. . . it was the only way he could stop himself from damaging his good name any further.

That line always made me so sad. Sure hope I never get there.

But it occured to me tonight as I treated most of the Survivor finale as radio while I made dinner, watered the plants and blah blah blah.

Remember when this was a great show? A huge pop culture phenom, and a fascinating psychological experiment? That first season was just one of the most brilliant things ever devised for television. Just blew me away.

Who's ever going to remember that now? It's just this tired old show running through the exact same motions.

Not sure why I still watch, except it's hard not to hope. I usually end up watching it around Saturday or Sunday morning, over breakfast or lunch or something, when all the better shows for the week are expended. Sure wasn't about to sit through three hours of it tonight. Watched about five minutes of the reunion tonight. Who cares?

I used to.

Well, reality TV had a great run. A handful of really interesting shows, along with all those reams of dog crap. And there are still a few gems out there. I still enjoy the Apprentice, and watched the opening of Project Runway's second season over lunch today--that show is something to behold. Even for a homo without my fag licence. I don't get fashion, I've never been into fashion, but this show is really interesting. No time to analyze why, and plenty of people have already done it, but I loved the first season, and already hooked again.

Oscarwatch began its latest post this way: "Ladies and gents, we now have our official critics' darling, Brokeback Mountain."

In the last 24 hours, it has won best picture and director honors from the LA and Boston film critics groups, made the AFI top ten list (no winner is picked), and trounced most of its rivals on the Broadcast Film Critics nominations by leading the pack with eight, double any other film except Crash (with six.)

Philip Seymour Hoffman also seems to be cleaning up the Best Actor awards for Capote--he was stunning, though I still prefer Heath; and Ang Lee for director; and Murderball is doing well for documentary; and everything else is still a very mixed bag.

Tomorrow comes NY Film Critics and National Board of Review (the former at 5:30 a.m. PST), then Globe noms on Tuesday. Full awards schedule here.

The more these awards pile on, the more media attention Brokeback gets, and the more it becomes The Film that everyone is talking about. It's The Controversial Film, and The Supposedly Great Film. That's a a strong pull for the curious. This is quickly becoming the must-see film for anyone who wants to be part of the cultural conversation. That's so cool.

I would love everyone in America to see this, because I really think it will open their eyes. I know that's not going to happen, but virtually everyone is getting exposed to it, and getting the conversation going is a huge accomplishment.

Now I just hope Brokeback can win NY. All these other awards and noms are nice for publicity and fun to watch the Oscar horserace play out if you're into that--I'm an addict--but they don't really mean a whole lot, outside their impact on those other events. As awards unto themselves, that I would really care about winning if I were a filmmaker--or when one of my books gets made into a film--there are really only two outside the guild awards and the oscars: LA Film Critics and NY Film Critics. We'll hear from the latter tomorrow. If Brokeback could grab both, that would be sweet.

Monday Update:

National Board of Review: Brokeback won Best Director and Supporting Actor for Jake, and made top ten list. (Good Night won best film.) Hoffman won yet again.

NY Critics to announce any minute. I will be out, but Jim will post in the comments

---

(For comments on this, best to go to the latest Brokeback comment thread. See my Brokeback Mountain page.)

(Set up for Monday. Don't use it yet.)

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

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