I had that reaction too; if I had to guess it's because it works more in moments, than as a narrative. And also it's got a lot of pretty pictures, which you can see in the trailer-- Heath with the fireworks behind him, Ennis & Jack on horses, Jack crying in the truck. The last scene, too, which is what kept kicking me in the gut.

I just saw Brokeback today and I'm kinda disappointed. Maybe with myself. I found myself looking at my watch too often. What did I miss?

Still nursing the hangover, a month later.

I downloaded a bit of the soundtrack hoping to smack me out of it, but nope, it all just comes down to Ennis inhaling the shirts, rocking them, and my wish that there is a heaven for fictional characters so they'll always be young, beautiful, in love, camping there for all eternity.

It's a desperate feeling of longing, I think, that won't leave me.

Now see, I came to the end of the picture and was thinking about the awful bitchcakes of ten years on, when Ennis is retired and watching Joan Rivers's early-90s talk show (shut up) and finds out the way middle America did that Mick Jagger and David Bowie have played for both teams.*

It's one thing to think about the story in 1983, and another entirely to think it up to the present day. Ennis's painful cluelessness is a lot moer painful when the alternatives start showing up right in front of your eyes.

* Let it be known that yea, I did watch of the Joan Rivers, and did see that some random guest of hers blabbed about 70s rock star sex lives, and did only vaguely understand what was being talked about, and did watch Joan have a shrieking hissy fit of mortified gossippy glee the likes of which had not happened in the history of the world up to that point, and has not happened since unless you count the sudden cancellation of the Bennifer (mark I) wedding. And lo, teh gay was spread across the airwaves, and the world was not destroyed. It made quite the impression -- I think I was 15.

finds out the way middle America did that Mick Jagger and David Bowie have played for both teams

I remember hearing rumors about the two of them when I was still in junior high (late '70s), and not really understanding at first how one would get sperm in one's stomach, and then grossing out when another student explained it to me. Then again, I saw my first porn video about that same time and was equally grossed out by het sex.

I saw my first porn video about that same time and was equally grossed out by het sex.

I think the first porn movie I saw, I was disturbed by the unattractive actors and low production values. Oh, and the cheesy time travel.

and did see that some random guest of hers

That would be Angela Bowie. The Toni Collette character in Velvet Goldmine.

It was funny, because Joan Rivers had Angela on, and she had signed some agreement that she couldn't talk about Bowie to the press and the agreement had just expired. But she didn't say anything interesting. The next guest was Howard Stern. He was all like, "You had Angela Bowie on, and you didn't get any good dirt? Bring her back out here!" And then Howard got her to spill the beans.

Oh good, so I am not making this memory up. Sometimes I am not sure how much of my adolescent culture memories are real and how much are what would have happened if the show in question had been enacted by characters from Dallas.

I had no idea that was Angela Bowie, or that Howard Stern was there. (I never heard of him till Fartman came along, some years later.)

Oh, that totally reminds me - you know in the movie Hair, some character asks one of the hippie guys if he's gay. He responds, "Well, if Mick Jagger were in my bed I wouldn't kick him out." In college I had a gay friend who really wanted me to be gay. So once he was asking me about if I had ever been attracted to a guy, etc. Then he refernced that Hair scene, asking me, "If David Bowier were in your bed, would you kick him out?" (He knew I was a big bowie fan.)

I had to think about that one a bit. I don't remember what conclusion I reached then. But now, if there were a young Bowie and/or Jagger in my bed, I wouldn't kick them out. But my attraction to men tends to be much more particular than my attraction to women.