Topic: News Coverage April 3 - April 9

[LuvJackNasty]

"The shirts and the postcards are together again," said Gregory. "They are more than simply props, they are symbolic of a great love and a remarkable film."

No truer words were ever said.

[Mars]

The first paragraph from Universal's press release today:

    UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif., April 5 /PRNewswire/ -- "Brokeback Mountain," the
most powerful and poignant drama of 2005, continued its phenomenal critical
box-office success by selling approximately 1.4 million (DVD/VHS) units on its April 4,
2006 street date.

There is a thing called justice.

Thank God there is still justice in this world...

Thanks!

YEEEEEE-HAWWWWW  :D :D

I'm happyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!

[ennisandjack]

Prison official punished over 'Brokeback' screening 30 minutes ago
 
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060408/film_nm/life_brokeback_dc_2

BOSTON (Reuters) - A Massachusetts correctional officer is being disciplined for showing the gay cowboy movie "Brokeback Mountain" to inmates at the state's largest prison because his boss determined that the film includes content inappropriate for a prison setting.
 
Massachusetts Department of Correction spokeswoman Diane Wiffin said Saturday that the action was not related to the critically acclaimed film's plot involving a gay love affair.

"It was not the subject matter. It was the graphic nature of sexually explicit scenes," Wiffin said.

She said the officer, whom she declined to identify, failed to follow prison guidelines that require staff who schedule films to review them in advance for excessive violence, nudity or sex, as well as scenes involving assaults on correctional staff.

The officer showed the film on Thursday afternoon, two days after its American release on DVD, to inmates at a prison in Norfolk, Massachusetts, about 25 miles southwest of Boston.

Wiffin declined to discuss his punishment.

Based on Annie Proulx's short story, "Brokeback Mountain" is about two men who meet and fall in love while wrangling sheep in Wyoming in 1963. It won raves from critics and garnered three     Oscars last month, including one for director     Ang Lee.

(Additional reporting by Claudia Parson

[ennisandjack]

Jail bars ‘brokeback’ viewing: Warden turns movie off, didn’t want cons turned on
By Michele McPhee and Emma Ratliff
Saturday, April 8, 2006

http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=134137

 A by-the-book warden pulled the plug during a jailhouse showing of the controversial gay-cowboy movie “Brokeback Mountain” yesterday, fearing the film’s steamy scenes violated the facility’s no-movie-sex policy.
 
    Faster than you could say “I wish I knew how to quit you,” inmates at MCI-Norfolk found their afternoon matinee ended just 10 minutes before the Academy Award-winning movie’s ending.
 
    The cons were assembled in the gym yesterday afternoon to watch the film about a love affair between two gay cowboys and their trysts on an isolated mountainside - that is, until a prison official shut it off.
 
    However, the prisoners did get to hear the line uttered by the cowboys’ boss, “You boys sure found a way to make the time pass,” when he happened upon the sheepherders after a heated tumble in the grass, which he likened to leaving “the dogs babysittin’ the sheep while you stem the rose.”
 
    Trying to prevent prisoners from making “the time pass” by engaging in cellblock sex is one of the most serious problems correction officers face, said Ken Ferullo, vice president of the Massachusetts Correction Officers Federated Union.
 
    “We don’t need to foster that kind of atmosphere in there. It already exists. These guys are alone together, some of them forever,” Ferullo said. “We’re already running ‘Brokeback prison.’ ”
 
    Yesterday, Department of Correction spokeswoman Diane Wiffin acknowledged that screening “sexually explicit material” violates the agency’s rules and said the employee who approved the film will be “disciplined through the proper channels.”
 
    “Norfolk does not allow the viewing of films with sexual content or violence against prison guards,” Wiffin said.
 
    There is a large population of prisoners at MCI-Norfolk who are unlikely to ever have physical contact with anyone but another man while serving life sentences.

http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=134137&format=&page=2