The best – and worst – of ‘05
Published 9:00 pm Thursday, December 29, 2005
The end of movie year 2005 saw Hollywood wringing its collective hands and asking some hard, hard questions. Why did “Cinderella Man” flop so badly? Will anybody get their money back on “King Kong”? Why was the summer box office so bleak when the movies looked like the exact same movies that had performed well in years past? (The answer to that one is contained in the question.)
There were certain unanswerable mysteries, of course, like the Renee Zellweger marriage, “Bewitched,” and the epic Tom Cruise-Katie Holmes romance. But 2005 might have been a watershed year. Not only did the tried-and-true not perform to expectations at the box office, but the year-end awards have gone to little independent movies – serious stuff that audiences actually seem to like. The big studios may need to rethink their system or perish.
Still, at any given time, there were good movies at the theaters. And what about DVDs? Sometimes film reviewers get so locked in on new movies at theaters they forget that a huge percentage of people (especially over the age of, oh, 25 or so) watch most of their movies on TV. And the DVDs this year, especially the retrieval of golden-age gems (Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, the “Thin Man” pictures, the 1940s horror series produced by Val Lewton), were spectacular.
Speaking of which, some of the best movies were revivals: Jack Nicholson’s great performance in the 1975 Antonioni picture, “The Passenger,” and the exciting reconstruction of Sam Peckinpah’s 1965 western “Major Dundee” among them.
What were the year’s big winners? The R-rated comedy, for one – “The 40 Year-Old Virgin” and “Wedding Crashers” proved there could be profitable exceptions to the PG-13 rule. Penguins were winners: witness the universally beloved documentary, “March of the Penguins,” as well as the comic cut-ups from “Madagascar.” South Korea’s film industry produced a startling run of arthouse fare, such as the mind-frying revenge film “Oldboy” and the lyrical “3-Iron.” And it was nice to have Batman back, in respectable form (see below).
Losers? Nicolas Cage’s face dominated the ad campaigns for two late-year films that came and went quickly, “Lord of War” and “The Weather Man.” Jamie Foxx bounced from winning the Oscar for “Ray” to appearing in disposable duty in “Stealth.” And director Michael Bay, whose lucrative career (“Pearl Harbor” “Armageddon”) was trashed in song in 2004’s “Team America,” crashed with the expensive flop “The Island,” the film that embodied the summer box-office fizzle.
In compiling my list of the best films that opened locally in 2005, I went for the titles that most provoked and excited me, but that also had some kind of staying power. These are the movies that stuck in my craw the longest. A spin in the Batmobile to the following:
“Million Dollar Baby.” This 2004-vintage movie didn’t open locally until the first week of January this year, so I get to count it. Clint Eastwood’s movie was about boxing, but it was really about estrangement and guilt and redemption, and a beautifully made film on all counts.
“Kings and Queen.” A French film that played at the Seattle International Film Festival and then only briefly in a regular run, Arnaud Desplechin’s wild look at the parallel lives of two unusual people was perhaps the most unpredictable film of the year, a quality I cherish.
“Hustle &Flow.” Musical, literate, and viscerally exciting, this is the story of a Memphis pimp (Oscar-worthy Terrence Howard) who imagines himself a hip-hop artist. It shouldn’t work, but it does.
“Nobody Knows.” Japanese film about children – the eldest 12 years old – abandoned in a Tokyo apartment to fend for themselves. Not entirely the grim experience it sounds, as the kids create their own unique world in secret.
“Brokeback Mountain.” The indie winning all the year-end awards is Ang Lee’s melancholy study of two cowboys who become more than, er, saddle pals. A finely wrought film that really feels like a traditional Western, despite the twist.
“Munich.” Steven Spielberg’s account of the Israeli secret police tracking down the Palestinian assassins from the 1972 Olympics is both a discomfiting moral inquiry and a heckuva spy movie. Does this director get taken for granted because he’s been so successful?
“Grizzly Man.” Director Werner Herzog takes the footage of bear lover Timothy Treadwell (who was eaten by his Alaskan charges in 2003) and makes it into an unnerving, fascinating documentary portrait of one of the world’s holy fools – and a cautionary tale about being casual about nature.
“The Squid and the Whale.” An intimate and extremely funny portrait of a Brooklyn academic family coming apart. Director Noah Baumbach is both razor-sharp in his observations but generous in his attitude (that’s tough to do), and Jeff Daniels is great as the self-centered dad.
“Breakfast on Pluto.” Whimsy and Irish magic from director Neil Jordan, about a plucky transvestite (the agile Cillian Murphy) whose good cheer remains unsullied by life’s harsher realities.
“Batman Begins.” Just about the only big summer movie worth donning a cape for, this origin story of the comic-book hero got an awful lot of things right. Bring on the sequels.
The runners-up would have to include “2046,” the droll German comedy “Schultze Gets the Blues,” the overlooked POW rescue film “The Great Raid,” the unlikely Turkish-German romance “Head-On,” “3-Iron,” David Cronenberg’s stately “A History of Violence,” “The Beat That My Heart Skipped,” George Romero’s politically minded zombie movie “Land of the Dead,” “Capote,” and George Clooney’s 1950s chamber piece “Good Night and Good Luck.”
Some good popcorn movies, too: Spielberg’s “War of the Worlds,” “Red Eye,” the last “Star Wars” picture, “Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang,” and the belly-laugh-crammed “40-Year-Old Virgin.”
Now fasten your seat belts for the bumpy ride of infamy. I had to sit through a lot of stinkers this year, and the following 10 films deserve to be zapped by the Martian tripods. Cheers, and see you next year.
“Into the Blue.” Sunken treasure off the Bahamas can mean only one thing: lots of nubile bodies photographed underwater. Amazingly dumb, but probably more fun than the other movies on this list of shame.
“The Honeymooners.” One of many bad TV adaptations this year, this one with Cedric the Entertainer in the Jackie Gleason role.
“Bewitched.” Nicole Kidman in another TV-related misfire, an excruciatingly example of not thinking something through all the way.
“The Dukes of Hazzard.” Old TV shows really have a lot to answer for, don’t they?
“The Longest Yard.” But let’s not forget bad remakes – this one with Adam Sandler in the old Burt Reynolds football role.
“The Bridge at San Luis Rey.” This one had a literary pedigree and a top-drawer cast, which made its dead-in-the-water feeling all the more painful.
“The House of D.” Personal project for writer-director-star David Duchovny, and just one of those scripts that should have stayed in the drawer.
“Be Cool.” The delayed sequel is always a risky business, and this follow-up to 1995’s “Get Shorty” exposed the problems; everybody looked like they’d lost interest years ago.
“Mindhunters.” Illogic to a fine degree, although the underwater gunfight was pretty cool.
“Yours, Mine &Ours.” Or do I mean “Cheaper by the Dozen 2”? What difference does it make?
