Indie Films and Chain Sandwiches
I met Heidi, Amy, Kynha, and a couple of others at the Tivoli last night. It's KC's "independent" theatre, showing all the "independent" films that are financed by the major production studios, for only $14 a ticket. We saw Brokeback Mountain, the darling film du jour, and I must say that I really enjoyed it. It's a very emotional film, and while that didn't get past us, the intellectual giants sitting behind us seemed to confuse tear-jerking moments for humor.

My only gripe about the movie is how abrupt the feelings the two main characters have for each other are, in surfacing. One moment, they're herding sheep in Wyoming, the next, they're drunk around a campfire, and in the next scene, there's buttsex. Bam! Lifelong love. I could possibly understand how two men spending an entire summer together in the mountains with a thousand sheep could develop that kind of closeness, but in order for me, the $14-ticket purchaser, to believe it, especially between two grizzly men, the filmmaker needs to work a little more to develop it.

Otherwise, the movie was brilliant. The emotion was real, and it cut right into us. I personally never went more than five or ten minutes without some tears forming up, amazed at the miserable lives these two men carved out for themselves. The solitary guitar music throughout the film accented the drama nicely, too.

When we walked out, we were all in far too pensive a mood to go out. To be fair, Amy and Kynha went out, but to the Granfalloon, which, to me, is not really going out. I went home, and was in bed reading Lord of the Rings for the fourth time, by midnight. I got up refreshed and nicely not hung over, and picked up Heidi for something I haven't done since Brian moved away: Sunday Mass. We went over to Guardian Angels, and witnessed two baptisms. I saw that in the time I had not been going to church, the young congregation had managed to have a bunch of babies, making for a far different experience than it used to be, there.

In my eternal struggle to get Heidi to get downtown, I had it in my mind to go to the River Market for brunch. Apparently, Heidi had already eaten, but still wanted to get a cup of coffee somewhere. We took a roundabout way to get to Coffee Girls, which it turns out, was closed anyway, and on the way, passed the new Panera at Crown Center. Heidi perked up, and enthusiastically advocated going there. I sighed, and buckled simultaneously, and squeezed the car into Crown Center's economically-sized parking deck. I got a turkey sandwich that was so-so, and we ate and talked for perhaps forty minutes.

We walked out, and Heidi suggested walking around. I thought this was a fantastic idea, as it was in the low to mid sixties outside, and the sun was shining. But, I guess what she meant by, "walking around," was, "shoe shopping." We went to Hall's and browsed for perhaps another forty minutes. I've only now just arrived from dropping her off at home, so she can get to work on the 28 man-hours of studying she has to do before she returns to class on Tuesday.

Also, I have just learned that tomorrow is MLK day. I support that.

bahua responded:
I know it's not technically independent. Few films that make it even to the "independent" theatres are, these days.

But no, there was little to no development that occurred to make the tent scene believable, to me. They didn't seem to be anything more than cordial coworkers, prior to that moment. Up until then, it just seemed like a couple of man's men, doing manly stuff in the mountains. Then bam, they're in love. Attack of the Clones had a more believable love story.

After seeing the rest of the movie, it's only a minor annoyance, because that is not what the movie's about, and is not the basis of the drama. But, it still shows a weakness in the production, because I'm sure the short story makes it believable.

10:52 PM, Jan 16, 2006

Rachel had this to say:
BBM is independent, eh? Heh. Anyway, I loved it, too, and my friend Matt and I went to see it before we were going to go out one saturday evening, and because both of us had been crying pretty much straight through the last half hour or so, drunk just didn't really happen that night.

But about the development, man, it seems like the first part of the movie was what people complained about the most, how long it took and all. What did you think was too fast about it?

Ugh, and there were people laughing all over the place when I went to see it, too. If I hadn't been up to my waist in my own tears, it might have killed the moment. Arrgh.

9:37 AM, Jan 17, 2006

Rachel replied:
Hmm, okay, yeah, I will assent to that.

3:21 PM, Jan 17, 2006

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