My research assistant just spent a month in federal court, on a jury, eventually elected foreman. ("Presiding Juror" there--none of that prole shit in federal court.)

So glad to have him back for more than bleary nights and weekends. Read his summary of the trial.

OK, just a quickie.

It's no secret that Amazing Race Family was a horrible mistake, so I won't belabor the point. But since I expressed enthusiasm for the new interesting windows it opened at first, let me go on record retracting. It did have lots of potential, and blew it.

Worst of all, almost no interesting people, except The Hypocrites, that horrible Weaver family that goes around dissing everyone and wondering why no one likes them, invoking Jesus' name at every opportunity, but apparently oblivious to all he stood for.

And the challenges? Sorry, "challenges"? Last night they had to dress up and get their picture taken. That must have been stressful. Just awful. Enough.

Reality is almost dead. But I sure do love Boondocks.

Well, Brokeback Mountain has been written up in just about every print outlet imaginable the past two weeks. It exceeded all expectations there, but no telling how that will translate to actual acceptance.

Phase 2 seems to be kicking off tonight: they reach your TV. Separate interviews with Heath Ledger and Ang Lee consume the entire Charlie Rose show tonight, and according to reports from reliable readers, Jake Gyllenhaal will appear Thursday on The Today Show, MTV's Total Request Live, and The Daily Show.

Set your Tivos. Much more to come, I'm sure. Keep checking the comments threads if you're interested. I have no time to keep up, but you readers are posting a hot fresh link every hour or so. Thanks. (The current comment thread and the eight previous ones are linked on my Brokeback Mountain page. Always head there for the latest link.)

I went to a sneak preview of Casanova tonight, starring Heath Ledger, directed by Lasse Hallstrom. Went with high hopes. Supposed to be a romp. I love to romp.

I guess it comes down to whether the adjective "cute" is more likely to sound like a compliment or an insult to you.

This was extremely cute. Cute enough to vomit.

Farces either hook you along or they don't. What an excruciating two hours for me. But lots of laughter all around me, and to my amazement, quite a bit of enthusiastic applause over the credits. Women, especially seemed to love it. (I could hear lots of them laughing, and commenting regularly out loud. And gushing praise to the studio woman with the clipboard on the way out asking for comments.)

Spent two hours wondering if it would hurt his Oscar chances -- during the interminable time I had to employ my brain in just about any other activity, praying for it to end. He was OK, I guess, pretty good, maybe, so hard to tell when I didn't buy a minute of it, so that included him, so how could I possibly assess. Apparently lots of people enjoyed it--and surely him, he was quite the center of it--so he probably won't damage himself.

(Jeremy Irons, though, may never recover. Though I guess he was supposed to be over the top, so he played it over the top, whatever.)

Too many words already on that.

Links to earlier threads at my Brokeback Mountain page, and tons of other links. (Thanks to my assistant for taking over compilation duties.)

Recent additions include:

• Rex Reed gushing review in the NY Observer.
• Ebert & Roeper, streaming audio review. Ebert: "Brokeback Mountain has Oscar nominations written ALL over it!"
• Streaming video: The scene of Ennis & Alma in the grocery story. (You have to watch a commercial first.)
• Boondocks comic strip: Brokeback storyline. (Seriously. Day 2 at the link, go forward/backward from there.)
• Ecstatic, trenchant review in New York Magazine: "If I’m making it sound as though Brokeback Mountain is a downer, it’s actually a serious piece of art in which great joy can be taken in witnessing the small-miracle performances of Ledger (so eloquent in his mute despair) and Gyllenhaal (so meticulously agonized by his daily compromises). Ang Lee conveys maddening delirium rendered in the way one man’s eyes gaze at another’s, and then look away, and the looking-away amounts to the murder of two souls as surely as if they’d drawn guns and hit each other in the heart."
• New Yorker review: "This slow and stoic movie, hailed as a gay Western, feels neither gay nor especially Western: it is a study of love under siege."