You're welcome, JZ. As I said, I got sucked into that and had to turn the TV off because it was clear I wasn't going to have time to watch "The Awful Truth". It's very interesting to me to see the vulnerability of people we admire. Their admissions of insecurity, failures, etc. make it easier to deal with my own. You figure that it's just part of the human condition.

Wow. It sounds like I'll have to read that book.

Saw Match Point, finally. I liked it a lot. The last act went on far too long, but this is the first movie of his since Sweet and Lowdown that I haven't walked out of wanting my 90 minutes back.

(The only major complaint I have is that he didn't get a British co-writer -- if it was obvious to me that this film was written by an American, I can only imagine how awkward it must have sounded to British ears.)

GLAAD needs to chill. One of Shalit's kids is gay, at least three of them are active in gay causes. He's more than familiar with gay people and gay behavior and if he felt a straight character periodically tracked down and seduced another character he'd say so.

Do you think Twist was a predator? And do you think having gay kids automatically confers credibility?

Given Cheney's example, I'd say that's a big no.

Refresh my memory... doesn't Ennis actually initiate things? And just about break the front door down in his eagerness to get going on all those "fishing trips"? While Jack Twist takes the moral low ground for running around on his wife, I don't actually see anything he directs toward Ennis being objectionable unless one has a blanket objection to homosexuality in general.

There's a HUGE difference between "pursuer" and "predator". Just because Jake was more agressive in pursuing the relationship doesn't make him predatory.

I think Jack pretty much initiates, but Ennis never really objects; and he certainly could have. But in any case, I doubt Shalit said the same thing about, say, The English Patient, or dozens of other movies about straight men pursuing reluctant women. Which is not to say that I think Shalit is necessarily homophobic, just oddly hypocritical here.

While Jack Twist takes the moral low ground for running around on his wife

Ennis is married too, at least for the first several years of their relationship.

Jack does initiate the first sexual encounter, but Ennis doesn't need any convincing, and I believe he's the one who comes to Jack the next night. Plus, as Matt says, when Jack comes back into his life, he's all too eager to continue the affair. There is a scene in which Ennis says (paraphrasing) "I wouldn't be like this if it weren't for you," but I doubt we are intended to take that as fact. So I hardly think that "predator" is the right word to describe Jack. It's a strange thing for Shalit to say, but I think GLAAD is strongly overreacting.

Ennis is married too, at least for the first several years of their relationship.

And she's the one who ends it, so it's not as if he takes the moral high ground there.

There is a scene in which Ennis says (paraphrasing) "I wouldn't be like this if it weren't for you," but I doubt we are intended to take that as fact.

Ennis is deeply self-hating, and he takes it out on Jack.