Inner Man-Child Conflict

It's another week at Albany's independent film house, the Spectrum. I tried staying away to save money but films are a very powerful drug. Inside is a double feature - first up, Expat, Woody Allen's 'Match Point' followed by Dunken Tucker's 'TransAmerica'.

In 'Match Point' actor Jonathon Rhys-Myers plays the lead - a washed-up tennis pro turned unscrupulous schemer when passion and greed come courting. His creepy sweetness and flirtatious good looks are tip-offs that he's capable of devious and dark things - even if the audience knows it before he does. Vanity Fair centerfold Scarlett Johansen plays the femme-fatale who's resists his advances just long enough to be admired for her strenth and confidence. Then due to unlucky circumstances she finds herself back in London in love with the opportunist.

Cocky Rhys-Myers, having scored a rich wife, a great job, a new London apartment, juggles an affair with Johansen a second time. But then the haunting operatic score begins and you know something Alfred Hitchcock is about to happen. Might it be pregnant Johansen or maybe the innocent wife (Emily Mortimer) who gets axed? It's a great thriller and my suburban soul-sister Denise and I were on the edge of our seat until the very last ball drops - literally.

So too, are the characters in the movie "TransAmerica" having identity-crises but I'll save that for the critics at Rottentomatoes to make sense of.

I end with this: "The man who said I'd rather be lucky than good, saw deeply into life. People are afraid to face how great a part of life is dependent on luck. It's scary to think so much is out of one's control. There are moments in a match when the ball hits the top of the net, and for a split second, it can either go forward or fall back. With a little luck it goes forward, and you win. Or maybe it doesn't, and you lose."