Rebels Without A Clue - by Camille Paglia
Brokeback Mountain was certainly pioneering in the persuasive way it made a sexual relationship between men emotionally credible to a straight audience. Director Ang Lee rightly won the Oscar for that. But I don't think Brokeback Mountain is a great film. It's far too long, soggy, and monotonous, and its bleak portrait of small-town and working-class life is (in my indignant view) condescending and offensively elitist. Without the picture-postcard mountain photography and wonderfully evocative score (which won an Oscar), this would be a small movie on the early '90s indy level ... [more]
Retro Virus
Whenever I see the green-skinned Wicked Witch's army of hypnotised flying monkeys, all I think of is the African Green Monkey, a delightful creature who is often unfairly fingered as the human-biting instigator of the crossover of HIV from chimps to humans ... [more]
Genet Meets Fassbinder: Sexual Disorientation(s) in Querelle
When the titular hero of Jean Genet's "Querelle de Brest" allows himself to be fucked for the first time by Nono, the owner of the near-legendary brothel La Feria, he intends it as a sort of self-punishment, a metaphorical death that will allow him to be purged of guilt for his recent murder of a friend and fellow opium smuggler ... [more]
Brokeback Mountain: The Sequel
Planning a Brokeback Mountain Sequel? We have the script right here!  The Homosexual Warlock
To watch a man discard his innocence for a few bucks is a rakish, Mephistophelean delight. [more]
Mountain out of a Mole Hill
The grand queer-romantic tragedy of the past year’s films was King Kong, while B Ruby Rich’s “great cinema” with the very expensive souvenir shirts is the fine but greatly over-rated Brokeback Mountain. [more]
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