America Loves the Gay

Via TBogg, I see that the much-malinged, won't-play-in-the-red-states "Brokeback Mountain" actually won the box office last Tuesday and Wednesday. This was when it was only in 600-some theaters, a fraction of the average blockbuster. This weekend it added a bunch of screens and ended up in fifth place with a 7.8 million take. Overall it's at about 42 million and we're not even into Oscar season, which will undoubtedly give it a boost.

I usually don't give a rat's ass about box office results (nobody at Paramount reads my pay stub to see how much I made last week), but it's oh-so-satisfying to see a hack like Mickey Kaus, who loudly predicted failure for the gay western, get his comeuppance. He's still unable to admit defeat, and keeps hacking away, while acknwledging his own hackery. Earlier he predicted that Brokeback wouldn't reach $50 million. His editor interrupts yet another one of his screeds about the movie:

[You're still at it aren't you? This film is going to do $65M in domestic business, easy--ed. $65 million is not a "runaway phenomenon" (Frank Rich's words)! It's Barbershop 2. $100 million would be a phenomenon. The English Patient, another doomed-romance film, did $110 million, adjusted for inflation. Fahrenheit 9/11 did $119 million, unadjusted, without having any discernible effect on the red states. I'm moving the goalposts!]

"I'm moving the goalposts! I'm an ass! I'm never wrong because once I misread the answer, I change the question!"

Jeez, can this guy sleep at night...