yes, more gushing about the little gaghan girl.

again broke my heart. watching unable to pull anything near her weight in the soldier-carrying task, until on the last run, she was just carrying his hat and gear, dad presumably pulling double-duty, holding two poles. her head was cast down and dejected. hard to tell whether even that light load and the running back and forth was too much for her, or she just felt bad that she was hardly contributing. either way. god.

but wonderful to see how quickly she bounced back. a few minutes later she's practically skipping down the path, moving at a good clip, keeping up with the pack to reach the finish line. kids are wonderful.

and finally this, from heather havrilesky's I Like to Watch column in Salon:

Next week: Will that 6-year-old kid on "The Amazing Race" let her whole family down, and then, filled with guilt and anguish, turn to a life of drugs and crime? Let's just hope there's a VH1 show about it if she does.

heeheehee. i love heather.

the coolest thing about this edition is the striking age disparities within the teams--nearly all the teams--which has almost never been true before. on nearly every team, the oldest member(s) of assumed the leadership, and it's fascinating to watch how on some teams their age makes them much stronger--than their children--while in others, it makes them much weaker than their adult daughters or sons in law.

do i feel for those people trying to lead their team, but knowing they're mainly dragging it down.

and the parents of children have such a different challenge: swallow the anger they must feel about their kid handicap, hold back the urge to lash out at the people dragging them down and encourage them instead. i am so utterly impressed by the gaghans and blacks and that christian family for doing that, so disgusted with the two families that pulled up the rear this week. and what a surprise that they were the last two.

(and it's nice to see an overtly-christian group on one of these shows actually act christian for once. so far, i'm really impressed with the way they treat each other.)

also no coincidence, i think, that the two teams with all four members closest in age came in near the top this week.

i liked episode two of the race nearly as much as the first, for mostly the same reasons.

but i've got to unload about the revolting families.

god. of course this show always casts several revolting teams, but rarely before have we had the chance to the horror that is one of these contestants, and the people who made them that way.

that bickering family from new jersey. are there words to convey the level of my disgust?

most of all for the mom. she constantly whines and complains about how they don't listen to or respect her, and she's right, it is disgustly to behold, but is the reason for it really beyond her vision?

look in the mirror, lady. all they're doing is mimicking your behavior. you have clearly been modelling it for them their entire lives, and they have grown up with all the values you instilled in them.

ugh. she does nothing but belittle and berate them, and respond precisely in kind. i don't even think they (only) doing it to get back at her, i'm guessing they treat everyone the way she does. she trained them, she's got to live with them.

unfortunately, so do we.

the only thing more galling than watching a woman destroy her family like that, though, is watching her then complain about it.

hideous. just hideous. can't parents like that have their licence revoked or something?

but . . .

while she appears to be the season's most horrifying character overall--so far--one of her peers actually outdid her on ep 2.

Most Nasueating Moment of the Week came right after the father in that horrible family eliminated this week put his son behind the wheel. dad put all the responsibility for finding the exit on the kid: you're the driver, you're in charge, it's all on you.

what? you've got three other people in the car, what the hell are you all doing? any decent team--most of the other teams--had all four people aggressively on the lookout. in fact, most successful teams over the years have put primary responsibility on the navigator, who is not driving, not dealing with all the mechanics of driving. the navigator is free to follow the map, watch what roads and landmarks they are passing and insure they're on course.

this was complete idiocy on the dad's part, but there was clearly much more going on. he was so obviously setting his son up. he grudgingly gave up his authority role at the wheel, and was practically drooling over the prospect of his son failing. his first act in the back seat was to pull back and do nothing, instruct everyone else to do nothing, and strand his son out there to fail, shaking the kid's confidence too by remarking steadily on how inevitable that failure was. he could just not wait for his moment, and then gleefully kicked him out of the front, took over again at his rightful position behind the wheel.

what a dispicable man.

maybe it's just a phase--where his son is finally coming of age, and for the first time in his life, he sees himself about to be surpassed in countless ways by his own progeny. maybe he's not always a dick, but he sure was here.

one of the most revolting displays i've ever seen on the show. right up there with that wife-beating dwarf with the blue hair and his blond wife the enabler. at least she was an adult, she was responsible for marrying the complete asshole. to see this kind of treatment of a kid. ugh.

and it was clear from the guy's many comments, and especially his post-loss interview that this was not an isolated incident. he's quite articulate about his dad being deaf to any ideas that come out of his mouth, but luckily he doesn't yet seem to see why. jealousy.

makes me feel grateful i never felt a hint of that from my dad. he's got his problems, for sure, but he's always been proud of me, never once seemed to worry about me overshadowing him. seemed to relish it.

thanks, dad. (maybe saying that here will atone a tiny little bit for almost never saying it to him in person. ugh. do i have to call him? don't you hate it when you see total jerks on tv and suddenly notice what a jerk you've been yourself in an entirely different way?)

---

it shows in the way they treat the people around them, too. did you notice how the bickering family just hurled the "wounded" guy they were carrying to the ground like a sack of potatoes when they hit the finish line? that was a person there, landing on his back on the hard lumpy ground with nothing but a sheet of burlap underneath. all they seemed to care about was their own relief.

meanwhile, the gaghans put their guy down a lot more gently, but still apologized.

(of course who knows about editing. maybe the bickersons apologized too at some point, but why do i doubt that?)

What's with this driving tour of PA and Jew Jersey?

I've already driven on that expressway. And hundreds like it. What happened to taking me to places I'd never been?

I don't get it.

And I understand most of this season is going to be that way. Ugh.

The absolute nadir of this element came in ep one, when the father-in-law expressed his wonder at getting to hand a costumed guy the guy the flag, and then watching him fold it up. Folding a flag? This guy needs to get out more. And what was with the long slow shot of the flag getting folded. That's a compelling visual? I could fold a flag at home. I have folded a flag at home. What were they thinking?

Not quite up there with the season contestants spent time in Nelson Mandela's cell. I have not been there. I am not likely to, though I have put it on my list ever since I saw that ep. One of the best things about this show is the places it takes us.

Further, please.

Update:

It's becoming clear that they have decided that instead of just taking us to faraway places this season, they will take us to faraway times. We're not just visiting the U.S. or its historical sites, but re-enacting the past.

Well, interesting idea. I give them props for thinking of it, trying it. And it's not completely unsuccessful so far. But they do seem to be demonstrating that contemporary cultural differences are much easier to bring vividly to the screen than American history--at least in this sort of entertainment TV vehicle.

But . . .

I am starting to see some upside to the historical re-enactments? While trite and routine in a lot of ways, perhaps they will add a bit of excitement to the challenge. I've been to a civil war re-enactment--for a feature story, for my college paper--and believe me, it's not that exciting. But as background to last week's challenge, it really added something. This time, it felt like more than nine teams running around doing some goofy task, they were doing it among a whole lot of . . . well, distracting movement and scenery, I guess. Distracting in a good way. Added to the sense of pandemonium. And color. And a lot of things. An all-around richer experience.

So that's some upside.

That should have been the title of the first ep of Amazing Race.

Sure gave me a good laugh. Prolly not out of context, but if you saw it . . . The sheer horror on the face and in the voice of that (woman?--I've already forgotten) as she realizes that nearing the elimination mat, the team only seconds behind her is the family with the two little kids. Priceless.

So I had my doubts about Amazing Race Family Edition. Big doubts.

But I tuned in anyway, and God did I hate the family crap.

Even worse than my worst fears. I had figured the change could go either way, and it went worse.

For the first hour.

Now (I scrawled much of this post while watching the first ep, over a week ago), I am outright giddy for the next installment.

Once again the Race producers illustrate their wisdom in opening with a two-hour ep. Not just a marketing manuever, it takes that long to start bonding with all these people. To see enough sides of them to begin to love them.

Some favorite moments from that ep:

The guy from jock family, getting into the car soaking wet in his best Pee Wee Herman impersonation, "I'm free-zing."

Then, just moments (in TV time), a shot of him all dried off, bravado back, imagining out loud his retardd come-on to the team of adult sisters: "Hey ladies. I love older women. HrrrRuffffff!" Luckily, he's not entirely serious and might turn out to be a playful guy. More luckily for him, his brother laugh at him. dimples blaring as soon as they smile. "You are so out your league right now."

Every shot of that little six-year-old girl from the Gaghan family. Just too adorable for words.

The terrified look on the young Black boy's face (wow, that sounded racist. But it's his name) when his parent were acknowledging to each other that they were completely lost. In all the hundreds of hours of reality show footage to-date, I don't believe there has been a reaction shot quite like that one before. (OK, on any of the good reality shows. I'm not monitoring most of the reality dreck, but I'd say odds are in my favor.)

Picture Richard Hatch on the first Survivor, making a ghastly blunder, and then a cutaway to his son, grasping the impact and distraught at the implications. Now picture the son actually competing as a teammate with him, and about to be brought down with him. Horrified at his own loss as only a young kid can be, and his image of his father as unbeatable hero simultaneously shattered.

Every kid has him heroic image of his father crushed, but we rarely get to witness it on television. Quite the powerful moment. (Of course it's not a life-altering crush, but for the moment . . . Well, if you saw the little Black kid gape, you know how deep that moment penetrated. For a moment there, there was much more than a million dollars at stake.)

This show brought out so many elements I never would have expected, that I've never really seen in a reality show before. Really something.

But by far my favorite moment, and apparently one of my faves in the short history of the series:

Ahhhhhhhh.

Research assistant.

How did I get along this long without one?

I hired two a few weeks back, but one got very sick and has been out for weeks, the local one had some previous committments. Well, the local guy was back today, and we've been working nearly the entire day and we knocked out a heck of a lot of stuff. Most of the way organized now, and he's checking into all sorts of research for me.

What was I thinking in not doing this sooner?

Just about saved my life. Can't wait to have them both cracking.

As you watch the developments in Oscar race this year, you might want to check in on this top 20 list from Metacritic now and then.

It's the running top 20 best reviewed films of the year, according to some weighted sample of top critics.

It's very incomplete at the moment, as most major contenders have yet to be released--or therefore widely reviewed--but at the moment, Capote is leading the list.

Oddly enough, Harriet Miers' greatest political triumph--her ascendancy to the Dallas city council--may end up providing the biggest clues on her attitude toward us homos.

From The Advocate (more at the link):

Harriet Miers, President Bush's pick to fill the U.S. Supreme Court vacancy left by the retiring justice Sandra Day O'Connor, once filled out a questionnaire for a gay rights group in which she agreed that gay men and lesbians should have equal rights. But she immediately followed that answer by stating that she did not support the repeal of the Texas sodomy law, which was eventually struck down by the high court.

As part of their endorsement screening process for city council candidates, the Lesbian/Gay Political Coalition of Dallas in 1989 asked then-candidate Miers if she would fill out their standard questionnaire and appear before the coalition to discuss the answers. Miers agreed. “It was not uncommon to get vague or contradictory answers [from candidates],” Louise Young, a member of the coalition at the time, told Advocate.com. “Hers were certainly vague.”

Hmmmm. Yes, it goes on and quite a few contradictions. Hard to know, really. But gives me some hope.

More disturbing is her work with Exodus Ministries. Good God. Anyone deeply enough in denial who actually thinks gays are being that way by choice and can just learn to be straight . . .

Right. And if you're a straightguy, you could take a gay class and suddenly you'd start getting attracted to men.

Is that really how it works?

It's coming, it's coming. How and when and why I fell in love with this story.

But I'm about to run out of posting time, and this Amazing Race stuff is going to go bad soon.

So soon. I promise. Next weekend, hopefully.

really itchcing to see Proof.

annoyed that i have not gotten around to it.

people seem to adore it or dislike it, but just seeing jake gyllenhaal in the ads makes me swoon--the glimmer in his eyes is really something.

but i've skipped most of jake's lame movies before. this one though: i have a special place in my heart for math theorists.

seriously. i came that close to being one, you know. math was always my best subject, and i left it for awhile--as i leave everything i love; hehehe; hmmm, but seriously, don't i? that's scary--and got thrust back after my back accident. majored in math and computer science so i could be solvent if paralyzed and rediscovered my love for math, particularly proofs.

i took an entire course in proofs my last semester, while already interviewing for jobs, and just swooned. only math majors took it, and only because they had to, usually put off till final semester.

most people hated it but i was in love. every problem was an amazing little puzzle. wonderful prof. and i was his star pupil. late in the semester he came to me and had a little chat: i should make a career out of this. start with grad school in the fall. but it was way too late, i said, applications were due the previous fall. he laughed. he could easily get that waved. say the word and i was in.

but i already had a job offer from EDS. i was SO READY to get the hell out of school. i was 25. i was restless. but he said i'd be wasting my life with one of those stupid corp jobs. i might make a real impact on math. math is fundamental. and eternal.

i seriously considered. but declined.

it has always been my road not taken.

(one of several, i guess, but the biggie.)

i've never really gone anywhere near it again. so i can't wait for a little peak.

This will kinda blow your mind.

Quite the risk to raise expectations so high, but I do believe this will surpass them.

Here's the gist of it, from The Tattered Coat, the blog that apparently got the clip sailing wildly around the web. (About ten days ago. I'm slow. Sorry if you've been spammed about it eight thousand times.):

A post-production house organized a competition where assistant editors ‘re-cut’ trailers for famous movies to try and make them seem like different movies . . . . this is the one that won:

I'm not going to tell you any more, other than it's a recut of The Shining. Very recut.

Amazing.

Update:

Several others are making the rounds, like this recut of West Side Story as a horror film. (Several more at the Tattered Coat link above.)

Not only did the West Side Story trailer not do so much for me, it actually helped clarify for me why Shining was so great. In WSS, the horror choice seemed really arbitrary, and they used only the tiniest cuts of the film, and the horror elements didn’t really come from the scenes themselves. It was as if they outlined a horror trailer first, and then grabbed any old movie to throw in some clips.

The beauty of Shining was how used actual clips to sell almost the opposite movie. They reversed the storyline and didn’t just create a whole different feel and different relationships, but the reverse.

The Solisbury Hill was just hysterical. I’ll never hear it quite the same. Or without thinking of this.

So far I've just watched one trailer mentioned in the previous post: 'All the Kings's Men,' starring Sean Penn, and one of the overwhelming favorites to dominate the Oscars this year.

Made me want to retch.

But that doesn't mean the movie will.

That cheeseball soaring music just overwhelms it--along with the equally simplistic Little Man Triumphs tone of the narration. Hopefully the movie will be more complex.

(It's also scarily close to the Shining trailer remix I just watched a few hours ago. More on that in a minute.)

And several more.

And not at all where you would find them.

Sony is streaming the trailers for all their big year-end pix at a promo site for Nip/Tuck, of all places.

There is not a direct url. You have to go to this Nip/Tuck site, slide your cursor over Kelly Carlson's face, but don't click on it. Seriously. (She is the blond in the third photo box in the row of photos under the big main photo--will be obvious when you're there.) Then a "Sony Lounge" box will pop up; click on the More. Then a screen will come up offering trailers for:

• Rent
• All the Kings's Men
• Memoirs of a Geisha
• Freedomland
• Fun With Dick & Jane

Much thanks to Mex in the comments section of this cool movies blog.

Since I'm catching up on great summer indie movies to catch on DVD, I really loved this one. (Mysterious skin.)

One of the best films I've seen these year. (And I've been to a bunch this year.)

It's synopis from RM:

In MYSTERIOUS SKIN, an unlikely director takes on an even more unlikely lead actor and crafts a deeply felt coming-of-age tale that pulsates with the scalding beauty of tragedy. The director, Gregg Araki, whose over-the-top, gay melodramas have been criticized as largely empty provocations, proves himself here to have great sensitivity. Yet it is the lead actor, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, best known for his work on the alien sitcom THIRD ROCK FROM THE SUN, whose unforgettable, nuanced performance makes the film. Based on the novel by Scott Heim, the story follows two teenage boys living in small-town Kansas: Brian (Brady Corbet), a clunky and awkward fellow with no discernable social life; and Neil (Gordon-Levitt), a rebellious gay youth whose fragile beauty and cruel indifference make him a successful hustler to the area's older men. Having suffered from blackouts as a child, Brian believes that these voids were actually alien abductions, and goes on a quest to confirm this. As his memories become increasingly vivid, Brian convinces himself that Neil, the star player on his childhood Little League team and a regular presence in his dreams, knows the truth. Neil does, in fact, know exactly what happened. The boys were sexually abused by their Little League coach. While Brian has suppressed the incident, Neil has held it deep within him like a treasure, considering it to have been a loving relationship of respect and tenderness, the absence of which has left him emotionally empty. The two strands of narrative are braided together elegantly, slowly leading up to a devastating final scene. Araki unifies the stories through an elegiac, celestial tone that manages to avoid preachiness via doses of appropriate humor. MYSTERIOUS SKIN is so profoundly alive with sadness and beauty that it nearly burns.

I really liked this film this summer. (Me and You and Everyone We Know.)

Highly unusual film, that's a safe statement.

Really meant to write about it here, but that never happened. Now it's out on DVD.

Synopsis from RM:

Performance artist Miranda July's debut feature film, ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW, is a charming, quirky romantic comedy that is entertaining from start to finish. Writer-director July stars as Christine, an offbeat performance artist who becomes instantly smitten with Richard (John Hawkes), a brooding department-store shoe salesman who is having trouble dealing with his divorce and his separation from his two kids--the shy, private Peter (Miles Thompson) and the very funny Robby (Brandon Ratcliff). Christine is trying to get her latest work accepted at a major museum, but first she has to get through mean-spirited Nancy (Tracy Wright), who is not necessarily very interested in her submission. Meanwhile, Natasha Slayton and Najarra Townsend are a riot as a pair of teenagers who think they're ready for sex as they tease neighborhood pervert Andrew (Brad Henke) and consider experimenting with Peter. Amid all the tender, comedic, well-acted, and well-written scenes, Ratcliff nearly steals the film as Robby gets involved in a dirty, hysterical online chat with a mystery person. July's marvelous, surprising movie won the Special Jury Prize for Originality of Vision at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival in addition to well-deserved prizes at the Philadelphia and San Francisco International Film Festivals.