2005
Submitted by Kza on Sun, 03/27/2005 - 10:58
Tags:
- Grizzly Man (Werner Herzog) [90]
- A History of Violence (David Cronenberg) [88; up from 84]
- Munich (Steven Spielberg) [87]
- Funny Ha Ha (Andrew Bujalski) [86]
- Good Night, and Good Luck. (George Clooney) [85]
- Match Point (Woody Allen) [83]
- Kung Fu Hustle (Stephen Chow) [83]
- War of the Worlds (Steven Spielberg) [82, up from 79]
- Mysterious Skin (Gregg Araki) [81]
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Tim Burton) [81]
- The Weather Man (Gore Verbinski) [80]
- King Kong (Peter Jackson) [78]
- Broken Flowers (Jim Jarmusch) [78]
- The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill (Judy Irving) [76]
- Me and You and Everyone We Know (Miranda July) [75]
- The Devil's Rejects (Rob Zombie) [74, down from 79]
- Batman Begins (Christopher Nolan) [74, down from 80]
- Lord of War (Andrew Niccol) [73]
- Frank Miller's Sin City (Frank Miller & Robert Rodriguez) [71]
- Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (Steve Box & Nick Park) [70]
- Sahara (Breck Eisner) [70]
- Caché (Michael Haneke) [69]
- Wolf Creek (Greg McLean) [69]
- George A. Romero's Land of the Dead (George A. Romero) [69]
- Syriana (Stephen Gaghan) [68]
- Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee) [67]
- Cinderella Man (Ron Howard) [64]
- Kingdom of Heaven (Ridley Scott) [63]
- Mirrormask (Dave McKean) [62]
- 3-Iron (Kim Ki-Duk) [61]
- Mindhunters (Renny Harlin) [61]
- Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (Shane Black) [60]
- Dark Water (Walter Salles) [59]
- Tropical Malady (Apichatpong Weerasethakul) [58]
- Mr. & Mrs. Smith (Doug Liman) [58]
- Dallas 362 (Scott Caan) [57]
- In Good Company (Paul Weitz) [57]
- Red Eye (Wes Craven) [57]
- Kings & Queen (Arnaud Desplechin) [55]
- Serenity (Joss Whedon) [55]
- Bad News Bears (Richard Linklater) [53]
- Capote (Bennett Miller) [53]
- The Cave (Bruce Hunt) [53]
- Wedding Crashers (David Dobkin) [52]
- Jarhead (Sam Mendes) [51]
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Garth Jennings) [51]
- Pretty Persuasion (Marcos Siega) [50]
- Memories of Murder (Bong Joon-ho) [49]
- Four Brothers (John Singleton) [49]
- High Tension (Alexandre Aja) [47]
- Proof (John Madden) [47]
- The 40 Year Old Virgin (Judd Apatow) [45]
- The Producers (Susan Stroman) [45]
- Oldboy (Park Chan-wook) [45]
- The Brothers Grimm (Terry Gilliam) [45]
- Sky High (Mike Mitchell) [43]
- The Island (Michael Bay) [41]
- Cry_Wolf (Jeff Wadlow) [40]
- The Lords of Dogtown (Catherine Hardwicke) [39]
- Layer Cake (Matthew Vaughn) [38]
- The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (Tommy Lee Jones) [38]
- Tim Burton's Corpse Bride (Mike Johnson & Tim Burton) [38]
- March of the Penguins (Luc Jacquet) [38]
- The Skeleton Key (Iain Softley) [35]
- Walk the Line (James Mangold) [33]
- Breakfast on Pluto (Neil Jordan) [29]
- Hustle & Flow (Craig Brewer) [23]
- Doom (Andrzej Bartkowiak) [23]
- Fantastic Four (Tim Story) [19]
- Crash (Paul Haggis) [14]
- Spring Break Shark Attack (TV) (Paul Shapiro) [2]
- White Noise (Geoffrey Sax) [1]
- The Exorcism of Emily Rose (Scott Derrickson) [0]
- Elizabethtown (Cameron Crowe) [DNF]
- Unseen: The Aristocrats (Paul Provenza), Capote (Bennett Miller), The Constant Gardener (Fernando Meirelles), Good Night, and Good Luck (George Clooney), Grizzly Man (Werner Herzog), The Squid and the Whale (Noah Baumbach), Syriana (Stephen Gaghan)
Author Comments:
/title/ seen before
(f) seen on film/in a theater
(v) seen on TV (DVD, VHS, TiVo, etc.)
[TV] Made-for-TV movie
[xx] rating
[w/o] walkout
[t/o] turned it off
Rating system:
100-97 = Masterpiece
96-90 = Fantastic; best of the year
89-80 = Remarkable
79-70 = Very Good
69-60 = Good
59-50 = Okay
49-40 = Mediocre
39-30 = Bad
29-20 = Horrible
19-10 = Torture
9-0 = Would end a war if dropped on opposing country
Re: "Dallas 362"
You're being kind with your 57 in my opinion.
(Is this really the first comment I had on this page? Or did I lose some comments?)
Truth be told, there was a lot I liked about it. But overall, it tried too hard for ultimately little effect.
Also, Scott: didya get that thing I sent ya?
Guess the answer is no, 'cuz I'm not sure what you mean. What do you mean? :-)
I sent you an email via Listology on... Thursday night, I believe. I have a new computer and I lost all my email addresses and whatnot, so I used the Listology email thingy... and I'm thinking that doesn't go to a viable email address, cuz you'd know what I was talking about :-)
Shoot me an email through my Listology account and I'll get back to you (and put you in my address book.)
Will do. Don't know why I didn't get your email, though.
Isn't "The Brown Bunny" an '04?
I'm pretty sure it was released in Seattle earlier this year. I should probably doublecheck.
Are you gonna bang out a review of it?
I dunno. Between your review and Bryant Frazer's, I'm not sure there's anything left to say. Well, I can say this: a) I was expecting to love it, so I was disappointed when I only moderately liked it; b) Unlike you, I didn't find the driving sequences lovely, and I really wanted to; c) This is incredibly perverse, but I think I'd prefer the 2 hour version. The opening shot, with the motorcyclists, I thought, "This should be one take, and we should follow them completely around the track at least once, if not twice" -- and that's how the original cut was, to my understanding; d) Hell, I think this movie shoulda been 4 hours long. It should feel like the cross-country trip it is; e) This would make a neat double-feature with Broken Flowers (and that could be an alternate title as well).
Hey! You got me monologing....
Turns out it came out in Seattle almost exactly a year ago. I'm not sure I should rely on my memory for anything, anymore.
Could you briefly share your thoughts on King Kong unless you have already done it somewhere else?
For several reasons, I still hesitate. First of all, the screenshots and the trailer were IMO pretty bad. Another reason is that I greatly enjoy the 1933- original, and I'm sure that Jackson's version won't live up to that. Or am I wrong?
Hey 1922 -- Answer coming soon. Sorry about my tardiness!
55 for Serenity and 82 for War of the Worlds?
:'(
Yes, we have very different tastes...I thought Worlds was loud, overblown, and dull, with no character development, whereas Serenity was emotional, heartfelt, exciting, funny, scary, and unique, with great characters.
Ah, well. Diff'rnt strokes for diff'rnt folks. At least we agree on Grizzly Man and Broken Flowers!
I'm assuming from your handle that you're a Firefly fan from way back. I went in cold (and I still haven't seen an episode of the series) and while I certainly enjoyed it, ultimately it seemed a little too pleased with itself and tied to its TV origins. It's great TV, no doubt, but it wasn't great cinema. Chiwetel Ejiofor rocks, tho.
War of the Worlds, for me, was one of the few movies to tackle 9/11 anxieties in an interesting way. I liked the focus on one man's experience through two continuous days and thought the first appearance of the tripods (and the subsequent attack) was the most horrifying sequence from a 2005 film.
(And actually, I would've preferred less character development in WotW. I didn't need to see Cruise become a Better Dad; surviving the end of the world is good enough.)
Yup, you've got me...tried-and-true Browncoat here, ever since Firefly's first airing. (And yes, Chiwetel Ejiofor is great.)
I also agree about Spielberg's forced Better Dad message; does every one of his movies need something along those lines? War of the Worlds was at times so sappy I found myself laughing in the theater. Quite a letdown from the darkness of his other more recent sci-fi outing, Minority Report, a film that I loved. I didn't really find any of WOTW scary or thrilling, chiefly because I didn't give two licks about the characters. Mass destruction doesn't mean anything to me unless the destructing is going to endanger people I care about.
So you can imagine, being the hardcore fan I am, how I felt when the Serenity lost certain of its crew...
Plus, the fact that Dakota Fanning is in WOTW doesn't help. I just really cannot stand her.
Mass destruction doesn't mean anything to me unless the destructing is going to endanger people I care about.
And that's the funny thing... for something that's in the disaster genre (which I consider WotW to be), I guess I don't need to care about the characters, because I'm essentially projecting myself onto them (what would I do? etc.) For my tastes, the blander the character the better. Luckily, this seems to be the only genre that causes that reaction in me.
So you can imagine, being the hardcore fan I am, how I felt when the Serenity lost certain of its crew...
Oh man. The best cinematic moment of 2005 for me was seeing that particular moment in a packed theater full of Browncoats. (I got a free advance pass.) I thought it was shocking, and I wasn't even invested in these characters, but the audience... 500 gasps at once. You could feel everyones stomachs knotting up. It was incredible.
Plus, the fact that Dakota Fanning is in WOTW doesn't help. I just really cannot stand her.
I hear her programmers are installing puberty soon, so hopefully Dakota 2.0 will be more palatable to the general public.
Just dropping in to laugh at your Dakotabot joke.
I thought the Dakotabot joke was funny too, although I have to express confusion over how Dakota-hate has become such popular sport these days. I've only seen her in two movies: I thought she was excellent in Man on Fire, and the least-abysmal of the War of the Worlds cast.
Oh, and you're the zombie fan, right KZA? Have you seen this T-shirt?
I'm not sure why everyone seems to hate Dakota Fanning. I don't hate her, I just find it eerie that she can manage to show up in every other film that calls for a child of any description. Also, her preternaturally mature mannerisms seem anachronous to a girl of her size and age. She's just eerie.
Unlike the kids in the Welch's commercials, who, despite having the same bizarre maturity and elocution, are just plain cute.
Apologies for whatever spelling mistakes I've made. Another internet window open on my desktop might arouse suspicion in the bosses who watch over my shoulder.
Ah, the eerie factor, that never occurred to me.
But she hasn't really been in that many movies, or at least not that many movies of note.
But surely being in 22 films by age 12 (18 films in 5 years alone) shows something. I mean, in a decent number of those, she's not even a minor character. Either she's breaking all kinds of child labour laws, or she's a robot. I'm opting for robot.
:-)
(of those 22, 4 haven't come out yet, 1 is a video game, 3 are for voice work only, 1 is for TV, 1 is for "little girl in park", and of the rest I haven't heard of 7 of them.)
Still quite a lot for a little girl. At 12 I think I was still climbing trees.
:)
I think what may be affecting your perception is the many different kinds of films she's been in. Few other child actors show this kind of range; the Olsen twins, Macaulay Culkin, the Sprouse twins, and Haley Joel Osment all sort of have/had images for themselves. But Dakota Fanning's best-known movies include scifi action (War of the Worlds), thriller (Man on Fire, Hide and Seek), sentimental drama (I Am Sam), kiddie comedy (Cat in the Hat), and PG-13 comedy (Uptown Girls). How can a child actor be so versatile?
FWIW, and despite my joke, I don't really hate Dakota either. I do, however, find her quite unnerving. (What's even stranger: her most unnerving appearance was probably on Friends.) So yeah, I kinda wish she'd hurry up and grow up - she'll seem less weird then.
(Oh crap! She's doing the new dub for My Neighbor Totoro! You better hit it out the park, missy.)
Well, maybe she's be less unnerving to you as a dubber rather than on camera. Amazinginly, I love the Disney dubs of Miyazaki movies so far.
Ah yes, I got a free advance pass to Serenity too, from Garden Hill Media.
My God, seeing that moment during the film was the most powerful experience I have ever experienced at a cinema. You're right...everyone gasped...people around me actually started crying (myself included). I couldn't even pay attention to the rest of the movie, and afterwards, everyone was just talking about that.
What's stunning is that every screening I went to after that, where the majority of the audience was the general public, at least one person gasped or shouted, "OH MY GOD!" It's incredible. One time, someone noticed me in my full-on Browncoat regalia (hat, shirt, button, keychain, you name it...) and just turned to me on his way out and said, "I cannot believe they did that."
He was my favorite, too... :'(
(And, yes, funny joke about the Dakotabot. I hope they manage to do the same for the TomCruisebot.)
Oh, and despite my appreciation of WotW... Tom Cruise. Oh man. Imagine how much better it would've been had they cast someone who could believably play a blue collar worker. Imagine if they'd cast, say, John C. Reilly.
(of course, the movie would never have been made, but oh well....)
Wow, WOTW's quality would've been ratcheted up dozens of notches if John C. Reilly had been cast.
That's a really tantalizing fantasy...
I'm glad to see you also liked Jarmusch's (here around and elsewhere) underrated Broken Flowers. I'm especially curious to see Munich and Brokeback Mounain.
I strongly recommend The Constant Gardener and also Good Night, and Good Luck. is a pretty well-done film.
Yeah, I really need to see CG and GNaGL. 2005 won't feel complete without them.
1922, did you ever see King Kong? I can't remember what thread it was that you were asking about that.
jeeeez... Now I find it. Swear to god I couldn't find it the last couple times I went through the comments.
I was very reluctant after the bad trailer. But finally your good rating and lbangs' positive review made me want to watch it (with high expectations) And it didn't disappoint me. I think it's a terrific movie.
P.S.: Don't mind about that comment. :)