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Derek of Third Decade had guardedly positive things to say about Brokeback Mountain. I, however, am not that nice. I hated it. The movie was pretty cheesy, a soft porn/melodrama hybrid that’s sold as a commentary on masculinity, but in fact has little critical distance on the gendered fantasies it draws on.

In fact, it’s striking how its politically progressive take on sexuality is predicated on regressive gender politics. There’s the cardboard placeholders of the female characters for one thing, their suffering merely serving as foils for the men’s emotional crisis. But there’s a love of their masculinity, as well. One telling scene comes when Alma Del Mar is celebrating Thanksgiving with her new husband, a store manager. The joke is that he has to use an electric knife to carve the turkey. It’s a great sight gag, but I kept wondering what’s wrong with the middle-class masculinity of his character and why we’re supposed to so uncritically see him as flawed. There was a time when gay liberation cinema would have been sticking up for the wimpy dads. These days we’re sneering at the limp-wristed losers.

But movies are more than politics. The acting was mediocre (Heath Ledger has the same Method-gone-mad that Nicole Kidman did in the Hours), the cinematography pretty but emptily overdetermined, and the plot development herky-jerky (no explanation of why Jack Twist’s wife transforms from bucking bronco to sorority ice-queen). By the end, I think I’d formulated a new manifesto for would-be prestige films:

• No films over 100 minutes running time. That includes you, Peter Jackson. If you can’t tell a story in that time, you’re not a filmmaker worth your salt.
• No panning or tilting of the camera. Ever. At least not for the next ten years. I’m tired of lazy framing.
• No expository or transition sequences may consist of a montage of static tableau shots (long shot, centered composition, no foreground).
• At least 10% of the shots must move the camera.
• No shorthand references to History. Wanna do a period piece? Fine. Just don’t tell me it’s the 70s by some throwaway line about inflation.
• Only diegetic music allowed. For the time being.
• No casting of actors required to fake accents they’re incapable of.

It can be the new Dogme! I’ll just sit back and wait for some culture ministry somewhere to throw me some cash to make movies.