One for the Money, Two for the Show - My Favorite Xmas Film, and the Absolute Worst

I’d like to share, all wrapped in a bow, the Christmas movie that touched me like few others: Tangerine.

Then, in the second half of my story, reluctantly, I’ll tell you why I think Paul Thomas Anderson’s Best Picture campaign for One Battle After Another is a disgrace.

Okay, onto the good part!

In 2015, Sean Baker made a movie called Tangerine (with nothing more than 3 iPhone cameras) in the Fairfax neighborhood around Hollywood High school; a neighborhood I know well!

It’s a story about a fraught Christmas Eve: Two sex workers who are best friends, a broken engagement, and their lives on a trannie stroll. It’s also about an Armenian cab driver, a secret lover and his family. Plus, a Cambodian all-night donut shop, and, not the least, getting high in the bathroom with your nemesis.

You don’t have to know or care about any of those things— Tangerine is full of soul, and knowing laughter, and cathartic when you least expect it.

It also stars James Ransone, 46, who sadly died this Christm…