Um, but yeah, Crash, man, that Paul Haggis fucking race movie is very OD. I always felt it was weird as well when that happened because it just didn't really make any sense. And there was such a sense of, um yeah, it kind of felt just a little bit cheated. Like, you definitely knew the best film hadn't won that year. There was just no doubt in your mind that you're like, yeah, this fucking Crash movie, man.
Laura: So in 2015, The Hollywood Reporter actually polled the Academy members on controversial past decisions. So when they did that, uh, Brokeback M Mountain won the Revote for Best Picture. Not that it means anything now, but they know they fucked up.
Ryan: Yeah. They knew they'd made a mistake. I just wonder where their heads were at with that one. Because it already won best Director did it win screenplay? Yeah. See, they already knew what they had on their hands, know, and it's like yeah, it's a really odd one because I don't think Crash didn't really win anything else as far as I don't know if Crash is a bad movie. It's an ensemble piece. And also Brendan Fraser's in that movie as well.
Laura: Um, yeah, he's.
Ryan: I didn't I just didn't like Crash for being so kind of, um it's about racism, right? It's about race tensions and things like that.
Laura: I saw it once. And how many times have I seen.
Ryan: Felt very it lacked subtlety. Crash, I feel like it's very on the like, I find it hard to believe that Sandra Bullock would look at her maid and immediately say the sort of horrible things that she would to being a white woman to Hispanic maid. It was very kind of startling. I just don't um yeah, that's always going to go down as one of the weirdest kind, um, of Oscar mistakes. And I guess it kind of comes after it came after, obviously, that other moment with moonlight and La La Land. The whole best Picture mess up that happened as well. There where everyone's like, fucking La La Land won. Oh, wait, no it didn't. They changed it as it was being read.
Laura: Well, no, I just think whoever was reading it fucked up.
Ryan: But yeah.
Laura: Uh, this film was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry in 2018 for being culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.
Ryan: Wow. Okay.
Laura: So that's cool.
Ryan: Didn't realize that was a thing.
Laura: Yeah. The Library of Congress has the National Film Registry and it is preserved forever.
Ryan: What else is in the National Film Registry? Or is that for me to like?
Laura: That's for you to find out. On the next episode of on the Beat. We talk about the Library of Congress. Um, this was also the first film to be released as a DVD and a digital download on the same day.
Ryan: I remember those. Yeah, I remember those.
Laura: Um, there were a few other actors. I always like to bring this up. I think it's interesting, um, that were considered for the male leads of this film. I'm glad they didn't, even though these men are lovely. Uh, it's the classic people. You would think in the early 2000s that would be in this film, you could probably pick one person and you would be correct.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: Do you want to pick one? Just a guess, what kind of men in the early 2000s do you think would be.
Ryan: Potentially, uh, toby Maguire.
Laura: No, actually.
Ryan: No. What the fuck? Because there was that whole thing with like, uh, Jake and Toby, um, because they eventually did they ended up working together on that Jim Sheridan film.
Laura: Uh, because it was a Spider Man thing.
Ryan: It was a Spider Man. Well, Sam M. Raimi was going to fire Toby and then replace him with Jake Gyllenhaal. Which seems, ah, unfathomable at this point, but always felt like that was a joke. Yeah, I didn't think that was real.
Laura: Imagine. No way home. And then Jake shows up. Yeah, that would have been funny. Um well, josh hartnett, colin farrell, matt damon, ben affleck, billy crudup. They were all hot men at the time.
Ryan: Yeah, Billy Cruddup might have been a good one.
Laura: Um, no, these boys are perfect.
Ryan: No, I think these lads, they're, uh, looking up the National Archives like the Complete Lad. You know what's also on that list?
Laura: Crash?
Ryan: Uh, Wally.
Laura: Wally.
Ryan: Yeah. Uh, Wally. The Blues Brothers.
Laura: Wally's. Very sad.
Ryan: Buena Vista Social Club.
Laura: Yeah, that's good.
Ryan: Yeah, that movie's pretty cool. Greece. Right? Okay. The fucking Dark Knight. Clockwork Orange. Right. Okay.
Laura: Clockwork Orange is amazing.
Ryan: Yeah. Is this what happens when the apocalypse comes? This is all we're left to watch after it's all cleared up. Is that what it is?
Laura: RoboCop in there?
Ryan: Uh, I haven't seen it yet. It's funnily enough, not in alphabetical order for some fucking reason. And it's not in chronological order either.
Laura: Do they just pick a movie every single year? And it could be any movie.
Ryan: It's like sometimes chronological, sometimes alphabetical. It doesn't really make it. Days of Wine and Rosies is on here. I know. That's a movie that you've maybe not seen. Or Jurassic Park. Jurassic Park's on here.
Laura: I want to watch it.
Ryan: What? Jurassic park or Days of?
Laura: Well, y'all watch Jurassic Park literally, anytime.
Ryan: Okay.
Laura: I wanted to say something about, uh, Randy Quaid before we wrap this up because fucking Randy Quaid's, of course.
Ryan: Yeah, we can't close out without Randy Quaid.
Laura: Uh, about his salary for the film. He got paid, so he said, quote, I got paid zilch for my work on this film. The producers balked at paying me my usual salary, crying poor mouth and saying it wasn't a studio picture. All that kind of blather. Making it sound as if the movie would be lucky to play one theater in the modest village in China. Eight months later, I'm looking at three page color ads and a multi million dollar marketing campaign and hundreds of millions of dollars in box office revenue. I felt like I'd been sold a bill of goods, a studio picture disguised as an independent. I vowed never to work for fuckus features again.
Ryan: All right. Okay. Fuck his features.
Laura: Fuck his features.
Ryan: Not focus features.
Laura: Quote yeah, it, um, was a $14 million budget.
Ryan: Yeah, it's quite production budget still made quite small.
Laura: $178,000,000.
Ryan: Yeah. Um of course it did. Of course it fucking did.
Laura: Do you guys know that I love this film? I love this film.
Ryan: You know what else is in the national Archive? Oh, what the movie called? The story of menstruation oh, okay, cool. From 1946. It was inducted in 2015. Honestly, this fucking list is this would.
Laura: Be actually an interesting list to go through.
Ryan: Um, yes, there would be. I mean, there's a lot of stuff on here that you wouldn't probably want to watch anyway, like The Quiet Man. You know, that John Wayne movie because you don't really like John Wayne that.
Laura: Much, was set in Ireland.
Ryan: The quiet man.
Laura: Yeah, yeah.
Ryan: Uh, it was.
Laura: I know about I know, I know.
Ryan: Like, John Wayne's not fashionable and stuff anymore, because obviously I'm not a big John Wayne fan because of views, but.
Laura: I would say fantaswood.
Ryan: Yeah, well, they're all men. They're men of a horrible old white men. They're men of a type.
Laura: The worst.
Ryan: They were the men that built the country.
Laura: Oh, really? They're the men that built the country.
Ryan: Talking of, uh uh, that's a fucking lie. We got Deliverance on here as well.
Laura: Oh, God, I'm never watching that either.
Ryan: It's also a movie called The Story of GI. Joe from 1945 as well. Wow.
Laura: Are you having fun?
Ryan: I, um, am, because I'm like, fuck, I've seen a lot of these movies.
Laura: If I could see that's the thing. I got into archaeology and anthropology, and it would be cool to work in a museum setting, but I'm like, how do I mix those two passions of history and cinema and doing something like that? Or working at, um, the, um like, they have a museum. Then I'd have to live in California.
Ryan: I mean, you're doing the God's work effectively, because that's what Scorsese does. Like, film preservation, I think, is incredibly important. I need to switch jobs in preserving film history because certainly, I think preservation of film history is more important now than it ever has been. Because, uh, every film that's ever made that's ever put out there is a snapshot into, I guess, the zeitgeist of the time. There's a reason why certain films are made. And I don't like the idea now that we're obviously living in a time of modernity that because views and things have changed. Or certainly if we don't agree with certain things, that things are either, quote, unquote, canceled or they are shunned. Or they're hidden away. And I guess, uh, this idea of kind of preserving things is like it's good to kind of look back on that sort of thing in terms of history and why certain things were made. I'm not saying I'm not advocating that we should be putting Birth of a Nation, um, for example, on review for a multiplex rerelease. But I would be like, it's still important there as a piece of cinema. Um, even if you don't agree with it. Because again, it's a snapshot into a point in history. So I think stuff like this is, uh, incredibly important.
Laura: Um, well, we're going to go through this list. I'm excited.
Ryan: It is hundreds of films deep. Hundreds. Um, I mean, there's the African Queen I've seen in here. To kill him. Mockingbird is in here. Uh, The Apartment, which is one of my favorite films of all time. Very good film, including E. T. Um, also another film that's also fan fucking Tastic Freaks from 1932.
Laura: Oh, yes. I've never seen that.
Ryan: But I know the stuff in your, like, Taxi Driver, that CIS male movie.
Laura: Uh, I love CIS male movies, even though I hate white men. Oh, I don't know I don't know how to say that. Well, I love Paul Schrader. Everybody knows.
Ryan: Yeah. Well, yeah. Well, Taxi Driver is still a good movie, even though it's been taken over by the fucking chin waggers of today.
Laura: Yeah. It's like still a fight club, even though I might not be allowed to.
Ryan: Yeah. Well, again, chin waggers going around beefing.
Laura: About should we get into our ratings?
Ryan: We should.
Laura: We can revisit the library. Uh, we will later.
Ryan: Fuck, yeah. Fucking Shadows is in here. That John Cassavetti's movie. That's like one of my favorite movies of all time. I, uh, did a dissertation on Shadows. I've seen Shadows maybe 100 times.
Laura: I've never seen it.
Ryan: That movie is so fucking good. Anyway, let's carry on.
Laura: Okay. So for the, uh, visibility and con wait, hold on.
Ryan: Birth of a Nation isn't here.
Laura: Of course it is.
Ryan: It was inducted in 1992. Perfect.
Laura: Oh, boy. All right. For visibility and context, I'm going to give this a one.
Ryan: Um oh, okay.
Laura: Maybe I mean, I could probably go as far as a two, but certainly I don't think I could go any further than that. If you are going to see anything, you're going to have to pause and zoom. Um, but I think just for the fact that you do have an actor out there, just like, living it and being the character and being fun and fancy free and living his best life in this one moment, just like really taking in the moment, I love. Yeah, I think it's a really sweet and beautiful reprieve from a lot of the heartbreak that exists throughout this film. But you don't really see it that well. But I, uh, think it's great that it's there, especially this film could use more. It could have used Jake jumping off of the thing. Not just because I want to see Jake gyllenhaal naked. That's not the point. It's just that you also have the two lead females in this film who, uh, are topless. So in terms of kind of making things a little bit more equal, there could have been a little bit more. But I'm glad that it's there, because if there was no male nudity in this film, I think it is a massive cop out.
Ryan: I will kind of point out there is passive nudity of the men in this movie as well, though. As much as you don't see, uh, their genitalia, uh, there are large suedes of it, where they're cleaning their clothes, you see their backsides, and they are completely naked at points, even if you don't see them from the front, there is a lot of passive nudity in this.
Laura: That is a fair point.
Ryan: There is technically not really an imbalance. And certainly we do see, um, Anne Hathaway and Michelle Williams topless, uh, at obviously two separate occasions during the course of the movie. But I would not say that there is an imbalance here.
Laura: No, and you're right. I forgot about the buns.
Ryan: Yes. We're only covering the movie just purely because of this one scene, this one moment where they jump off the cliff. Um, but even with that removed, I'd say there's not an imbalance there, um, when we're just seeing because we don't see any women below the belt at any point. That never happens. It's just tops pretty uncommon, too, just generally. Yeah. Um, and there would be kind of no need for it.
Laura: No, that'd be very weird.
Ryan: I agree with you with most of what you say. But then I've kind of put a wee bit of a comparison to some of the stuff that we've covered, where it feels a little bit it feels even more hidden than it is. So I wouldn't go so far as I say and give it a one. I would say probably it's closer to 2.5 because I feel like very similar to, um, I think I can't Stop the music. That's not a fantastic one. But the whole kind of pausing thing is that that film doesn't you don't see anything if you're doing it frame for frame. It only makes sense if you're seeing it in motion, which I think is the same with this moment in Broback.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: It's very brief and it's all from the side and stuff. But you do see it, and there's no mistaking it when it's in motion.
Laura: No, that's true.
Ryan: So that's kind of what we've found. And I think certain arguments can be made for some of the films that we've covered. Uh, like, uh, what's that name? Blood Rage.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: Um, we needed a Thanksgiving movie.
Laura: All right.
Ryan: Yeah, we did. But yeah, there's an argument to be made there.
Laura: But anyway, um, I will agree with you.
Ryan: Yeah, I think regardless, I think this film is, uh, in no way there's no level of exploitation in this movie whatsoever.
Laura: No.
Ryan: Like, it's not like that at all. Um, it's incredibly well balanced and, uh, it's well nurtured. I think Ang Lee guides you through this story very well. Um, and it all feels naturalistic. Um, yeah, I would kind of applaud it for that. But yeah, I think I'd give it more of like a 2.5 in terms of the context and things. I quite like this moment and I like its inclusion because of how fruitless, fancy free. This is kind of where they're able to kind of open up and they're able to kind of be themselves. And I feel like this, uh, is a nice, um, expression, uh, of that kind of physicality that they have. So, um, I think that's quite nice. But obviously in context and reference to what we pretend to on this podcast, um, with it being removed from the movie, say, in the US. Release. Um, yeah, I think the film is still very powerful with its exclusion anyway. Um, we just wouldn't cover on the podcast if it was correct. Not in, uh, the worldwide release, effectively.
Ryan: But yeah, we can move on to our ratings of the film. I think you already kind of know what our ratings of the film are going to be, though.
Laura: Five stars.
Ryan: It's a five star.
Laura: It's a five star movie. Yeah, it's a five stars.
Ryan: It joins Ang Lee's Hulk as another five star. Um, yeah. Here's the other one. Here's the other DW. Griffith movie that's also in there. It's intolerance Jesus. Yeah. I don't know why I'm finding them all, but I just am. Um oh, I got to the end. Oh, wizard of Oz is at the end. The Star Wars.
Laura: Star wars is fine. I like a Star Wars.
Ryan: A good Star Wars. The Searchers. Nice. Nanook of the north. Fucking nanook of the north.
Laura: Okay.
Ryan: Wow.
Laura: Five stars. Um, wow. You guys, it's all downhill from here. I'm just kidding. It's fine.
Ryan: Um, but we get to continue on with the legacy.
Laura: With the legacy. What a legacy? He leads. Aang leads. I am excited to go on this.
Ryan: You wouldn't like me when I'm ang Lee.
Laura: Boom.
Ryan: I'm waiting for also, like, I can't take credit for that because I got that from Adam and Joel from their XFM, um, radio show. You wouldn't like me when also, I'm going to preface it as well. It also borders on being a little bit racist.
Laura: Don't think that it does, actually.
Ryan: It depends on your way of it because if you say it quickly, it makes you sound like you're putting on a little bit of an accent. And you're, like, swapping your R's for your L's, which is against kind of the very colonial. Well, it's like it's almost as bad as fucking Mickey Rooney. You know what mean? Like, it's that sort of that's, like that's a reference I think only a few people would ever really kind of get. Or like Charlie Chan, like that sort of thing. Almost a little bit racist. Anyway. I think it's funny if you say it properly. If you say Ang Lee is if it's his name, then I think it's an incredible great.
Laura: So, um, I don't think I can end this any other way than to say, coming to you from Brogback Mountain. Do you have any other place we could be coming to you from?
Ryan: Um, I don't know, from the torn asunder heart of, uh, Venice.
Laura: Yeah. Sweet, man.
Ryan: It's really sad.
Laura: The sad tiny closet of his trailer home.
Ryan: We could have had a blood. We could have had a cabin.
Laura: Could have had a cabin. You guys, we gotta enjoy, um so fucking love this movie. I've been Laura Ryan. You're welcome.