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Show SECTION SUNDAY. MAY 25, EDITOR Elyssa Andrus 344-255- 2008 eandrusheraldextra.com ' " If-- '' BECKER fox MICHAEL "American Idol" judges Randy Jackson from left), Paula Abdul and Simon Cowell on the set in Los Angeles. On the hot seat: Reality sliowjudges i Jennifer Frey THE WASHINGTON POST Reality show judges sit imperii ously on high, issuing crit icism and encouragement and g snark from their ASHLEY FRANSCELLDaily Herald Hesther Rippy stands among the computers at the Rippy Family Literacy Center in Lehi on Monday. Rippy, director of the center, and her " husband started the Rippy Family Literacy Center Wyears ago. the Improving literacy is a life-changi- faces, but rarely have to face the heat themselves. Judge not lest ye be judged, the Bible says, but to that reality television says: Feh! These prof essional judges' panels are preordained celebrity collections of wit, wisdom and. at times, simpering idiocy that rule so much of reality TV. These panof els sometimes are chock-ful- l charisma and sometime are heavy on shtick, but their interpersonal dynamics are a huge part of what keeps the viewers tuning in. So as Fox's "American Idol" and ABC's "Dancing With the Stars" crown their season champions this week, and Bravo's "Top Chef" marches toward its final Quickfire Challenge, the time is ripe to put the judges on the hot seat and determine how they themselves stack up. Our criteria for this little competition include entertainment value, professional credibility, personality, respect and that certain intangible that ng is group chemistry. Let's start with "Dancing With the Stars," which Tuesday night crowned its newest champion, Kristi Yamaguchi. If you think passion for Lehi grandmother they've got karmic chemistry, e perhaps it's all about their pre-gam- Cody Clark DAILY P HERALD hen her campaign to boost literacy in Lehi began, Hesther Rippy hardly knew where to start. The year was 1997, and Rippy took a phone call inviting her to come, with her husband, Bill, to a meeting with local leaders of The Church of Saints. The Jesus Christ of Latter-dacouple, both IDS, were asked to accept a calling, or volunteer position, to be literacy specialists representing the LDS Church's Lehi North Stake. (An LDS stake contains several congregations, or wards, in the same geographic locale.) "We both agreed," Rippy recalled, "and said, 'Where do we go for traini" ng?" The leader who'd given them the assignment, she said, had a rather cryptic answer: "He said, T have no idea. Just find some way to help people read y better.'" More than a decade later, Rippy, 81, has done that and more. She spends four days a week overseeing the operation of the Rippy Literacy Center in Lehi, which provides reading, math, language and computer skills instruction free of charge to children and adults. The center, which is funded both by private donations and the staunch support of Lehi city government, has limited paid staffJW Rippy herself is uncompensated. She's also still a stake literacy specialist, and has remained committed to her work despite her husband's pass- ing in 2002. That's the kind of energetic dedication that doesn't go unnoticed. Rippy received special recognition last fall, when worldwide cosmetics corporation L'Oreal named her one of its 2007 Women of Worth, making her one of just 10 women so designated from a pool of more than 2,000 nominees. L'Oreal vice president M ichael Trese said via that the program was created to emphasize the company's belief that "the beauty of women lies in a woman's ability to change the world." Rippy Literacy Center I What: The center offers free tutoring in reading, math, languages and computer literacy. ritual. Before each Monday-nigh- t tapLen Gooding, the three judges man, Bruno Tonioli and Carrie all hold hands and Ann Inaba express their love for each other. "I love you," Bruno tells Len. "I love you," Len tells Carrie Ann. (Yes, seriously, this happens. Carrie Ann swears it does.) "We started doing (the in the second season," Inaba says by phone from Los Angeles. "That way we're free during the judging. You don't feel like anybody's going to get ganged up." Then the live show starts and Tonioli screams his way over Goodman. Or Inaba looks at Tonioli as if he's lost his mind when he raves about the total hotness of the dancer and loses track, in her opinion, of the dance itself. Or Goodman puts on his metaphoric "crotchety pants" and dismisses the critiques of the other two because some dancer sneaked some p of that unnecessary junk hand-holdin- The effects of Rippy's commitment captured L'Oreal's attention. "By developing an innovative approach to increasing literacy at a grassroots level," Trese said, "Hesther and the center she established have helped over 10,000 young students and adults in the Lehi community realize their academic potential." (L'Oreal is looking for its next wave of nominees, incidentally, and will be accepting nominations until June 16 at far-flun- g www.womenofworth.com.) Rippy's daughter and only child, author Rebecca Merrill, See RIPPY, D2 hip-ho- See 'Indiana Jones' and the computer-generate-d Derrik J. Lang THE ASSOCIATED -- JUDGES, D5 jungle r: PRESS In these halSAN FRANCISCO lowed halls, Indiana Jones almost seems out of place. A banner with a cutout of the swashbuckling archaeologist swings through the lobby of Industrial Light and Magic, where e replicas of Darth Vader and Bobba Fett from "Star Wars" stand f HiWmnii fc: life-siz- guard. The home of George Lucas's visual effects company is a high-tectemple to everything from the dinosaurs in h "Jurassic Park" to the talking robots in "Transformers." But Indy can't take credit for the digital wizardry for which ILM has become famous over the last couple of decades. Not yet, anyway. That's because he hasn't been around for 19 years, a time in which special effects has mostly migrated from soundstage to server. The first three Indy films were :rW-rt- L. ' it. Photos by Industrial Light 4 Magic A still of a scene, before the insertion of special effects, left and the final product using special effects right from the film "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" approach. gritty, sweaty and tactile affairs, "He thought maybe we should just largely because everything onscreen physically existed somewhere. Not so go back to the way we did things with "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom before, like matte paintings on glass and things like that," said visual efof the Crystal Skull" though that fects supervisor Pablo Helman. "We was almost the case. entertained that Idea for a little bit, When first approaching the latest but we realized we could serve the "Indy," director Steven Spielberg considered dusting off his story better by using our digital ---- I tools." That decision ultimately led to a filmmaking innovation that brings the random reactions of a virtual world to the big screen, giving more control to ILM's computers than ever before. To the children romping outside at ILM's daycare located just past the lobby, the notion of a digital "environment" being responsible for much of what's onscreen will probably seem quaint someday. But to the adult audiences who've glimpsed the latest Indy escapade, it's a big part of the reason this one looks so different from Jones's last crusade. See INDY, D2 |