I got roped in. Friday night I saddled up and moseyed on down to the Varsity Theatre to catch the 8 p.m. showing of "Brokeback Mountain." At the risk of offending someone: Worst movie ever.

The world just isn't ready for Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar. I remember watching real westerns with my dad when I was a kid. Those were movies. Clint Eastwood brawled, John Wayne waddled and Lee Marvin drank. They rode horses and fought hard. They didn't romp through the hills and wrestle topless. Those days are gone now.

It was bad enough they made a movie about two gay cowboys. Gay bankers, sure. Gay astronauts, why not? Gay mimes, hilarious possibilities. But to make two cowboys gay, and to name one of them "Ennis" is a sin so unforgivable its sick.

And then they had the audacity to cast Randy Quaid in the movie. The same guy that was barely funny enough for "Caddy Shack 2" is a co-star in a poignant film about the trials and tribulations of gay men? Get real.

The first time I heard Heath Ledger talk in a cowboy accent I knew the movie was doomed. At various times his voice was a dead ringer for a pencil sharpener.

"I wish I knew how to quit you Ennis."

" Whirrrrrrrrrrrr."

I'll be quite honest, the first love scene with Heath and Jake was a little intense for me too. One minute they're herding sheep and drinking whiskey. The next minute they're in a pop-tent, uh, not herding sheep. Hard.

There were plenty of ways to show the two cowboys were lovers without getting the Kama Sutra into the mix. Every time they were on screen together Jack and Ennis were making out anyways. I think the audience got the message.

There were a few saving graces to the film. Like hearing Randy Quaid say he wasn't paying the two roughriders "to petal the rose while the dogs watched the sheep." Classic Quaid.

The awkward, "you do more than fish up there," line from Heath Ledger's wife was a classic. Especially because she asked that question years after she saw our two star-crossed lovers necking in front of their house.

Watching Heath Ledger break down in tears every 12 minutes only to start fights every 13 minutes was pretty good too. And, of course, the theme music was powerful. Nothing says gay cowboys like a melancholy guitar solo.

Perhaps most troubling about the film was the message it sent about gay men and families. At one point Jack and Ennis have a conversation about moving back to Brokeback Mountain and leaving their families behind. The only thing that stopped them was Ennis' fear that he would be outed.

It wasn't the fact that they had started families, which was about as wildly irresponsible as it gets. I don't care if you're gay, straight or somewhere in the middle. Don't encourage gay people to start families and say it's OK for them to ignore their responsibilities to those same families later in life. Homosexuality isn't an excuse for people to shirk responsibility.

Anyways, that's my two cents on the film. Not particularly well acted, poorly cast and somewhat inappropriate to say the least. On that note, happy Easter!