My Brother’s Best Films of 2005While compiling my list, it was clear that I had far more than 10, perhaps more than 20 films I wanted to mention. That means that cinema isn’t quite dead. However, I think a little perspective might be in order with all these assessments of the “year’s best films.” I doubt that many (if any) of them are genuine masterpieces that will transcend time and leave an indelible mark on audiences five, 10, 20, maybe even 50 or 100 years from now. Most films don’t have to bear the weight of history and can just be consumed as disposable entertainments. But there is cinema that exists possessing the power to embalm time, transcend it, and illuminate some deeper truth about the world. Ultimately, cinema at its best represents a mystical, communal experience: we share a few hours in the dark with a group of strangers to watch primal, poetic images that create profound emotional experiences. Afterwards, we gain clarity and truth when it was obscured or obfuscated before – reclaim our humanity when we thought that we were jaded beyond feeling – find beauty and mystery in places we didn’t think it possible. If we’re lucky, cinema like any great art form doesn’t pander to our baser needs, but instead gives us what we didn’t realize we wanted – but couldn’t possibly live without now.
A few times this past year, I experienced that kind of cinema at rep houses and on DVD. Screenings of Hitchcock’s Vertigo, Bertolucci’s The Conformist, Leone’s Once Upon A Time in the West, and Bresson’s Mouchette at theaters like the American Cinematheque, Film Forum, and Walter Reade – along with home viewings of Kobayashi’s Samurai Rebellion, Antonioni’s L’Eclisse, Visconti’s White Nights, and Olmi’s Il Posto which is like an Italian neorealist version of Office Space (mentioned in an interview with Jack Nicholson about his fave films in EW – Jack’s got good taste!) pretty much put all the new releases of 2005 to shame. I urge all of you to rent them when you feel the need to see something great and run out of DVD ideas. Only time and repeat viewings will tell if any of the films on this list will make the cut.
That said, here is my highly subjective, personal, unabashedly biased, irrational list of the “best” of 2005:
The closest thing to perfect cinema this year was Wong Kar Wai’s section of the omnibus film Eros. While many WKW fans expressed disappointment in 2046 for being unfocused despite its formal beauty – I doubt any one could deny the brilliance of this 40 minute short which distilled the essence of erotic longing at the heart of WKW’s work & also demonstrated WKW, his long time cinematographer Chris Doyle, and editor/production designer William Chang Suk-Ping all working at the top of their powers. In the past, one could possibly argue that WKW’s “genius” was accidental because there was an inchoate, aleotory quality about his work. This time, however, there’s such precision, economy, and focus that it’s clear that WKW knows exactly what he’s doing & does it with unsurpassed lyricism. Both the ever-gorgeous Gong Li as the courtesan who projects willful, imperious carnality at first, but ultimately reveals desperation and pathos and Chang Chen as her callow who is forever transformed by his obsession shine in their roles. I went to see this four times in the theater (leaving right after the WKW segment ended) because I couldn’t shake the haunted, enraptured feeling that lingers in every frame. Eros will be available on DVD in a month or so. Skip the Soderbergh and Antonioni segments, but by all means don’t miss the WKW segment.
2. The Best of Youth – Marco Tullio Giordana
I spent six hours in the theater watching both parts of Best of Youth (shown in two three hour segments), and I honestly wished that I could have stayed longer. This humanist epic covering four decades of Italian history through the eyes of two brothers Matteo and Luigi was originally commissioned for Italian television – rejected by the network – submitted to the Cannes film festival where it received wide acclaim – shown on Italian tv where it became an overnight national sensation – and then shown briefly in theaters last spring where a lucky few experienced the richest, most rewarding narrative experience to be had in a movie theater in 2005. The Best of Youth might remind of you of a great 19th century novel where characters and storylines from the beginning of the film return in the final hour to deliver surprising and satisfying twists in the story. It has the sprawling, operatic feel of Visconti or Coppola and the intimate, humanistic warmth of DeSica – but most impressively, you grow to love and care for the characters as if they were your own family members. Despite the project’s origins in tv, there’s absolutely nothing small about it – this is an expansive, generous work. There isn’t a false note by the superb ensemble cast. Ultimately, the film is about youth, idealism, and romanticism – a lyrical ode to that “best” period of our lives – which the rest of our lives rarely match up to. There are so many gorgeous, perfectly observed moments in the film – but the one that perhaps defines the film is the mostly wordless scene when the beautiful mental patient Giorgia and the volatile, passionate Matteo (who has taken her away from the abusive institution where she’s been kept) share a moment in a cafe with a jukebox playing the Italian pop hit “A Chi.” For a few precious seconds – youth, beauty, and idealism swirl around impossibly in the beautiful actress Jasmine Trinca’s haunted eyes while Fausto Leali’s croons away on the soundtrack. When it finally gets a proper US DVD release – I urge you to watch all 6 hours.
3. Match Point – Woody Allen
As someone who always found Woody Allen a tad overrated as a “serious” director and who pretty much hated everything the Woodman has done for the past 10 years – I was downright shocked to discover that Woody’s latest effort was the most satisfying new American film of 2005. Ironically, this marked Woody’s first film in London with a mostly British cast. Going British has been reinvigorating for Woody – it’s allowed to him to shake off his annoying neuroses/pretenses and completely re-invent his aesthetic. You may have heard that the film revisits the same thematic territory as Crimes and Misdemeanors – but Match Point is a superior effort in every way. Woody’s filmmaking has never been this elegant, economical, and precise. Sure there’s a narrative/thematic debt to both Dostoevsky and Dreiser, but Woody synthesizes his influences and executes in a thoroughly original manner. For once, I didn’t feel the shadow of Bergman, Godard, Cassavetes, or Fellini hanging over Woody’s directorial conceits & he wasn’t just resting on the visual flourishes of his esteemed cinematographers like Sven Nykist, Gordon Willis, or Carlo Di Palma. Instead, Match Point contains strong visual ideas executed with cinematic grace. The film opens with the elegantly evocative image of a tennis ball hitting the top of the net to illustrate the theme of chance and luck. Later in the film, Allen provocatively counterpoints it with a chilling, equally elegant image of a ring flying in the air and then barely nicking the top of a fence. Jonathan Rhys-Meyers is excellent as a handsome, morally compromised social climber who becomes inexorably drawn to Scarlett Johansson. Some have complained about Johansson’s occasionally flat monotone performance – but I would argue that she manages to add some genuine sexiness and heat to the scenes with Rhys-Meyers. The rest of the ensemble cast is uniformly first rate, especially Emily Mortimer as Rhys-Meyers’ overlooked wife – imbuing her role with subtle pathos in what could have been a thankless role. Woody executes the narrative momentum of the story perfectly so that his protagonist’s moral choices (or lack of them) drive the film forward – and we the audience are made complicit to his crimes.
4. The New World – Terrence Malick/ Revenge of the Sith – George Lucas
This may seem like an odd pairing, and my choice of the last Star Wars film on my “best 10 list” is bound to raise hackles among film snobs and even geeks who still hold residual anger at Lucas for fucking up the first two prequels. But in my view, both of these films represent rare specimens of pure epic cinema. One is a purely organic, lyrical tone poem by one of cinema’s remaining visionaries. The other is a digitally rendered fantasy epic that reaches Wagnerian heights by one of the pioneers of purely digital filmmaking. There isn’t a single shot in Revenge of the Sith that doesn’t hinge on cgi or digital filmmaking. Meanwhile,The New World was shot completely with available light on location with period style sets and costumes. Yet both films were visually staggering experiences and provided old fashioned epic movie pleasures that are in short supply these days.
From its astonishing opening scenes to its elegiac closing shots, The New World held me in a trance. In shot after shot, Malick washes the screen with scenes of ravishing, jaw-dropping natural beauty. Imagine sharing your senses with a consummate artist reflecting back on a historical moment with fresh eyes. The film combines two strong emotions of equal purity and power: the feeling of discovery when confronted with raw, natural beauty of the earth and the overwhelming romanticism of first love. Most importantly, the film is anchored by the presence of newcomer Q’Orianka Kilcher (only 14 while the film was shot) playing Pocahontas (though she’s never named in the film). Not only does Kilcher look like she stepped out of a Gaughin painting, she is one of the most authentic screen presences in many a moon. She animates every scene with a genuine sense of wonder, playfulness, and guilelessness. Her “spirit” (there isn’t really any other word for it) makes the more tragic turns of the story all the more heartbreaking. Reportedly, Malick shot over a million feet of footage, and the film was edited over a year by a team of four editors. This over-indulgence shows in some of the repetitive footage of Pocahontas and John Smith frolicking – though it’s hard to complain when every image shimmers with such numinous grace. However, the emotional core of the film never strays beyond basic human feeling because of Kilcher’s warmth and the fine supporting work by the men who become entranced with her: Colin Farrell (well-cast for once) as Captain John Smith who first encounters the Powahtan princess at Jamestown and Christian Bale as John Rolfe, the tobacco farmer who eventually marries her. One last note: I saw the longer cut of the film twice, and then also saw the shorter, re-edited version recently. The narrative has been clarified, streamlined, and the focus of the film has been shifted more to the perspective of Pocahontas. Sadly, I don’t think the film is any more appealing to mainstream audiences with no patience for poetry: the last audience I saw it with seemed to hate it. But no matter, I’m grateful that Malick is still making films that get shown on a big screen. We need his epic visions to feed our dreams.
The most remarkable thing about Revenge of the Sith is how both the detractors who point out the film’s many flaws and the rare few who hail it as one of the best Star Wars films are dead right in their assessments. And in the end, I’m willing to fight people on this point – the movie works triumphantly as a piece of great cinema. Just to make it clear, I am not an apologist for the other prequels. I was just as shocked as any one else at the significant difference in quality of Sith and the other prequels. I even went back to look at Episodes I & II to see if maybe I missed something – and I didn’t – they sucked even worse than I remembered. However, Sith holds up gloriously, and I’d even argue it’s getting shortchanged in its estimation as a film. I saw it four times at the Arclight – three times digitally projected in the Dome & no other film made use of the virtues of the big screen experience like Sith. Yes, the movie contains the infamously cheesy words “hold me like you did by the lake at Naboo” – but it also has the terrific line “this is how liberty ends…with thunderous applause.” Haters harp on Lucas’ tin ear for dialogue, but actually the script for Sith isn’t bad & actually executes the storytelling fairly skillfully. Yes, Hayden Christiansen is still a poor actor. But Ian McDiarmid is so fabulous as the Emperor when he’s seducing Anakin to the dark side that it doesn’t matter. Yes, Darth Vader screams out “Noooooooo!” in that cheesy B movie howl at the end. But it doesn’t ruin the perfect ending when Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru hold the baby Luke while watching the double sunset on Tatooine that ties the film back to Episode 4. Yes, I’m a giant nerd after all.
But most of all, the movie delivers the big moments, and Lucas’s directorial acumen is a large part of what carries the day. As much as Terrence Malick, George Lucas is a visionary filmmaker – his visions happen to be more fantastic and surreal. And he employs digital technology to artificially paint his hallucinatory visions with pixels. However, the resulting images and sounds are no less staggering than Malick’s. There are so many breathtaking images burned into my brain from Sith, but I’ll pick someof my favorite moments: Obi-Won riding a giant iguana while chasing General Grievous – an iconic image of hallucinatory imaginative force; Anakin brooding over a balcony on Mustafa after slaughtering all the Separatists while the infernal red of the lava hangs over him and he lets a single tear betray his own recognition that he’s lost his soul – with John Williams’ magnificent score hitting a high note in the background. A female Jedi being gunned down by the clones, as the camera pulls up to cover her corpse with a giant leaf. Yoda and the Emperor engaged in an intense light saber duel, as they rise in the middle of the Galactic Senate- followed by the Emperor throwing seats of the Senate at Yoda – literally dismantling the building blocks of democracy and hurling them as weapons. Finally, Anakin’s mangled body burning up in molten lava as he hisses maledictions at Obi-Won in their final exchange before they meet again in Episode 4. The poetic clarity of the images, the nimbly executed kinetic action sequences, the dynamic blocking of the actors, the muscular cross-cutting of different storylines, and the imaginative use of sound (Lucas is the best director aside from David Lynch in using sound beyond its functional capabilities – not just the amazing sound fx that Ben Burtt created, but also in the way the sound of a dying Tuscan raider echoes faintly on the soundtrack when Palpatine brings the memory of Anakin’s mother’s death and his subsequent genocidal rage against the Tuscan raiders) all come together for a piece of pure cinema that validates the digital technology for once.
5. Munich/War of the Worlds – Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg continues to amaze, not just with his prolific output and range of genres and material – but with his increasing unwillingness to play it safe – when he really has to nothing left to prove in his career. These were the two darkest films of Spielberg’s career – appropriate for our, unfortunately, dark times. Together, they create a poetic (in some cases nightmarish) meditation on America post 9/11. They would be dark films from any one, but from the sunniest, most optimistic of Hollywood directors – it’s downright shocking. At this point, not even his many detractors can dispute Spielberg’s claim as the master of pure kinetic cinema. (It’s rumored that he helped direct two of the best sequences in Sith – the General Grievous battle with Obi Won and Yoda’s battle with the Emperor). But that was established long ago at the beginning of his career with films such as Duel, Jaws, and Raiders of the Lost Ark. What’s new is an increasing political and moral sophistication. Usually with “serious” Spielberg, there is some major compromise, especially at the end. WOTW is somewhat guilty of this by bringing back the hateful son character at the very end, when he should have died for sins like we all thought. Plus, the ending is disappointingly anticlimactic (even if it’s faithful to HG Wells’ novel) compared to the intensity of the first half of the movie. However, the opening sequences of the film are some of the most harrowing in cinematic history. Spielberg daringly evokes 9/11 terror and then unleashes shock and awe upon the American public – putting us the in position of the Iraqis when the war began. Many critics pointed out logical inconsistencies and narrative holes, but they missed the larger point. This is a sustained apocalyptic nightmare closer to Godard’s Weekend than to a typical summer popcorn movie like ID4.
Munich has gotten a lot of press (much of it from pundits who hadn’t seen the film) for its loaded political content. I’ve heard some people complain that they’re not necessarily interested in the Middle East conflict, so they have no real interest in the film. But I would argue that the film is really about America and its global role post 9/11. Spielberg makes that fact clear by opening the film with a shot of drunken American athletes unwittingly aiding the Black September terrorists over a fence into the Olympic Garden & ending with a wide shot from Brooklyn revealing the Twin Towers of the WTC. However, I am judging primarily for its cinematic excellence. It’s a shame that Tony Kushner’s unusually rich and intelligent screenplay, and Eric Bana’s superbly understated (and entirely convincing) performance as a conflicted Mossad agent are being largely overlooked. And of course, the protean Spielberg whose adroit handling of the film’s many action-oriented sequences is as masterful as ever without being showy. Ultimately, what’s most astonishing about Munich is how morally sophisticated and uncompromising it is. There are no cheap, last-minute disclaimers or manipulative ploys (like the German POW freed in the middle of Private Ryan who returns to shoot Tom Hanks at the end). Instead, this is exceptionally tough minded film. Its moral sophistication is not to be confused with moral equivalence (as many detractors have complained) or even moral superiority. What’s unsettling and difficult for so many viewers is that Spielberg and Kushner are essentially forcing the audience to work out the issues on their own – but also putting forth their own strong moral beliefs. (If anything, Spielberg makes it clear how horrific any kind of killing is – the violence in Munich left me feeling more upset and shattered than I’d ever experienced a Hollywood film. And the murder of the Israeli athletes is rendered so nightmarishly, that’s there’s no doubt that Spielberg is unequivocally condemning the acts of the terrorists). You leave feeling very unresolved – but then again, how could you be satisfied when the real world lacks resolution about these very difficult issues. Instead, the film’s moral arguments operate a dialogic manner (ala Mikhail Bakhtin) where several voices are expressed (but not all voices are necessarily considered “equal”) and agreeing with the filmmakers is not necessary for the film to work.
6.A History of Violence – David Cronenberg
There isn’t an ounce of fat in this crackerjack genre film from Cronenberg who specializes in subversive disordering of reality/identity. Cronenberg makes certain that every scene serves a specific narrative/thematic function and executes the material with admiral economy and wit. The near Capra-esque wholesome artifice created at the beginning of the film to express All-American comfort is rudely punctured by some of the nastiest bits of ultra-violence this side of Takashi Miike. While I think Cronenberg’s nimble direction and the stellar cast (Maria Bello navigating some complex emotional waters and executing the year’s most memorable and meaningful sex scenes, Ed Harris providing a brief, but vivid portrait of ruthless evil, William Hurt delighting in an extended cameo as a rotten to the core mob boss, and Viggo Mortensen providing the film’s contradictory moral center – a loving family man who also happens to be a vicious, natural born killer) deserve all of the accolades they’ve been getting, I also think critics have been providing some unfair weight to the film by insisting that it’s some deep investigation of violence or American morality. In reality, this is simply a brilliantly executed genre piece. I don’t see anything wrong with that or see why one would need to justify the film’s importance beyond a job well done.
7. Kung Fu Hustle – Stephen Chow
This is a marvelously anarchic mixture of cartoon slapstick, gangster/martial arts conventions, Asian goofiness, and pure visual invention. I don’t place much stock on Roger Ebert’s opinion these days, but he did aptly describe this film as “Tarantino meets Bugs Bunny”- though Yuen Woo Ping would have been a more accurate choice than Tarantino. Stephen Chow is not only an appealingly self-deprecating screen presence, but he’s become one of the most inspired visual imaginations working today. His wild blend of equal parts violence and comedy reminds me of Sam Raimi during his Evil Dead 2 days. Even Terry Gilliam has professed admiration for Chow’s visual wit and storytelling skills. Chow employs cgi fx with tremendously witty élan – embracing the inherently unreal, plastic quality of computerized graphics to execute brilliantly cartoonish visual conceits. Underneath the unabashed clowning and pratfalls, there’s a refreshingly non-cynical sensibility at work. Chow never lets the virtuosic set pieces overshadow the basic human values of his story.
8. No Direction Home – Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese’s Bob Dylan documentary is an interrogation of the creative genius of one great artist by another. Scorsese didn’t actually shoot any new material for this film, but instead did a masterful job of assembling archival footage with amazingly straightforward interviews by the man himself in unironic confessional mode. I was riveted throughout – amazed both by Dylan’s precocious talent and the way his artistic coming age coincided with such pivotal social upheaval. Just as remarkable was seeing how unsympathetic audiences were to Dylan’s desire to follow his own muse and not conform to their preconceptions. One senses that Scorsese feels a kinship with Dylan in this respect. And then there’s the amazing music which Dylan wrote with seemingly effortless poetic skill. Scorsese has made a number of fine documentaries of late (check out his docs on American and Italian cinema) – far superior to his recent fictional output. I hope he gets back to the personal, passionate filmmaking that defined him in his early career instead of trying to be Mr. Hollywood Professional as if he was Howard Hawks or Victor Fleming.
9. Grizzly Man – Werner Herzog
This amazing documentary is a strange, tragic, oddly humorous, and thoroughly compelling portrait of madness, loneliness, and the nature of Mother Nature. German weirdo Herzog found a goldmine of found footage in the tapes made by amateur naturalist/failed actor Timothy Treadwell. Treadwell convinced himself that he was “saving” the foxes and grizzlies by living among them for almost 13 years in the Alaskan wild – before being eaten (along with his then gf) by a grizzly who didn’t get the memo that Treadwell was saving him. The actual footage of the foxes and bears is rather astonishing since no sane person would ever dare to get that close to them. Equally fascinating is the footage of Treadwell addressing the camera as if he was starring in his own twisted version of Doctor Doolittle. You’ve also never seen anything like the scene where he screams at the sky and implores God to make it rain so that the grizzlies can eat salmon. And then, somewhat amazingly – it begins to rain. There’s a chilling moment where we see Herzog listen to the awful footage where Treadwell is eaten (though we never hear the sounds) while sitting next to one of Treadwell’s ex-gfs. Afterwards, he tells her to destroy the tapes immediately. But my favorite aspect is hearing Herzog contradict Treadwell’s overly optimistic view of nature on the soundtrack. There are some unintended moments of hilarity when Herzog declares that instead of harmony and beauty in nature, he only sees chaos and destruction. And instead of seeing any sense of deep connection with Treadwell in the bears’ eyes – Herzog only sees the bored indifference of an animal hungry for food.
10. Café Lumiere/ the 1966 section of Three Times – Hou Hsiao Hsien
Taiwanese master filmmaker Hou Hsiao Hsien enjoys enormous esteem in the international film community, particularly among cineastes. Yet almost none of his films get actual distribution in the US. I’ve managed to see all of them at film festivals and retrospectives. Fortunately, almost all of them are available on DVD. His style which favors long, uninterrupted takes with almost nothing going on can be difficult and trying on the patience at times. But his films are also astonishingly beautiful, meditative, and subtle. Furthermore, no other filmmaker captures the rhythms of Asian life in such an original fashion. Hou was commissioned to make a film in Japan in an intentional homage to legendary director Yasujiro Ozu – to whom Hou has often been compared. In a documentary on the DVD, Hou expresses reservations about working a foreign country and investigating a culture outside his own. However, I think most would agree how uncannily he captures the spirit of Ozu while maintaining his signature style in Café Lumiere. Hou’s film covers Ozu’s signature themes of family and generational conflict – while also conveying his own obsessions regarding national/cultural identity and his peculiar love of trains. Hou’s latest film, 3 Times covers a love story seen at three different times in history. However, only the 1966 sequence really affected me. It’s a gorgeous piece of romantic nostalgia set amongst pool halls in 60s Taiwan while “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” plays on the soundtrack. The piece is reminiscent of early Wong Kar Wai, perfectly acted by the fetching couple Chang Chen and Qi Shu.
11.Wallace & Gromit & the Curse of the Were-Rabbit – Nick Park
The year’s most charming film could easily be much higher up on my list. In fact, it’s only here at #11 because I forgot to insert it earlier. Nick Park’s Aardman Studio lovingly handcrafted the stop-motion claymation over a period of five years – and it was worth every minute. There’s not a wasted detail and loads of both verbal and visual wit. The story revolving Wallace and Gromit’s efforts to stop a creature that is terrorizing the local vegetables is full of satisfying twists and turns. And the final chase sequence is a masterpiece of kinetic filmmaking, deft physical comedy, and pure charm.
There’s almost too much to talk about with these films, so I’ll say a few things – if you’re still reading.
12. Last Days – Gus Van Sant
Van Sant has reinvented himself post-Good Will Hunting as one of the most idiosyncratic film artists at work today. His recent work has experimented with extremely long, uninterrupted takes – shifts in perspective that cover the same events from different povs – and an uncanny, subjective sense of enclosed space that’s inspired by the work of Kubrick, Bela Tarr, and Chantal Akerman. This time he’s made an extremely subjective take on the “last days” of Blake – a rock artist clearly inspired by Kurt Cobain. This is a film with almost no meaningful dialogue. Instead, we follow Blake as he engages in mostly mundane activity, but struggles to keep a hold on his sanity and deal with crushing loneliness. Van Sant takes us inside Blake’s head filling the soundtrack with ambient noise while Blake mumbles almost unintelligibly and wanders around his dilapidated mansion where his would be friends are leeching off of him. With its long stretches of silence and non-activity, Last Days can be a trying film at times. Ultimately, however, the film accumulates a lot of emotional impact if you’re willing to invest the time and follow the flow. Kurt Cobain was reportedly an admirer of My Own Private Idaho, and though nobody could know for sure – I get the feeling that Kurt would have approved of this extremely subjective take on his last moments on earth.
13. Tony Takitani – Jun Ichikawa
Haruki Murakami is arguably the greatest living novelist in the world (or at least he’s my favorite working author). However, his work is not necessarily a natural fit for cinema because of its uncanny combination of simplicity, surrealism, unabashed emotion, and sly humor. This fact makes this adaptation of a short story (which originally appeared in The New Yorker) all the more impressive. Most amazingly, the film manages to be both a genuine work of cinema & a faithful literary adaptation. Director Ichikawa employs a spare, subtle style that captures both the mordant humor inherent in Murakami and the genuine pathos of his characters’ plight. Plus, there’s an adroit, minimalist visual style. Issei Ogata plays the title character in a deft, understated performance that manages to be surprisingly moving. The versatile Ogata also appears in Sokurov’s The Sun as Emperor Hirohito.
14. Nobody Knows –Hirokazu Kor-eda
This was a heartbreaking, verite style docudrama about a group of Japanese children left to fend for themselves after their extremely irresponsible single mother abandons them in an apartment. Any one who cares about children will wince at seeing them endure such realistic deprivation. I’ll never forget the haunted, sad look of a little girl who so badly wants to leave the apartment to go to school and play a real piano – but is stuck with a miniature toy piano instead. It wasn’t a fun film to watch, but it certainly lingered in my thoughts.
15. Oliver Twist – Roman Polanski
Critics mostly dismissed Polanski’s adaptation of the Dickens novel as passé at best or dull at worst. But I found this to be a handsomely mounted piece of classical cinema. I’ve rarely seen a period piece so elegant and convincing. All the details were spot on without calling attention to them in an awkward self-conscious manner ala Gangs of New York. And the performances by Jamie Foreman as Sykes and Ben Kingsley were extraordinarily vivid. It’s a shame when a master filmmaker like Polanski gets ignored for doing first rate work because it doesn’t follow the fashions of the time.
16.Kiss Kiss Bang Bang – Shane Black
I’ve enjoyed the work of Shane Black as a somewhat guilty pleasure. Although he’s a quintessential Hollywood screenwriter (Lethal Weapon, Long Kiss Goodnight, Last Boy Scout), his work has always had a deeply personal stamp. I’ve always been a sucker for his skillful mixture of absurd mayhem and sardonic one-liners coupled with a sensibility that betrayed a daring sense of self-loathing and contempt for Hollywood. There’s something about his work that seems to be giving the middle finger to the Hollywood machine – all the while skillfully exploiting its clichés. This love-hate dynamic is certainly at work in Black’s witty directorial debut. It’s a comeback vehicle for not just Black himself – but also for Robert Downey Jr and Val Kilmer. Both actors shine in two of the least predictable, most enjoyable performances of the year. Plus, the movie captures the complicated absurdity of Los Angeles with dead-on precision.
17.Tristam Shandy – Michael Winterbottom
I could lie to you and tell you that I’ve read Laurence Sterne’s famous literary shaggy dog story & comment on how it was “post-modern before modern existed” – and how it has influenced every one from David Foster Wallace to Charlie Kaufman– but the truth is that I’ve never read it. So I can only tell you that this faux-adaptation- behind the scenes mockumentary-comedy is simply a raucously funny film – largely due to the improvisatory brio of the comic duo Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon. You’ll be rolling on the floor when you see Brydon’s impressions of Al Pacino that basically come out of nowhere and play absolutely no role in the film’s narrative (or lack of one) other than to exist for our pure enjoyment.
18. Breakfast on Pluto – Neil Jordan
Critics have largely panned Neil Jordan’s latest effort. But I thoroughly enjoyed its mixture of whimsy, pop verve, and unabashed romanticism. Cillian Murphy gives a wonderful performance as a cross-dressing wide eyed Candide of sorts searching for his mother in Ireland and England during the troubles of the 70s and 80s. Many complained that Neil Jordan was just retreading material from the Crying Game and Danny Boy, but if revisiting familiar themes was an artistic crime – the prisons would be overflowing with repeat offenders.
19. L’enfant – the Dardennes brothers
Another work of astonishing moral acuity from the Dardennes brothers – The Child tells the story of a young petty thief who attempts to sell his newborn baby to the European underworld. I liken watching their movies to going to the gym – I’m usually not eager to go, but afterwards I’m always glad I did because it was good for me. That doesn’t sound like a ringing endorsement, but the truth is that we could use more humanistic cinema like this.
20. Red Eye – Wes Craven
This was an efficient B-movie thriller that didn’t get nearly enough attention. First, it’s enormously satisfying piece of entertainment – even if it doesn’t deviate too far from Hollywood genre conventions (one friend complained that the ludicrous premise was “too Walker Texas Ranger”- which may be true, but I didn’t really mind). But it manages to touch upon genuine post 9/11 anxiety. Second, it has two wonderful performances by two fresh young actors – Rachel McAdams and Cillian Murphy. McAdams in particular holds the movie together with her winning presence. She’s instantly likeable and believable – and then when the movie requires it, she projects both vulnerability and surprising strength. At the movie’s core is the creepy and all too relevant fear of sitting next to an evil doer on a plane. Murphy manages to convey menace using mostly his eyes and modulating his voice during extended conversations with McAdams.
21. Walk the Line – James Mangold
You could argue that this is just a so-so movie with two great lead performances. But I would argue that any movie that has two such performances can’t be dismissed so easily. Sure, the filmmaking is rather square and conventional – but why poo poo convention when it’s executed this well? One of the main reasons we go to the movies is to enjoy performances like the ones both Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon give with such zest and soul. Plus, there’s the wonderful Johnny Cash music. It may not be a revolutionary piece of filmmaking – but I wholeheartedly enjoyed it.
22. “Lazy Sunday” – Akiva Schaffer, Jorma Taccone, Andy Samberg, Chris Parnell / The 40 Year Old Virgin – Judd Apatow
The year’s funniest films: one was a short produced for SNL that showcased a hardcore rap about going to see the Chronicles of Narnia on the Upper West Side and eating cupcakes from Magnolia bakery. Hands down the funniest thing on SNL in at least a decade – this short has since been downloaded over a million times on iTunes, YouTube, and NBC.com. The second was comedy hero Judd Apatow (Freaks and Geeks, Undeclared, the Ben Stiller Show) making his feature film debut along with the Office’s Steve Carrell in a vulgar, sweet sex comedy that doesn’t really have any sex except at the very end. The chest waxing scene is one of the most painful, but hilarious bits of comic daring ever put to film.
23. King Kong – Peter Jackson
On my first viewing of Peter Jackson’s overstuffed, labor-of-love – I would have named it one of the very best of the year. However, it’s clear that this movie needs serious editing by at least an hour & there’s just way too much self-indulgence esp. in the Skull Island fx sequences. That being said, this film still manages to do basic things that are the essence of popular cinema – it thrilled me and moved me. I also loved the detailed recreation of 30s New York. The T-Rex sequence is one of the most exciting and inventive pieces of action filmmaking that I’ve ever seen. But most importantly, Kong himself is a magnificent creation. Andy Serkis’s performance makes him a truly tragic figure. And Naomi Watts also deserves credit for making her connection to Kong so believable. It’s the quiet moments of the film that I liked the best. Kong and Anne sitting silently and watching the sunset on Skull Island is a moment of surprising tenderness. Likewise, when they repeat the moment at the film’s climax on top of the Empire State Building.
24. L’intrus – Claire Denis
Claire Denis makes ravishingly sensuous and sensual films of great visual power and beauty. And her latest is no exception. There are sequences that took my breath away, and passages that are startling erotic. That being said – I found myself lost for a good part of this movie. At the end, I wasn’t really sure what I saw. That isn’t such a bad thing, but I think I need to see this film again after some time passes to make a more accurate assessment of its quality.
25. The Sun – Alexander Sokurov
Sokurov is a stunning visual artist who makes films that verge on abstraction and challenge narrative conventions. Sometimes his experiments are more affecting than others. This somber, meditation on Emperor Hirohito’s last days leading up to the surrender of WW2 is often difficult to follow, but always gorgeous to watch due to Sokurov’s astonishing usage of high definition digital video.
26. Syriana – Stephen Gaghan
The screenwriter of Traffic directs his second film and tackles the oil industry’s tangled web that connects the CIA, American oil interests, and the Middle East. The resulting film is a complicated (perhaps overly so) collage of intersecting storylines and characters that few viewers could follow with any clarity. Although it’s probably a big flaw on the filmmaker’s part to leave so many people confused, Syriana is one of the rare films that actually gives more credit to the audience’s intelligence than it deserves. While Gaghan isn’t really a great director yet – he skillfully handles the superb ensemble cast (with everyone from Matt Damon to George Clooney to Jeffrey Wright to Christopher Plummer to Tim Blake Nelson and Alexander Siddig giving top notch, naturalistic performances) and his script is intelligent and incisive.
27. Goodnight and Goodluck – George Clooney
I admit that I didn’t think much of Clooney when he hit it big with ER. And I was extremely skeptical of his move into movie stardom. However, George has really surprised me lately with his acting, producing, and directing efforts. There’s no question that Clooney is a genuine film director who understands the medium and knows how to shoot and edit with verve and grace. I did think that this movie was a tad more simplistic and thin than its admirers gave it credit for being – but it is still an intelligent, honorable piece of work. And Clooney’s direction is excellent.
28. Kings and Queen – Arnaud Desplechin
A lot of highbrow critics hailed this French film as a masterpiece. I’m not sure it deserves that kind of praise, but it’s certainly a highly enjoyable, enormously interesting work about dysfunctional families (is there any other kind?). Mathieu Almaric (who also provides a devilishly sly supporting turn as the morally ambiguous Louis in Munich) is wonderful as a complete nervous wreck of a man.
29. Downfall – Oliver Hirschbiegel
This film achieves the difficult feat of humanizing Hitler without minimizing his monstrous nature. Bruno Ganz’s magnetic performance is an act of daring that probably means more to German-speaking audiences (since reportedly Ganz perfectly captured Hitler’s speech patterns). The narrative of this film is partially based on accounts by Hitler’s secretary who accompanied him during the final days of the Third Reich.
30. Serenity – Joss Whedon
I was a big Buffy fan, but didn’t really watch Firefly. However, I certainly appreciate Joss Whedon’s wit and storytelling abilities. While the film suffers from second rate fxs and a lackluster visual sense – the storytelling, characters, and dialogue are all first rate. Sci-fi fans can only imagine what would have happened had Whedon’s writing abilities been married to Lucas’s cinematic prowess.
31. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire – Mike Newell
Harry Potter 4 isn’t as visually imaginative and cinematically fluid as Alfonso Cuaron’s last film. But it is definitely the best acted of the bunch. As usual, the adults (led by Brendan Gleeson and Ralph Fiennes in a delightfully creepy turn as the dreaded Lord Voltemort) provide deliciously theatrical performances. However, this time the kids have become pretty good actors too. This installment suffers from the same problem all the Harry Potter adaptations have – it’s too damn long. The producers seem terrified of alienating the fan base by cutting out major plot points. However, there’s no denying the pleasures to be had with this series which keeps getting better and better on film at least.
Brokeback certainly isn’t a bad film, and I wouldn’t stop anyone from seeing it. But I don’t think it’s the must-see revolutionary emotional experience it’s being touted as. Compare it to something truly moving and radical like My Own Private Idaho – and you realize how middlebrow and uptight Ang Lee’s film really is. There’s nothing as tender and audacious as the campfire scene in My Own Private Idaho between River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves. Still, it is probably the “warmest” Ang Lee movie ever made, and Heath Ledger is quite good.
The Squid and the Whale perfectly captures a certain social milieu – that of annoying, over-educated urban poseurs. The script is precise and perceptive. Jeff Daniels is brilliant at playing a complete prick. But I feel like this is a movie that film critics are raving about because – let’s face it – it reminds them of their sad, solipsistic lives. This makes perfect sense when you realize Noah Baumbach is the son of former Village Voice critic Georgia Brown. Yes, it’s well-done – but I just don’t enjoy watching these kind of people. I will admit that I used to call people I didn’t like “philistines” back in college, a put down I cribbed from Nabokov.
Crash has some good things – fine performances from Matt Dillon, Sandra Bullock, and Brendan Fraser as a bunch of racists. But ultimately there was something very annoyingly shallow and superficial in its treatment of race and racism. Pick any good skit on the now defunct Chappelle Show, and it handles race and racism with far more insight, economy, and wit. (Examples: the blind, black white supremacist or the skit where Dave and John Mayer go around to see what kinds of music get different races to dance). Plus, I found the treatment of Asian-Americans fairly deplorable.
Capote is another film that I just didn’t care for. Phillip Seymour Hoffman is a terrific actor, and I’m confident in the tasteful intelligence of his collaborators, director Bennett Miller and writer Dan Futterman. Yet this movie felt incredibly small to me, and ultimately didn’t illuminate anything about writing, Capote, or human experience. Most problematic for me was the fact that I couldn’t get over the fact that Hoffman was “acting” in every scene. Sure, it’s virtuosic – but I noticed the acting in a way that didn’t let me believe the film or Hoffman.
Cache is by the darling of the Cannes film festival, Michael Haneke. It’s sort of the European snob version of Crash, but with a colder, more sadistic view of its audience. The whole thing is supposed to be some deep statement on voyeurism, European colonialism/racism, bourgeois complacency, blah blah. There’s something incredibly schematic and deadening about Haneke’s work. But I admit I do get a cruel kick out of watching snotty audiences line up for his movies, and then scream in horror at the cruelties inflicted upon them on screen. I guess it’s kind of fun to epater la bourgeoisie. That’s not enough to compensate for the fact that I’d rather clip my toenails than watch most of his movies.
There used to be a skit on Monty Python called “Confuse the Cat” where they’d do all sorts of zany stuff in front of a cat. Occasionally, a film or filmmaker will receive rapturous acclaim from the serious film critics – and I’ll go see these films and feel just like that cat – completely bewildered. I’ve felt that way with the work of Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami – I just don’t get it. I feel the same with the work of Chinese director Zhang Ke Jia who’s been acclaimed as the second coming of cinema – but honestly, all I see is the emperor’s new clothes. I find his work interesting in the same way I’d find almost anything from China interesting – a window into a fascinating society – but certainly not revolutionary cinema.
Chris
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