In Contention

Tag: Transamerica

  • Best in show 2005: the year in superlatives

    It’s time to really round out the year and offer up my picks for awards in 2005.

    In addition to the typical categories – which finally see their winners announced today – you’ll find some other fun arenas for awards citation. Call it a mish-mash of MTV-Awards-type kudos and other frequently heralded categories we find time to time in various critics’ awards and precursor ceremonies.

    No one is better at this sort of thing than Nat Rogers over at The Film Experience, so I recommend you all take a look at his Film Bitch awards when he dishes them out in the coming weeks.

    These will likely be my last extensive thoughts on the awards season this year, barring any brief comments I may or may not make here and/or there. There will, of course, be one final predictions update before the end of the year.

    It feels good to wrap everything up before Christmas vacation, I have to tell you. But the Oscar season is by no means over, so I’ll be diving right back in once 2006 finally rolls around.

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  • SHORT TAKE: “Transamerica” (*)

    TransamericaIt’s a very rare occasion that I walk out on a film. I tend to give everything a chance, and, especially in my life as a critical mind and writer, I feel I at least have the responsibility of seeing a thing from all sides.

    I did not walk out on “Transamerica,” but boy did I want to.

    Let us not bother with the mountain of issues the film either clobbers with a mallet or otherwise dodges completely.  Let’s leave alone it’s existence in a woefully surface-scratching state unworthy even of the label “sitcom-ish.”  And let’s also set aside the most dreadful character illustration we’ve seen in a film this year (misguided former hooker and wannabe junkie Toby Osbourne).

    Yes, let’s forget all of those elements for a moment and simply ponder what the heck this film is trying to say.

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