I still haven't heard back from DeepDiscountDVD.com re: their discriminatory anti-American shipping policy. So much for their promise to respond to queries "within 24 hours." I'd like to think their silence means I've forced someone to realize, "Hey, you know she's right? That policy DOESN'T make any sense," but it's probably more likely that my inescapable, but rather angry, logic frightened them into hiding under the covers and/or deleting my mail in hopes that I'd just drop it. Normally I'd be infuriated by being ignored like this, if I wasn't expecting the correct DVD from the Amazon seller any day now. And it had damn well better be the correct DVD. Are you listening, dvdsforu?
(No, I don't seriously think that dvdsforu reads my LJ. But I've found including seller names in my posts like this is immensely helpful should I need the information again in a few months (and you know I will. Remember? Saga Queen!))
Tery and I rented Transamerica. There are movies I enjoy (or hate) enough to dissect in detail, and then there are those that give me simple, unexplainable happiness that don't necessarily inspire essay-length dissertations (good examples would be Garden State and Lost in Translation). Transamerica falls in this second category.
It's a simple story about a pre-op male-to-female transsexual who is forced to travel with her recently-discovered son across the country to get to know him before becoming "complete." An interesting twist on the "buddy roadtrip" movie. Her son has no idea she's transsexual, or even that he's her son, which makes for some challenging dynamics in their relationship. The story is funny, moving, heartbreaking, lovely, but never too angsty.
Felicity Huffman did an excellent job. Of course I don't know her from a hole in the wall, and in fact referred to her as Hilary Duffman (Tery mocked me for my mistake. This is what happens when you're so far out of the pop culture loop. I deserve patience and tolerance, not derision). She's practically unrecognizable in her makeup and surprisingly convincing as a man (even dressed as a woman). But the actor who really caught my attention was her son, played by Kevin Zegers:

Oh. My. God. This is one of the few pics of him I could find with his clothes on. The boy's got a killer bod and not afraid to show it. The fact that he played a gay hustler didn't hurt one little bit either. Of course Tery was less than enthralled with my object of affection, but I can't help that. Is she blind? Even the hardest of hard-core lesbians has to admit this guy is gorgeous. What he's doing dating a slag like Kelly Osbourne is anyone's guess. I hope those tabloid pics of them together are just outdated.
I set out in search of my own copy of the DVD. No, this won't entail another saga (IhopeIhopeIhope) but I was at first terribly offended by the cover, featuring Felicity sans makeup and appearing nothing at all like she does in the movie. I felt this defeated the entire point of the story. However, in searching for this image I have since learned that it's holographic and shifts back and forth between gorgeous Felicity and homely Bree:

Some people apparently still find this offensive and a crass attempt to reel in the Desperate Housewives audience, but I don't. So allow me to withdraw my anger before ever really giving it a voice.
(As an aside, I found a copy on eBay (yes, I'm a one-trick pony) and emailed the seller about extras, as usual. I got back a very nice response, which alone is enough to catapult her into high marks in my book. She answered my question and finished with the statement "You have very good taste in movies. Congratulations." Yeesh. Did we have to go for the ass-kissing? She only has 9 feedbacks, which I would normally steer clear of, but she's obviously trying very hard and, like I said, she took the time to answer my question. I'll buy from her until she becomes a power seller, i.e. too big for her own britches and too busy to actually communicate with her customers.)
(No, I don't seriously think that dvdsforu reads my LJ. But I've found including seller names in my posts like this is immensely helpful should I need the information again in a few months (and you know I will. Remember? Saga Queen!))
Tery and I rented Transamerica. There are movies I enjoy (or hate) enough to dissect in detail, and then there are those that give me simple, unexplainable happiness that don't necessarily inspire essay-length dissertations (good examples would be Garden State and Lost in Translation). Transamerica falls in this second category.
It's a simple story about a pre-op male-to-female transsexual who is forced to travel with her recently-discovered son across the country to get to know him before becoming "complete." An interesting twist on the "buddy roadtrip" movie. Her son has no idea she's transsexual, or even that he's her son, which makes for some challenging dynamics in their relationship. The story is funny, moving, heartbreaking, lovely, but never too angsty.
Felicity Huffman did an excellent job. Of course I don't know her from a hole in the wall, and in fact referred to her as Hilary Duffman (Tery mocked me for my mistake. This is what happens when you're so far out of the pop culture loop. I deserve patience and tolerance, not derision). She's practically unrecognizable in her makeup and surprisingly convincing as a man (even dressed as a woman). But the actor who really caught my attention was her son, played by Kevin Zegers:

Oh. My. God. This is one of the few pics of him I could find with his clothes on. The boy's got a killer bod and not afraid to show it. The fact that he played a gay hustler didn't hurt one little bit either. Of course Tery was less than enthralled with my object of affection, but I can't help that. Is she blind? Even the hardest of hard-core lesbians has to admit this guy is gorgeous. What he's doing dating a slag like Kelly Osbourne is anyone's guess. I hope those tabloid pics of them together are just outdated.
I set out in search of my own copy of the DVD. No, this won't entail another saga (IhopeIhopeIhope) but I was at first terribly offended by the cover, featuring Felicity sans makeup and appearing nothing at all like she does in the movie. I felt this defeated the entire point of the story. However, in searching for this image I have since learned that it's holographic and shifts back and forth between gorgeous Felicity and homely Bree:

Some people apparently still find this offensive and a crass attempt to reel in the Desperate Housewives audience, but I don't. So allow me to withdraw my anger before ever really giving it a voice.
(As an aside, I found a copy on eBay (yes, I'm a one-trick pony) and emailed the seller about extras, as usual. I got back a very nice response, which alone is enough to catapult her into high marks in my book. She answered my question and finished with the statement "You have very good taste in movies. Congratulations." Yeesh. Did we have to go for the ass-kissing? She only has 9 feedbacks, which I would normally steer clear of, but she's obviously trying very hard and, like I said, she took the time to answer my question. I'll buy from her until she becomes a power seller, i.e. too big for her own britches and too busy to actually communicate with her customers.)