Great Performances: Felicity Huffman as Bree Osbourne

Felicity Huffman's brilliant performance as the pre-op male-to-female transsexual Bree Osbourne in Transamerica is a triumph on many levels.

Anyone who has seen Huffman on her television show Desperate Housewives knows that she is a beautiful woman, even with her frazzled working mother exterior. Yet in Transamerica, she is unrecognizable, and it is more then the make-up and frumpy costumes. Huffman physically transformed herself in the role, and is entirely believable as a biological male yearning to be female.

You can feel the aching to achieve what she so desperately wants, to fit in (to "pass") in the way Bree carries herself. Every gesture, every mannerism is controlled to the utmost, for fear someone may detect the masculinity buried deep within.

This control is shaken when her pending sexual reassignment surgery is jeopardized by a ghost from her past: a son she never knew she had. Toby, a scraggly street hustler, enters her life at what she thinks is the worst possible time. However, by getting to know him during their long, event-filled cross-country journey, she comes to realize that meeting him may have been the best thing that ever happened to her.

Huffman won several awards for her performance in Transamerica, including the Golden Globe and the Independent Spirit Award, and was also nominated for the Academy Award.

Click here to purchase Transamericaon DVD from Amazon.com.
Link via Imdb.com.

The Latest on DVD: Desperate Living

This week's new DVD releases:

Featured Titles:

• Desperate Housewives: The Complete Third Season- Highlights include a gun-toting Laurie Metcalf and Dixie Carter as a murderous mommie dearest. Also available in a Spanish version.
• A Special Day- While Mussolini meets Hitler, Sophia Loren bonds with her gay neighbor Marcello Mastroianni (in an Oscar nominated performance).
• Bosom Buddies - The Second Season- Tom Hanks and Peter Scolari are Kip and Henry, a.ka. Buffy and Hildegard, in this cross-dressing sitcom favorite. Also available, along with the first season, in a complete series box set.
• Stranger Than Paradise- Jim Jarmusch’s influential indie gets the Criterion treatment in this two-discer.

What Else is New:

• Georgia Rule- Jane Fonda, Felicity Huffman and the infamous Lindsay Lohan star in this inter-generational dramedy.
• The Wind That Shakes the Barley- Cillian Murphy stars as an Irish freedom fighter.
• Night on Earth- Another Jim Jarmusch classic on the Criterion label, starring Gena Rowlands, Winona Ryder and Rosie Perez.

From the Vaults:

• Alibi- This early Best Picture nominee stars Chester Morris as a prohibition-era gangster accused of killing a policeman.
• Be Yourself!- Fanny Brice stars as a nightclub singer who helps her boxer beau.
• The Lottery Bride- Jeanette MacDonald is caught between two brothers, each vying for her love, in this musical romance.
• Movie Songs Live- TCM's Robert Osbourne hosts a look at your favorite movie music memories, including songs from Grease, Saturday Night Fever and Dirty Dancing.

TV on DVD:

• 30 Rock: Season 1- Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin and Jane Krakowski star in this Emmy-nominated comedic look behind the scenes of a TV show. Also available in two separate volumes.
• The Office: Season 3- Steve Carell stars in another Emmy-nominated, workplace-set comedy.
• Prison Break: Season 2- Hotties Wentworth Miller and Dominic Purcell are cons on the run in this dramatic thriller.
• Nip/Tuck - The Complete Fourth Season- More hotties: Julian McMahon and Dylan Walsh get down and dirty as Miami's best plastic surgeons. Also available in HD-DVD and Blu-ray.
• Dirty Jobs: Collection 1- And the hotness never stops: hunky Mike Rowe hosts this always entertaining look at the worst jobs in the world.
• I Dream of Jeannie - The Fourth Season- Sorry, Larry Hagman and Bill Daily (ew), but the hotness stops there.
• Original Television Christmas Classics Sing-A-Long - And finally, get your Christmas spirit started early with this collection of holiday TV tunes such as my personal faves, "Holly Jolly Christmas" and "Put One Foot in Front of the Other".

Click on the individual links to purchase the DVDs at Amazon.com.

Great Performances: Tuc Watkins as Sterling Scott

I recently watched the 1997 gay romantic comedy I Think I Do because of Tuc Watkins. He was recently cast on one of "my shows", Desperate Housewives, as one half of the gay couple who moves onto Wisteria Lane this season.

I have seen Watkins many times on one of Big Edie's "shows", One Life to Live, where he plays the lovable cad David Vickers. He is unique among soap actors in that he not only doesn't mind being silly, he appears to relish it, a fact that makes him immensely watchable. That, and he is a total hunk (don't you just love it when they can actually act too?).

Anyway, my previous exposure to him on the daytime sudser added to my appreciation of him in I Think I Do because he plays a soap opera actor in it. And a gloriously vain and self-involved (yet still likeable) one at that. His comedic performance as Sterling Scott (love the name), Alexis Arquette's studly boyfriend, is the highlight of this otherwise well intentioned but typical gay rom com (it is the type of indie where you just know the actors are wearing their own clothes -- not that there's anything wrong with that). Watkins really is a hoot in it, such as when he calls Arquette his "potato bug" or recalls how he wooed him by giving him his headshot.

If you're a fan of Watkins too and want to see him "play gay" before his "househusband" stint this fall, then this movie is worth a look.

Click here to buy I Think I Doon DVD from Amazon.com.
Links via Imdb.com and Televisionista.blogspot.com.

Queer as Classic

In my web wanderings, I recently discovered these parody videos that aired on TV Land a few years back. Three gay faves (Desperate Housewives, Grey's Anatomy and Sex and the City) are hilariously sent up by recasting them with such classic TV stars as Beatrice Arthur, Joyce DeWitt and Loretta Swit.

Of course, my twisted, pop culture-addled mind started cooking up fantasy spoofs of recent gay shows, replacing the gay characters of today with the gay characters of yesterday. OK, mostly gay-seeming characters of yesterday.

On Will and Grace, straight-laced Will Truman would now be played by Jack Coleman, a.k.a. straight-laced Steven Carrington of Dynasty, while the flamboyant Jack McFarland would by portrayed by the even more flamboyant Wayland Flowers, sans Madame. OK, Madame can be Karen.

Nancy McKeon's Jo Polniaczek of The Facts of Life would feel right at home on The L Word, as would the entire cast of Xena: Warrior Princess and the lesbian witches from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. OK, and Alice from The Brady Bunch too.

And let us not forget Queer as Folk. The dynamic duo of Brian Kinney and Justin Taylor would be the actual dynamic duo, Adam "Batman" West and Burt "Boy Wonder" Ward. Wimpy Michael Novotny would now be wimpy Jodie Dallas from Soap (Billy Crystal), while his Uncle Vic would be none other then Uncle Arthur from Bewitched (Paul Lynde). His hunky boyfriend Ben Bruckner would be embodied by Patrick Duffy of Dallas. OK, I know, Bobby Ewing wasn't gay, but he looked good without a shirt, so ...

Forever lovelorn Ted Schmidt would be played by the forever lovelorn Waylon Smithers of The Simpsons, with Lost in Space's Dr. Smith (Jonathan Harris) as unlucky in love Emmett Honeycutt. Lindsay and Melanie? Kate and Allie, naturally.

Some could say that proud mama Debbie Novotny was already played by a gay character (Sharon "Chris Cagney" Gless), but let's change it up with ... Jamie "Corporal Klinger" Farr.

OK, maybe I went too (wait for it) Farr with that one ...

Linka via TVLand.com and YouTube.com.

Awards Watch: Ugly Emmy

While I don't necessarily cover a lot of television here, I did want to give a shout out to some of my personal favorites that made the cut for this year's Emmy Awards, announced this morning. If anything, it gives you an idea of the TV shows I like. And the nominees are:

• Brothers & Sisters: The crappy Boston Legal was nominated instead of this? At least Sally Field and Rachel Griffiths were.
• Dancing With the Stars and Top Chef (come on, admit it, you watch them) are both up for the "reality competion" award.
• Desperate Housewives: Three of them made the grade - Felicity Huffman, Dixie Carter and Laurie Metcalf.
• Dirty Jobs: Mike Rowe is a stud. That's all I'm going to say.
• Grey's Anatomy: A Best Drama nominee even with their rough third year, and boy, they sure racked 'em up in the acting races: T.R. Knight, Katherine Heigl, Chandra Wilson, Sandra Oh, Kate Burton and Elizabeth Reaser.
• Heroes: A surprise nominee for Best Drama Series, Masi Oka was the sole hero singled out.
• Lost: Michael Emerson and Terry O'Quinn were mentioned ... but no Elizabeth Mitchell!
• Smallville: I love my Superman wherever I can get him.
• The Sopranos: The controversial final season netted 16 nods, more then any other series, including ones for Best Drama, James Gandolfini, Edie Falco, Michael Imperioli, Aida Turturro, Lorraine Bracco and Tim Daly.
• Ugly Betty: The most nominated comedy series with 11 nominations, including nods for Best Comedy and actors America Ferrera (yeah!), Vanessa Williams (woo-hoo!), Judith Light and Salma Hayek.

In addition to Knight, out-and-proud actors Neil Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother) and Ian McKellen (for his guest stint on Extras) were also nominated.

And there was some movie-related specials in the mix: AFI's 100 Years ... 100 Cheers: America's Most Inspiring Movies, Boffo! Tinseltown's Bombs and Blockbusters, Star Wars: The Legacy Revealed, TCM's Brando, and of course The 79th Annual Academy Awards, hosted by our gal Ellen DeGeneres, who received a nomination herself. The Golden Globes and Tony Awards were also singled out.

And by far the oddest nominee? How about Justin Timberlake and his five (!) co-composers for the song "Dick in a Box" from Saturday Night Live. Too bad they don't perform the nominated songs on the show like at the Oscars. (And no, the song title was not censored on the official nominees list, available here.)

Links via DSC.Discovery.com and Emmys.com.