Last night O and I headed off to the wilds of Hammersbush to see a double-bill of ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER (TODO SOBRE MI MADRE) and TRANSAMERICA at the Riverside Studios. I should start going more often - two films for £6.50. I would have to learn to put up with the dispiriting train journey, leaving work early, the low screen and alarming carpet!!!

Let's get one thing straight here... it's a tough call for any film to have my full and undivided after having to follow ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER, one of my favourite films... (pause for Kim Phaggs effect) of all time. I respond to this film like few others, losing myself in its vivid colours and textures, laughing with the characters and crying with them too. So many scenes leave me with tears rolling due to the extraordinary performances and emotional truth of Almodovar's storytelling. I still remember the experience of watching it on a plane - an emotional wreck with an aisle-seat. Like any great work I always find something new - a reference, a hidden connection that makes the film fresh. I really wanted O to see this but it had to be on the big screen - the film has to overwhelm you phystically to get the full effect. Once again I was struck by the thought: does anyone photograph the colour red like Almodovar? Towards the end of the film Marisa Paredes is seen on stage rehearsing the mother's speech from Lorca's "Blood Wedding" describing her son's blood seeping into the earth: likewise this film seeps into my soul.

It was a bit of a struggle to adjust to TRANSAMERICA after that.
No fault of Duncan Tucker's film it just felt like finishing off an excellent meal with an ice-lolly. The central performance of Felicity Huffman as pre-op transexual Bree could not be faulted. In her 3 quarter-length outfits in tasteful pink coral and carefully modulated voice she is all set for her gender-realignment in a week's time when she receives a call from the 17 year old son she never knew he had! After bailing her son out of jail and posing as a Christian church out-worker assigned to his case, Bree sets off to drive her son back to his step-father's home and then to get back to L.A. Bree really should get out more and see more road movies. With predictability running alongside charm and warmth, Bree realises there might have been a reason why Toby ran away in the first place and that when you absolutely need to get to the coast America is a mighty wide continent.

Huffman and Kevin Zegers made for an intriguing and excellently acted partnership - always abrasive but with growing curiosity for the other and it's grudging and wary resolution was welcome. But I second guessed the film all the way down the line and it also reminded me of the 1999 Janet McTeer film TUMBLEWEEDS, a small-budget low-key road movie of an American mother and daughter. Interesting enough both McTeer and Huffman won Best Actresses Golden Globe awards for these performances only to lose out on the later Academy Awards.