TV: Who will be eliminated next? Uh, me.

I'm surprised to hear myself say this (or see myself write this, I guess would be more accurate), but I think I'm sick of The Amazing Race.

I've long championed TAR (as we cool people like to call it) as the best reality show on TV. And it still is, not that that's such a difficult thing to accomplish in a field that includes Wife Swap and the upcoming Who's Your Daddy? Even the good ones, like Survivor, pale in comparison. TAR has it all: gorgeous, exotic locations, challenging and exciting tasks, and an elimination process based on merit alone. No ganging up on the strong teams to vote them out, no "firing" a team on a whim. If you're last, you're eliminated. Simple and elegant.

But the casting directors have gone overboard in the last two seasons trying to find "dramatic" teams, teams they can sell on commercials -- meaning horrible, horrible people. Rather than the organic method of producing villains in earlier seasons -- let the pressure of the race bring out the worst -- the producers now appear to be specifically seeking awful, evil people during the audition process, people who are guaranteed to explode with fury and insanity for the cameras. Not only are they casting more villains (the ratio of teams to root for as opposed to teams to root against has been shifting in favor of the "against" faction since season one, to the point where, in this season and the previous one, there wasn't a single team I wanted to win), but also the main villains (there's always one team that deserves hatred far more than any other team) have gotten progressively more villainous. This latest season, the team to hate is Jonathan and Victoria. She's bad enough, a bitchy walking ad for the dangers of excessive Botox, but Jonathan... he is just the most vile human being ever to hit the airwaves. In last week's episode, he screamed and berated his struggling partner, who had shouldered both their backpacks after he dropped his, until she burst into agonized tears; then, at the finish line, he screamed at her some more, and actually shoved her while telling her how useless she was.

Actually, I didn't even see that. I read about it online. Because enough's enough. I don't want to spend time with any of these people. I've got two unwatched episodes already stored up on my TiVo, because I can't generate the interest to watch them, and last week, when I went to TiVo TAR, I discovered that there were already two programs scheduled for recording (TiVo can only record two shows at once). One program was a repeat of Gilmore Girls, the other was a repeat of Scrubs. And I just shrugged and said, Fine. I couldn't be bothered to change the recording setup away from one of two shows I'd already seen to record a brand new episode of TAR. I just couldn't be bothered.

It's a shame. I'm sure the race is taking the teams to all the same kinds of fantastic locations round the world, I'm sure the challenges are just as unique and fun, I'm sure the tension and excitement match the levels set in previous seasons. But I don't give a rat's ass about anyone participating. My feelings toward these people range from mild disinterest on the high end of the spectrum all the way down to world-devouring rage. I don't want to see any of these people rewarded. I think I'm going to delete the episodes I've got saved and write this season off as a loss. Maybe I'll check back next season, although by then, the producers will probably be recruiting the teams straight from Death Row.

MOVIES: I couldn't have one conversation if it wasn't for the lies, lies, lies

Since I already wrote about the movie I saw over the weekend on Saturday, I thought I'd delve into my TiVo saved programs for today's movie entry. And I'm going with one of my favorite films ever, and one most people have never even heard of: Kicking and Screaming.

It features the King and Queen of Indie, Eric Stoltz and Parker Posey, in supporting roles, but it's Chris Eigeman who really owns the film. As a recent graduate, aimless and adrift, he's hilarious (chastising himself in the mirror: "Hello, my friend, my little friend... you do nothing! Max Beaumont does nothing! 'Oh, Max, what do you do?' 'Oh... I do nothing.'"), and his character rings painfully true. He's never been better, and I've liked him in many, many things, including Whit Stillman's Metropolitan and Barcelona (which were an obvious influence on Noah Baumbach, writer/director of Kicking), and the TV shows Malcolm in the Middle and It's Like, You Know. (On Gilmore Girls -- not so much.)

Kicking and Screaming is definitely a comedy (Max to his new girlfriend, who is turning 17: "Wow, now you can read Seventeen magazine and get all the references"), but it creates such a poignant, nostalgic, regretful picture of college days -- all the missed opportunities you can't stop thinking about, your classes, your major, your romances -- as well as the time immediately following graduation, in which you realize your life has really just begun, and you're still not prepared for it, that it's tough for me to watch it very often. It's funny, but it's also filled with heartbreak, both romantic and otherwise. It's very similar to Fandango in that way for me. (There's another great but overlooked film you should all see, by the way.)

Also, like Fandango, I can't listen to the film's closing song in the same way anymore. In Fandango, it's Blind Faith's "Can't Find My Way Home" that plays over the credits; in Kicking, it's Freedy Johnston's "Bad Reputation." It's impossible for me to hear those songs without thinking of their respective films, and feeling a little of the sadness that came at the end of each.

Noah Baumbach definitely peaked with this, his first film. It's been years since his last project (which, frankly, was awful); his next one, The Squid and the Whale, is scheduled for production this year, and I sincerely hope it's better than his last couple. But he really hit it out of the park on Kicking and Screaming. Check it out if you remember college, if you remember your first love, if you remember what it's like being "romantically self-destructive," as two characters decide to be in this film. For whatever reason -- even if it's only so that I know one more person who's seen the damn film -- check it out.