2005 ReviewsLast Days -
FilmCinemaMovie /
Gangster BB Broken Flowers -
FilmCinemaMovie /
Gangster BB A few words for the year.
Interesting so far.
The Longest Yard is my worst of the year. As for the whole
ID4/War of the Worlds thing. The former is a horrible movie. The latter was a strong film for the most part, suffering only a poor ending. Poor endings have been a motif for Spielberg the last several years, unfortunately.
The 40 Year Old Virgin and
Wedding Crashers. The former is genuinely funny for the most part, though the second half is more rocky and falls into some cliche bits of humor.
Wedding Crashers was funny, but overrated and predictable. As much as I love Vaughn's movies on an entertainment scale, this film still suffered from poor humor. It's better than the last few movies he did like the horrible
Dodgeball and
Starsky and Hutch, but not amazingly.
Crash was a great idea for a film, but thinking back on it I am reminded too much of other L.A. films like
Short Cuts and
Magnolia. It turns out to be a good film, but best of the year according to Roger Ebert? Not close. Some scenes work beautifully, others feel like a made-for-school film about how racism is bad. However there is one brilliant moment in it.
You embarrass me. You embarrass yourself.
Batman Begins was a great change. We've had the horror of a constant flow of corny, cliche comic book films made for no reason other than making money off of young audiences, not far from the definition of exploitation films. This is the first good one since the last Burton film, but it comes together as a great film, both drama-wise and in special effects, which for once didn't feel like a video game. I didn't see the Batman costume for a large portion of the film, and I didn't care, because the plot grabbed me.
Revenge of the Sith was one of the overrated parts of the year. I rewatched bits on my DVD which I plan to rewatch in full soon, and couldn't help feeling disappointed. The special effects everyone raved about, while great on the big screen, look like my Star Wars video games, only slightly better rendered, and minus the loading screens. The story is great of course and I still enjoy the film being a fan of the franchise, but it fails being better than any of the original films. With robots saying "Owie" and the horrible dialogue that Lucas had written for him, I can't say this is great at all. Lucas had to have someone else improve his poor dialogue, and it didn't help much at all. The transition between Anakin and Vader was ridiculously fast as well. One minute he's conflicted about what he did, and two seconds later he's being inaugurated as Vader.
I have three four star films this year.
Last Days, Broken Flowers, and
No Direction Home: Bob Dylan.
Last Days should win best film, cinematography, and best original song at least, but it'll get nothing. Both
Last Days and
Broken Flowers are excellent character studies, the former being one of the best films in the last several years. The latter being Jarmusch's second best. Michael Pitt and Bill Murray did great jobs in their acting, both in subtle ways. For Pitt it was his body language and Murray, his facial subtlety. Scorsese's
No Direction Home: Bob Dylan is an excellent portrayal of Dylan, and it's Bob Dylan himself. It succeeds where for example
Ray failed. Both show love for their subject but Scorsese provides a much more intimate and real depiction. And the ending is perfect. Not a montage of bullshit, but one that evokes a sense of musical freedom and apathy. Playing what you want and not giving a fuck.
Jarhead was another great moment this year, from Sam Mendes. Wonderfully directed, although not the masterwork
American Beauty was. Still it was a great film, with beautiful cinematography and an off-beat look at war from a bored point of view. It also proved to be very funny as well, without sacrificing drama.
Below are the three best of the year, four star films.
