Top ten list of 2005

[Precious Doll]

Based on US release (I think):

5/5
Mysterious Skin (Gregg Araki)

4.5/5
Downfall (Oliver Hirschbiegel)
Nobody Knows (Hirokazu Kore-Eda)
Walk on Water (Eytan Fox)

4/5
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (Alex Gibney)
Innocence (Lucile Hadzihalilovic)
Moolaade (Ousmane Sembene)
Oldboy (Park Chan-wook)
Samaritan Girl (Kim Ki-duk)
Save the Green Planet (Jun-hwan Jeong)
Trilogy: The Weeping Meadow (Theo Angelopoulos)
Up and Down (Jan Hrebejk)

3.5/5
A Hole in My Heart (Lukas Moodysson)
The Holy Girl (Lucrecia Martel)
I am a Sex Addict (Caveh Zahedi)
Inside Deep Throat (Fenton Bailey & Randy Barbato)
Look at Me (Agnes Jaoui)
A State of Mind (Daniel Gordon)
Yes (Sally Potter)

3/5
Les Choristes (Christophe Barratier)
Coach Carter (Thomas Carter)
3-Iron (Kim Ki-duk)

2.5/5
Beauty Shop (Bille Woodruff)
A Common Thread (Eleonore Faucher)
Crash (Paul Higgis)
Cursed (Wes Craven)
Head-On (Faith Akin)
A Lot Like Love (Nigel Cole)
Me and You and Everyone We Know (Miranda July)
Melinda and Melinda (Woody Allen)
New Police Story (Benny Chan)
Sahara (Breck Eisner)
Tell Them Who You Are (Mark Wexler)
2046 (Kar Wai Wong)
The Wedding Date (Clare Kilner)
Yesterday (Darrell James Roodt)

2/5
Assault on Precinct 13 (Jean-Francois Richet)
Batman Begins (Christopher Nolan)
Be Cool (F Gary Gray)
DEBS (Angela Robinson)
5 x 2 (Francois Ozon)
A Good Woman (Mike Barker)
Guess Who (Kevin Rodney Sullivan)
Herbie: Fully Loaded (Angela Robinson)
Hitch (Andy Tennant)
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, The (Garth Jennings)
The Interpreter (Sydney Pollack)
Kontroll (Nimrod Antal)
Life is a Miracle (Emir Kustunica)
The Longest Yard (Peter Segal)
Miss Congeniality: Armed and Fabulous (John Pasquin)
Racing Stripes (Frederick Du Chau)
Revenge of the Sith (George Lucas)
Robots (Chris Wedge & Carlos Saldanha)
The Upside of Anger (Mike Binder)

1.5/5
Constantine (Francis Lawrence)
Layer Cake (Matthew Vaughn)

1/5
Are We There Yet (Brian Levant)
The Beat My Heart Skipped (Jacques Audiard)
Boogeyman (Stephen T Kay)
Elektra (Rob Bowman)
Hostage (Florent Milo Siriv)
Kingdom of Heaven (Ridley Scott)
Ring 2 (Hideo Nakata)
White Noises (Geoffrey Sax)
XXX 2 (Lee Tamahori)

½/5
The Amytville Horror (Andrew Douglas)
Brothers (Susanne Bier)
Don’t Move (Sergio Castellitto)
Hide and Seek (John Polson)
Mr & Mrs Smith (Doug Liman)

[rudeboy]

What I've seen to date, based on a 2005 UK release...

9/10
1. Mysterious Skin (Gregg Araki)
2. Downfall (Oliver Hirschbiegel)
3. Million Dollar Baby (Clint Eastwood)

8.5/10
4. Kinsey (Bill Condon)

7.5/10
5. Sideways (Alexander Payne)
6. The Edukators (Hans Weingartner)

6/10
7. Batman Begins (Christopher Nolan)

5.5/10
8. Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (George Lucas)

5/10
9. Hotel Rwanda (Terry George)

4/10
10. Closer (Mike Nichols)
11. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Garth Jennings)

[Sonic Youth]

The top twenty of 2005, so far.

As promised, I gave Sith another chance. Taken on its own overly earnest terms, not bad at all. I think the difference between this installment and the previous two are that Lucas seems to have allowed himself to be influenced by Peter Jackson's LOTR trilogy. Physically, some of it is quite beautiful. A few space cakes might help, though.


****
1. Murderball
2. Nobody Knows
3. Mondovino

***1/2
4. Nina's Tragedies
5. Tropical Malady
6. Simon

***
7. Kung Fu Hustle
8. Me and You and Everyone We Know
9. Howl's Moving Castle
10. Look at Me
11. Downfall
12. Crash
13. Star Wars: Episode III - the Revenge of the Sith
14. The Wedding Crashers
15. Because of Winn-Dixie

**1/2
16. Mysterious Skin
17. The Beat That My Heart Skipped
18. Fever Pitch
19. Cinderella Man
20. Mad Hot Ballroom

**
21. Head-On
22. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
23. The World
24. Bride and Prejudice
25. Mr. & Mrs. Smith
26. Oldboy

*
27. The Interpreter
28. Melinda and Melinda

1/2
29. Batman Begins

[Sabin]

Technically, the year is half over so I should probably post what I've got which is not much. My sole four star film is starting to seem ever so slightly flawed upon further recollection but it beats the pants off anything I've seen this year by far.

****
1. The Best of Youth

***1/2
2. Look at Me

***
3. Mysterious Skin
4. Me and You and Everybody We Know

***
5. Batman Begins
6. War of the Worlds
7. Cinderella Man

**1/2
8. Crash
9. Sin City

**
10. Fever Pitch
11. Constantine

*1/2
11. Fantastic Four
12. Star Wars: Episode III--Revenge of the Sith



Edited By Sabin on 1121901543

[MovieWes]

As you can see, I haven't seen much this year...

1. Star Wars: Episode III- Revenge of the Sith (d. George Lucas) ***
2. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (d. Garth Jennings) ***
3. Kingdom of Heaven (d. Ridley Scott) ** 1/2
4. Sin City (d. Robert Rodriguez & Frank Miller) ** 1/2
5. Monster-in-Law (d. Robert Luketic) 1/2 *

[The Original BJ]

****
The Best of Youth

***1/2
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
Howl's Moving Castle
Murderball

***
Fever Pitch
Me and You and Everyone We Know

**1/2
Crash
Star Wars: Episode III—Revenge of the Sith
The Upside of Anger
War of the Worlds

**
Batman Begins
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Cinderella Man
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Robots
Sin City

*1/2
Madagascar

[anonymous1980]

I'll reserve this spot.

****
A History of Violence (David Cronenberg)
Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (Nick Park/Steve Box)

***½
Land of the Dead (George A. Romero)
Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros ("The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros") (Aureaus Solito)
King Kong (Peter Jackson)
Tim Burton's Corpse Bride (Tim Burton/Mike Johnson)
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Mike Newell)
The 40 Year Old Virgin (Judd Apatow)
2046 (Wong Kar-Wai)
Pinoy Blonde (Peque Gallaga)
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Tim Burton)
Kung Fu Hustle (Stephen Chow)

***
The Constant Gardener (Fernando Meirelles)
Crash (Paul Haggis)
The Brothers Grimm (Terry Gilliam)
Batman Begins (Christopher Nolan)
Manderlay (Lars Von Trier)
Red Eye (Wes Craven)


**½
War of the Worlds (Steven Spielberg)
Sin City (Robert Rodriguez/Frank Miller/Quentin Tarantino)
Star Wars Episode III: The Revenge of the Sith (George Lucas)The Ring 2 (Hideo Nakata)
The Interpreter (Sydney Pollack)
Cinderella Man (Ron Howard)
Kingdom of Heaven (Ridley Scott)

**
Mr. and Mrs. Smith (Doug Liman)
Robots (Chris Wedge)

*½
The Island (Michael Bay)

*
none yet

½
none yet

[Penelope]

Latest update:

1. Downfall – *** ½
2. Gunner Palace – *** ½

3. Walk on Water – ***

4. The Upside of Anger – ** ½
5. Fever Pitch – ** ½
6. Sahara – ** ½
7. The Interpreter – ** ½
8. Constantine – ** ½

9. Millions – **
10. Hitch – **

11. Bride & Prejudice – * ½

[Sonic Youth]

My top ten (er, I mean eleven) films of 2005. And they may be the last films I see for the next month-and-a-half. (No, I'm not going to jail.) I'll try to do a write-up some time in the next few days. Mondovino is a beautiful piece of work, and Oldboy is a piece of ####.


****
1. Nobody Knows
2. Mondovino

***1/2
3. Nina's Tragedies
4. Simon

***
5. Kung Fu Hustle
6. Howl's Moving Castle
7. Look at Me
8. Downfall
9. Because of Winn-Dixie

**1/2
10. Fever Pitch
11. Cinderella Man

**
12. Head-On
13. Bride and Prejudice
14. Mr. & Mrs. Smith
15. Oldboy

*
16. The Interpreter
17. Melinda and Melinda

1/2
18. Batman Begins

ZZZZZZZ

Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith (No, not a rating. I actually fell asleep. I'll give it another chance)

[abcinyvr]

Usually when you catch sight of a boom mic in the frame it's the fault of the projectionist and not the filmmakers.

Okay, this is something I've never heard before. I have just been assuming that the full frame is being shown - under perfect conditions. All that aspect ratio stuff.

I tend to enjoy the detatched aspect of film more than the sentimentalities of mainstream film. But with The Soup, One Morning it didn't connect with me, although I thought it very well written. It won the Dragons And Tigers Award for, I think, first film at the VIFF, so I guess I missed something.

[Eric]

The Soup, One Morning 1/2 (which rated the lowest of the 41 movies that I saw. Everyone around me hated it.)

Someone who gave Dear Frankie 3.5/4 also finding something as detached as The Soup, One Morning to be a least favorite doesn't really surprise me in the slightest. I don't know how Frankie got such positive notices from critics who have demonstrated in the past a willingness to resist being told how they're supposed to feel. I should stress that I went into this one with the hope of being led to an emotional catharsis, but found its tactics overwhelmingly inept. And as a friend pointed out to me, there seems to have been some second-guessing on the character of the mother, since the hospital-visit sequence seems to be violating the very clearly dictated timeline of Gerard Butler's visit ("tomorrow" suddenly becomes "the day after tomorrow") and can only be written off as an attempt to tidy up her motivations before the audience's sympathies are stretched too far. There weren't any boom mics when I saw it, so I'd agree that your projectionist was asleep at the wheel.

[The Original BJ]

Usually when you catch sight of a boom mic in the frame it's the fault of the projectionist and not the filmmakers.

[abcinyvr]

The Soup, One Morning (Takahashi Izumi, 03)

Dear Frankie (Shona Auerbach, 04)

Okay, I've been waiting for someone to see Dear Frankie. I saw it last fall at the local film fest. While I disagree with your one star rating - I give it a 3 and a half. While it is a bit of a generic storyline I think it worked really well and the payoff at the end was unanticipated.
This is what I want to know is...when I saw the film I noticed the sound boom sneaking into the frame, and then I noticed it again. I began counting how many times and eventually gave up once it got to be over 15 times!! Was this changed in the print you saw?

I also saw A Toute De Suite **1/2, and The Soup, One Morning 1/2 (which rated the lowest of the 41 movies that I saw. Everyone around me hated it.)

[Penelope]

It would be had it not been nominated for Foreign Film last year, thus making it ineligible for all categories next year.

Ya know, that just sucks. I just got back from seeing Downfall, and Bruno Ganz is staggeringly good. In fact, the entire cast is sensational (Alexandra Maria Lara is quickly becoming a favorite of mine; she's fantastic here as Hitler's secretary, and she was also wonderful in the TV remake of Doctor Zhivago as Tonya). The art direction is also worthy of a nod.

A film that leaves you numb, horrified and devastated.

[The Original BJ]

So far . . .

****
The Best of Youth

***1/2

***

**1/2
The Upside of Anger

**
Robots
Sin City

*1/2

*

1/2

ZERO