Scots Taffer on 10/12/2005 at 12:03
Listmania! This is tradition though and I do revel in it. It comes near to the close of the month and although a few good movies are waiting in the wings such King Kong, Brokeback Mountain and March of the Penguins (in the UK anyway)... You can add those in later if you feel the need, for most of us the best films of this year have come and gone.
And what a year. I must admit at first I was struggling to get a list of five movies I'd seen and an easily bigger list of those I'd missed, but it soon grew and well, grew. My top ten for '05 is:
1. Batman Begins
To crown this one top has taken a lot of time, it crept up my list and then when I bought the DVD recently it jumped to the top. It's got everything I wanted from a Batman movie: it has a backstory that (though horribly contrived) is more palatable than previous incarnations and has the plausability of including the Wayne Empire in the proceedings, it gives a richness to the Bruce Wayne transformation into Batman that was sorely missing, it has two good villains and their time onscreen is used well, particularly the Scarecrow and the nerve toxin, and on that last point, it added an almost nightmarish overlay to the whole thing, which also worked really well for me.
2. Sideways
This was top for a long time, in fact since I'd seen it at the start of the year in fact - I loved the easy music, the effortlessly funny and yet sad way that Giamatti acted the part, the comedic antics of his best friend - the rebelling groom-to-be, and the love of wine.
3. Sin City
What can I say, this film oozes style and is a dazzling visual accomplishment - true cinema. It's brutal but it's also grotesquely over the top. It's funny but it's also nasty. I really enjoyed this film, even if I didn't enjoy watching particular parts of it.
4. Hitch
A surprise for me. A real kick in the nuts. Will Smith is an average actor at best and all I think of when I combine Will Smith and comedy is the dire MIB movies (1 was bearable, but 2 was awful) and Fresh Prince of Bell Air. However this movie has the heart that I was expecting from The 40-Year Old Virgin, it has the slapstick and physical comedy that you might expect from a Farrelly Brothers movie, but it's also balanced out with those sort of wry and oh-so-cliched-because-its-oh-so-true observations about couples and people in general. I really laughed my ass off at this and have done the two times I've watched it since - can't give a better endorsement than that for a comedy.
5. The Descent
The horror genre stopped spinning in its grave between remakes of Dark Water and poor attempts like The Skeleton Key to produce this nice little atmospheric horror. It gives way in the end to a bloodbath of hilarity but it's knowingly doing so and taking you for a ride during the last 30 minutes of blood-drenched adrenaline - until then though, it's a lovely little tension builder. From the opening shocker on the road til the jumpy-bit in the jeep at the end, this movie produced enough solid jumps and unsettling scenes to merit a place on the list. I'll have to give Dog Soldiers a look.
The remaining five I'll just rhyme off because I really enjoyed them but they weren't anything spectacular:
6. Sahara
7. Star Wars Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
8. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
9. Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
10. The Island
Other movies I saw which were really disappointing:
Robots - a kids movie, but one with no redeeming features for adults who choose to watch it - a far cry from The Incredibles for example. Let's wait on Cars.
40-Year Old Virgin - this movie got a lot of raves on this board, I thought it was merely watchable. It had some good points (the waxing, the wacky end credits, the pussy on a pedestal bits) but it also had some boring bits (some stuff in his house and at work and with the girlfriend) which for me is the kiss of death to a comedy.
War of the Worlds - this was just a patchy movie. The first forty or so minutes are like a true masterpiece in tension, much better than anything you could hope for in an Alien Invasion type film - then the movie disintegrates into sillyness (son running into the explosion), cliches (as LMF said, I think, Hi Friend! NO! WAIT FRIEND! NOOOO!) and downright wtf-ness (the basement scene with Robbins and cutesy aliens and the general mechanics of these advanced machines).
There's also a shitload of movies that I've missed:
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (might see this yet!)
Steamboy
Serenity
Downfall
The Assassination of Richard Nixon
Mr and Mrs Smith
Million Dollar Baby
Hotel Rwanda
Madagascar
Oliver Twist
Crash
There are also the usual few movies that don't qualify as 05 released but I saw this year:
Strings
Before Sunset and Before Sunrise
Napoleon Dynamite
Kinsey
Closer
I'm sure I'll remember more as others post, of course.
henke on 10/12/2005 at 12:20
I really like Batman Begins first time I saw it, second time I watched it I had a hangover and kept loling at Batmans silly voice and how they kept repeating sentences through the whole thing. Especially when he goes "It's not who I am underneath, but what I
doooo that defines me". LOL BIG TIME
Yeah, I dunno. It was good tho.
Quote Posted by Scots_Taffer
Robots - a kids movie, but one with no redeeming features for adults who choose to watch it
Yeah it has. "Underground" by Tom Waits is used really well in the Evil Robot Factory scene. Other than that, it was meh.
And I didn't like Sideways.
The Devils Rejects, H2G2 and Madagascar were alright.
"Sin City" is my fave movie of the year, probablly. Wasn't really paying attention to movies this year.
lol Spitter I stole'd first reply with this mess of a post
Spitter on 10/12/2005 at 12:20
I've only seen a few movies this year.
* War of the Worlds - I have a thing for huge tripods crushing everything in their path. I really liked this movie. Even Tom Cruise was surprisingly good in it. There are some flaws, of course (how about staying in the basement for another thirty minutes), but overall, hell, it has tripods. And they shoot things.
* Sin City - It was a good movie. Not a great one, and I feel it's definitely overhyped. The middle part (with Clive Owen and Benicio del Toro) was particularly dragging.
* Episode III - Well, best of the three at least. Some good scenes, some horrible acting.
* Constantine - Okay, this is really here just to get more items to the list. A mediocre film. Could have been awesome had they cast someone else in the leading role than fucking Keanu Reeves.
[small]Goddamn henke stealing my first reply![/small]
Oli G on 10/12/2005 at 13:03
Remembering what I've seen this year is always more difficult than it ought to be...
Sideways wins overall. It's the first comedy made in the last few years which has actually been funny. And it wasn't just slightly funny but hilarious. There should be more films like it.
Downfall comes a close second, which is a hell of achievement given that I find few things as boring to watch on the screen as Hitler and the Second World War. Great acting, very professionally made and managing somehow to retain a frightening level of authenticity without resorting to becoming a history lecture or a two-and-a-half-hour cliché. It's only fault was being overlong, but given the quality I can overlook that.
Pride and Prejudice, dare I say it, comes in third. Nice performances - Keira Knightley didn't irritate me for once - and a tight script which nicely trimmed the fat of the novel. I haven't seen the BBC adaptation to compare it with, but given the tendency of costume dramas from the beeb to over-indulge (ie drag out plots unnecessarily), the book probably benefited from the two-hour big screen treatment. Donald Sutherland as Mr Bennet was a class act, and if it wasn't for Giamatti in Sideways he'd have been the performance of the year. Still, a close second isn't bad. Oddly enough the one flaw was Knightley looking too attractive. Contradiction in terms perhaps, but I don't know how the audience is supposed to keep a straight face when she gets described as 'tolerable'.
The Constant Gardener probably comes in at fourth. Good film, just overlong. My tolerance was probably a bit higher than most given that I've been to almost all the Kenyan locations used in the film (hell, even the place supposedly set in the Sudan I'd been to), so watching it for the sake of recognition was a real pleasure. Without that I'd probably have gotten bored though. The second half of the film does drag, and the story isn't le Carré at his finest by any means. Ralph Fiennes is on fine form as ever, but the plot simply lacked pace. The political message of the film irritated me as well - it seemed as though Meirelles didn't know whether he wanted to make a thriller or a charitable campaign movie. The result is a very worthy but rather directionless compromise. No doubt Bono and Bob Geldof would love it. As for myself, I can't help feeling slightly cynical about the film jumping onto this year's aid to Africa bandwagon. I don't generally like politics in films and although the message was there, at the end of the day it was being used to line the pockets of the people who made the film. I expected better from the man behind City of God.
Oliver Twist was generally a good film, but to be honest it didn't do anything Dickens adaptations haven't done before and better. Polanski wisely kept Oliver silent throughout most of the film so the power dynamics came across well. The sets did look at times as though they were trying to emulate other Dickens adaptations as opposed to Victorian London, but even so the film produced some memorable images. Oliver being led between the enormous silhouetted forms of Sykes and his mate in a foggy alleway at night comes to mind. The script was tight and did well to leave out most of the novel's subplots. So overall a good film, even if it did cock up the best piece of dialogue from the book. When Fagin tells Sykes "You won't be - too - violent, Bill?" he's telling him to murder Nancy, not telling him not to as Ben Kingsley seems to have thought. Oh well, Kingsley was generally brilliant as Fagin, even if the character really stood to be made a lot darker.
Other films which I can remember seeing this year are Wallace and Grommit and War of the Worlds which were mildly amusing in their own way but not nearly as good as they should have been. Anything else - well, it wasn't even worth remembering.
Ulukai on 10/12/2005 at 13:10
I've only seen 6 movies this year. I can categorise those as follows:
Enjoyable - Million Dollar Baby*, Serenity, Batman Begins, Hitch
Meh - Mr & Mrs Smith.
Total Arse - War of the Worlds.
War of the worlds was easily one of the most dissapointing things I've ever seen.
* I'm sure I saw this in Jan/Feb, even though it came out in 2004
David on 10/12/2005 at 13:18
Sin City - Holy Crap
Kung Fu Hustle - A Kung Fu comedy with choreography by the guy who did it for The Matrix. Marvellous
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - I'm still singing Oompa Loompa songs, but that's probably because I watched it a couple of weeks ago.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - I loved it. Shut up >:|
Batman Begins
Saw 2 - More of the same, cool twist at the end. Yay!
Morte on 10/12/2005 at 15:28
The Good:
Sin City - Because sometimes manly men grimly narrating the gross physical punishment they inflict on other men is just what the doctor order. Especially when it's as stylish as this.
Kung-Fu Hustle - It's just infectiously good fun. If it doesn't make you grin from ear to ear, there's most likely something seriousl wrong with you.
Serenity - Has everything the abominable RotS lacked: Humour, characters worth caring about and dramatic tension. A rollercoaster ride from start to finish, and a most worthy sendoff for Firefly.
Batman Begins - Now this is how superhero movies should be done. The ending's a bit lackluster and the fights suffer from too many edits, but that aside I can't imagine how a serious take on men dressing up to fight a crime can get much better.
The 40-Year Old Virgin - Absolutely hilarious, and it managed to be so without resorting to cruel mockery of its protagonist, wich is even more impressive. And really, anything that contains the dating advice 'Be like David Caruso in Jade' is brilliant by default.
Save the Green Planet! - Definitely the oddest movie I've seen all year. It's more or less Misery from the mad woman's perspective, if she were a young Korean man who kidnapped people who may or may not be Andromedans come to destroy the earth. It mixes hideous torture with absurd comedy and social commentary, and it pulls of the wild mood swings brilliantly.
Lord of War - Darkly funny and extremely cynical take on the arms industry, that I find incredibly hard to describe, and I can't put my finger on why. Still, very enjoyable.
A History of Violence - The ending's too conventional for my tastes, it'd been more compelling if they'd left the question of his identity open, but it's superbly acted by Mortensen throughout. And Cronenberg manages to make things that could've been straightforwardly done uncomfortable and unnerving.
The ok-ish
Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang - It's funny as hell at times, but the wink-wink, nudge-nudge narration is fucking annoying. Thankfully, it's mostly contained to the opening, otherwise it could've completely sunk the movie. It'd been far better to play it deadpan.
Howl's Moving Castle - It's got some spectacular scenes and the usual Miyazaki charm, but the narrative's too disjointed for it to work as a whole. Disappointing for the followup to Spirited Away.
The Constant Gardener - It's too subdued to be much of a thriller, and despite some brilliant acting it doesn't quite work as a character piece either, since the flashy camerawork keeps getting in the way. It does provide a terriffic sense of location though. And that good old 'Rrarrrr! Outrage!' feeling.
The Crap
Revenge of the Sith - Fuck of George Lucas. Just fuck off.
Be Cool - 'Hurrr, I bet if we fill our movie with popculture references, they won't notice there's absolutely nothing else there.'
Constantine - Way to rape a character, you fucks. Also, learn what internal logic means, and why it's important not to pull random shit out of nowhere.
Blade Trinity - Definite proof that David S. Goyer should never be allowed to direct anything again.
Moves I loved that can also be considered 2004 releases
Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence - Pretentious arthouse wankery? Sure, but I'll happily watch Oshii's existential angst and musings any day of the week, because he makes movies that are so incredibly miserable and gorgeous.
House of Flying Daggers - What can I say? I just love this shit.
2046 - Not as good as In The Mood For Love, but this tale of people failing at love was still pretty damn good.
Movies I really want to see but won't get a chance to until next year.
3-Iron
Syriana
Good Night, and Good Luck
oudeis on 10/12/2005 at 16:21
in crafting my reply on this topic, l came to realize l couldn't really remember all the movies l saw this year. l went (
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?page=1&view=releasedate&view2=domestic&yr=2005&p=.htm) here for a list of all the movies released this year and l realized it was because l hadn't actually
seen that many movies this year. l watched the trailers on the web, looked up the reviews on rottentomatoes when they came out, and decided to give most of them a pass. reading through the list l remembered why- most of them were absolute shit. 'goblet of fire' was good but l liked 'azkaban' better. 'batman begins' was excellent, but the origin was a little to ninja-y and bale's batman voice should have been fx'd. l was surprised how much l liked 'constantine', but then l've never read any of the comic books. l feel kind of guilty for not going to see 'cinderella man' and 'the constant gardner', because we see few enough movies like that as it is without people like me ignoring them.
hmmm... looking at the list again l think we should have a thread about movies that should never have been made.
talk about a self-fuelling fire...
EDIT- :thumb: to morte for your post, especially the serenity/sith comparison. still liked constantine, though.
Jackablade on 10/12/2005 at 20:31
We Love Kata... wait a sec
Scots Taffer on 11/12/2005 at 00:26
Quote Posted by Morte
The Good:Lord of War - Darkly funny and extremely cynical take on the arms industry, that I find incredibly hard to describe, and I can't put my finger on why. Still, very enjoyable.
A History of Violence - The ending's too conventional for my tastes, it'd been more compelling if they'd left the question of his identity open, but it's superbly acted by Mortensen throughout. And Cronenberg manages to make things that could've been straightforwardly done uncomfortable and unnerving.
The CrapBe Cool - 'Hurrr, I bet if we fill our movie with popculture references, they won't notice there's absolutely nothing else there.'
Constantine - Way to rape a character, you fucks. Also, learn what internal logic means, and why it's important not to pull random shit out of nowhere.
Totally agreed on both counts there. I want to see Lord of War because I thought it looked like an interesting take on the arms industry. A History of Violence was great but it felt the middle, end and start were all mixed up.
Be Cool I couldn't finish and Constantine was terrible, doubly so because I actually remember the graphical novels. :(
