Brokeback Mountain

I'm really glad I read the short story before watching this movie otherwise I would have been really disappointed about how anticlimatic the movie is. While the story was more graphic, it was also more emotional. I felt more emotionally connected with the characters and could feel their internal struggles much more intensly than in the movie. It was hard to keep the characters straight in the story at first but by the middle it was easy to see that jack was much more emotionally involved than ennis. I was actually really excited to watch this movie because I heard so many mixed reviews. As taboo as the movie is cracked up to be, I didn't find it uncomfortable at all which surprised me. Everyone that has ever really been in love knows what it's like to be crazy about someone, it's all you can do to not think about that person and seeing that person simply makes everything inside of you complete. I didn't find their relationship unnatural becuase the kind of love they had for eachother was natural. It was unnatural that they were married to women they didn't truly love, they had children they didn't really seem to care about all that much, they just did what society wanted them to do, they did what was "right." I could relate to Jack the most becuase he knew what made him happy and he would have done anything to get that happiness. Jack's idealistic view was so harshly contrasted with ennis's realism that you almost get mad at ennis for being so logical. When Jack said they should get their own ranch in the mountains so they can finally be together I really wanted that to happen. I don't really feel the need to make any more distinctions between the movie and story because the plots were basically the same. Like I said I found the story to be more emotionally charged but Jake Gyllenhall's performance was incredibly powerful. He was extremely good at translating the narrated feelings from the story into his eyes, his expressions, his everything. Brokeback mountain is a forbidden love story, it broke conventions in the type of love and it got me thinking. I've always been religious but I've never looked down upon homosexuality and I'm sure plenty of over zealous religious people went nuts over this movie because they view homosexuality as a choice. I thought it was very moving how homosexuality wasn't portrayed as a preference but rather as an innate quality. In many ways I find this story much more heart wrenching than romeo or juliet because jack and ennis's love was considered wrong on every level possible, except the real tradegy isn't forbidden love, it's society suffocating us.

I read "Where are you going, where have you been?", "The Sentinel", and "Supertoys Last All Summer Long." My favorite story by far was"Where are you going, where have you been" because it was continously building up to the climax and toward the end i was frantically reading so i could finally figure out what actually happens. This was the only story I read that I could see myself being able to adapt into a film because it was so dialogue heavy and the setting was so simple. I loved how it feels like the dialogue takes you through a journey while the main character struggles through her internal conflict and all the while she physically stays in the same spot. It would be extremely difficult to replicate that emotional intensity in a film becuase you can't get inside a character's head on screen unless you have a narration voice over and even that might not have the same effect. I really liked "Supertoys last all summer long" because it was emotional as well. I had no idea what the mom's problem was because she didn't seem to love her son as much as she wanted to so I was extremely confused until the end when it reveals that the boy is basically a robot. All this story did was make me hope people never get smart enough to make human robots with emotions. It also made me realize that sci fi can be really interesting becuase it takes the world we know and spins it, but I realized it's just not for me. The story i liked the least was "The Sentinel" because I found it to be cold. Maybe it's just because I'm a girl, but I have to have human emotion somewhere in a story in order to actually get hooked and feel compassionate for one reason or another, but I didn't get any of that. It was a new twist on the idea of extraterrestrial life and it was definatly unique in how it goes about building up to that idea. I mostly just thought this story was extremely lame and have no interest in making a film about it probably because i feel like this whole alien life form thing is overdone as it is. The only thrill you get out of reading something like this is that feeling that you're so small and the possibility that our ignornat view on being the best species could burst our bubble with another higher life form out there. I didn't didn't this reading assigment would get me thinking about how to adapt the stories into film but somewhere along the way it did get me thinking.

response to The Sky is Gray movie

The movie was basically the story which I liked because I really enjoyed the story. The movie omitted the part on the bus when the boy is looking at a girl and they get into a little fight. I thought that was the most adorable part of the story because even a boy that young still had too much pride to admit he was looking at the girl because he thought she was cute and instead said he was looking past her. I guess the movie wanted to focus on more serious issues. My favorite scene was when the old lady finally gets James and his mother to come in and eat. I thought it was quirky how the husband never comes out but you can hear him talking through the walls. For once the characters actually looked the way I had pictured them in my head, especially the mom. One other thing that was adapted was when the mom gets asked to dance she actually gets up and dances with the man for a while before pulling the switchblade on him. I thought this was better than in the story because I feel like she insulted him more by pretending she wanted to dance with him first and then rejecting him. Other than some minor changes, this movie was the same as the story and I really enjoyed both

Response to "The Sky is Gray"

This story was unexpectedly good. When I first started reading it I assumed it was going to be another bad southern story like "Tomorrow," but this one grabbed my attention when I realized it was a story within a story. The boy's character is adorable, especially when he tells the little girl on the bus that he doesn't love her and he was really looking past her the whole time. I liked being inside his head instead of his mom's because he had such a simple outlook on all of the things he and his mom went through just to get his tooth pulled. It was so sweet for him to think about his mother in the ways that he did, like how he didn't say the train wasn't coming because he knew his mom disliked obvious comments, how he always said he wasn't cold or hungry because he didn't want his mom to spend her money on him or baby him, how he wanted to get her a red coat, and especially how often he thought about how much he loved her. I thought it was interesting how the author used religion as a metaphor (i think) for race and how black people should question the conventions in society otherwise they will never move forward to freedom. Even though the use of Christianity in this story was really a way to bring up the issue of race, I found the end to be similar to the Christian ideology of being a good samaratin like Jesus when he stopped to help a poor man on the side of the road. To me, I felt like the old woman was feeding, clothing and helping this mother and child like the Bible encourages us to do for those who are in need. Since we didn't talk about that at all in class, I might be overanalyzing it or my religion is a bias. In any case, I liked this story because it actually makes you think when you read it instead of just passively reading it.

"Tomorrow" movie adaptation

The movie did make the characters and the overall plot easier to follow, but it was incredibly boring. I thought Robert Duvall's made the movie even more boring because he was so expressionless and his voice sounded like a robot. I have heard some heavy southern accents but I have never heard anything that exaggerated before. While it was nice to get a background on the main characters, and be able to put a name to a face during the court trial, I thought the movie focused too much on Fentry's everyday life and too little on the court case. In the story, the court case was the only part that I was semi-interested in so when it was downplayed in the movie I was just bored out of my mind. I did like how the relationship between Fentry and the boy was depicted because it helped to understand why Fentry couldn't like the man go free that killed the boy as a grown man. I thought it was strange that Fentry got so close to the boy and when he was taken away, he didn't attempt taking the boy's relatives to court. I know if I was in that situation I would have done anything it took to get my son back. I didn't like how the movie wasn't told by the attorney's nephew because I like hearing stories that are passed on. I feel like the movie takes away the signifigance from this story because I consider passed on stories to be more nostalgic and memorable. I thought the climax wasn't satisfying becuase the whole movie builds relationships only to tear them down and the resolution just leaves you feeling bad for Fentry becuase his life seemed so meaningless after the son he tried to raise was taken away, turned into a brawler as an adult and was killed as a result. Overall, I didn't like this story mostly because I couldn't get into it, there was no hook for me.

Tomorrow

I'm terrible at keeping track of multiple names in a story so I found Tomorrow hard to follow only because I got lost somewhere in between the hung jury and the past of Fentry, which is basically the whole story. I think one of the biggest things I disliked about this story was that the lawyer found out everything he needed to know about Fentry from small town people that didn't have anything better to do than get into everyone else's business. I grew up in a town like that, not as country but definatly a small town, and I hated how everyone knew everything about everyone else. I think I had a bias throughout the whole thing that really kept me from enjoying it. Another thing I didn't like was the use of racial slurs. While it may have been common at the time, I hate even reading the words because it sounds so ignorant and wrong. I just re-read the last four pages and I'm just frustrated with trying to keep track of how these men and this boy interconnect and make Fentry decide not to free the defandant. I usually rely on next day discussions to figure out bits and pieces of the stories but I really need clarification this time. I think the worst part is that I can't put together the very last paragraph where the lawyer is talking his nephew. I think I got the gist, he's telling his nephew not to judge other's circumstances unless you have been in that situation and experienced the emotional connections yourself. I haven't decided whether I like this story or not, I'll figure that out tomorrow. However, I have decided not to use this story for my paper.

Momento Response

I defiantly liked the movie adaptation to Momento better than the short story because I found it easier to understand. It is way easier for me to follow events that are are out of place by seeing them instead of reading about them. I was thoroughly confused with what the short story was even about, I thought the guy had amnesia and didn't figure out his wife was murdered. I usually don't enjoy movies that play out out of sequence but it was fitting for this movie because while your watching it you have to put the pieces together from one scene to the next and figure out how they relate, much like Lenny was putting the pieces together to find the murderer. I didn't feel bored at all thoughout the movie becuase every scene was either bizarre because of Lenny's unique coping mechanisms, or you're sitting there trying to figure out how one scene connects to another. The opening scene, when he's drying the poloroid and the time lapse is in reverse, sucks you into the movie and actually lays it out there that the whole movie is going to be in reverse snipits. This is one of the few times that I actually liked a movie better than the written version. I'm thinking it has a lot to do with the fact that the movie only uses the central meat of the written plot and fills the rest in with new details which are far more interesting than the story. I also found the movie way easier to connect to emotionally. I spent the first half of the movie feeling bad for Lenny becuase of the way he lost his wife and thinking about how horrible it must feel to be the "protector" in the relationship and be completely defenseless. I assumed at one point during the movie someone would take advantage of his condition, but the way the woman from the bar did it took the idea of using someone to another level. The only hang up I have with this movie is that there is no closure with the woman who uses him. I feel like after she openly admits to him that she's going to use him, she never really comes back into the movie after that. However, I loved the end because he finally gets his revenge and you find out that he had known for quite some time that his "friend" Teddy was the murderer, which adds a whole new spin. Love, love, loved this movie !