The Best Film of the Year...

A History of Violence
Directed by David Cronenberg

     My list begins and ends with David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence. It does not simply feel like the best film to come out this year, it feels like the only film to come out this year. In its depiction of civil artifice containing primal rage, David Cronenberg’s unparalleled masterwork may be the most vital study of violence and human nature ever put to film. With a deceptively simple plot following a family man (an eerily serene Viggo Mortensen) whose dark past catches up with him, the film is snake-like in its stillness… that is until it springs to life and strikes without warning when depicting the trigger that turns this complacent family man into a killing animal. With preternatural quickness and grace, this once resting viper of a movie has the ability to sink its teeth in. The film leaves a mark. 

2. Match Point
Directed by Woody Allen

   Pitch perfect! As with last year’s classical Million Dollar Baby, Woody Allen’s Match Point is fashioned in such a way that one gets the sense only a master could have been at the helm. A movie like this, which achieves greatness at every level, can only come with time, experience, and thoughtfulness. There’s not a false moment in it. It is, simply put, a perfect movie.

    Match Point is a film about class, marriage, affairs, murder, tennis and of course luck. As the film progresses, a nihilistic void grabs hold of the esurient protagonist and begins to show itself in his increasingly depraved actions. Like the best works of Alfred Hitchcock, the audience is made to identify with a morally flawed character and by doing that we are faced with a great moral quandary--would we do what he does? As the social climbing cad Chris Wilton (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) is drawn into a world of uncertainty themes of moral weightlessness and dumb luck slowly creep into the frame only to be captured by the camera’s un-judging gaze. Through a fascinating dialectical struggle, luck, chance and the chaos theory do battle and eventually overcome romantic notions of fate, providence and cosmic justice. Good people can perish while evil people can get away with murder. It is called life and it is called one of Woody Allen’s best films.

3. Star Wars: Episode III
Directed by George Lucas

   Wallace and Gromit and Howl’s Moving Castle are getting all the accolades but why can’t we also call Star Wars: Episode III one of the best animated films of the year? Sure there are a few organic (I think) participants in the mix but, lets face it, the Star Wars prequels are, like Vader, more synthetic than human at this point. But here’s the catch: synthetic does not equal cold and unfeeling for this is by far the first Star Wars film to be more about depth than surfaces.

   What sets the baroque third and final chapter apart from the Lucas’ other adventures is the immediate sense of urgency and purpose that drives the narrative to its predestined conclusion. Not since Willow turned evil on Buffy the Vampire Slayer have I cared so dearly about a fantasy character’s tragic descent into darkness. That Anakin must embrace the darkness within himself (he, not Luke, is the chosen one that brings balance to the force after all) and that the Jedi turn out to be as flawed and corruptible as the Sith are just a few of the many surprises this unappreciated film has in store. Pessimistic components dealing with democracy being consumed by fascism (an indictment of Bush era imperialism?), the soul-crushing consequences of Anakin's actions, the Emperor’s will to power and the Jedi’s fall from power add up to a narrative far more dramatic and ambiguous than I could have ever thought possible from George Lucas. Episode III is the best of all the Star Wars films.  

4. Broken Flowers
Directed by Jim Jarmusch

   In the immortal words of the Wu Tang Clan member GZA, “It’s Bill Groundhog-Day, Ghostbustin'-ass Murray!” Well, Mr. GZA may need to update that designation if Murray’s serious streak continues. What is it about Bill Murray standing around and looking miserable that is so compelling? And how is it that when the actor stands around looking positively broken in recent films ranging from The Life Aquatic to Rushmore to Lost In Translation, it is a distinct type of misery --and comedy-- each and every time out? In his latest miser-masterpiece, Murray's character spends 90% of the movie's running time sitting on a couch looking distracted and I’ll be damned if that isn’t some of the most interesting blankness I’ve seen all year.

   The film, in case you were wondering, is about a middle aged man’s search for meaning and purpose in life. A familiar plot? You bet. The director even relies on the old road trip formula to mirror the man’s inner journey but this is like no mid-life crisis road trip movie we’ve ever seen. As Murray is pushed by his sleuthing friend into finding a long lost son, he drives around and visits and quizzes ex-lovers around the country. With this simple premise filmmaker Jim Jarmush has crafted the perfect Murray vehicle by way of  his aesthetically idiosyncratic technique. With this film the director has achieved an exquisite formula that balances quirkiness and accessibility. And with this film Murray, well, he simply does what he does best.

5. Howl's Moving Castle
Directed by Hayo Miyazaki

   Because Howl’s Moving Castle proves that Hayao Miyazaki at his worst is still animation at its best. This year saw an impressive range of animation fare but none were more breathtaking than Miyazaki-san’s wistful adventure where anything can happen. A young girl is magically turned into an old women, a cranky wizard is magically turned into a rebel freedom fighting bird, and  how could I forget that sassy fireball who fuels a magical castle that is not only able to move across a luscious pastoral countryside, but across dimensions! While that would sound like some crazy-ass shit to the average Disney-ized numbskull, it’s just another day in the park for Miyazaki.

6. Munich
Directed by Steven Spielberg

"Forget peace for now. We have to show them we're strong."

    Munich suicide bombed my sensibilities and captured the number six spot. While I wouldn’t exactly say no to a film about Arab terrorists getting brought to justice Kill Bill-style (how did Team America fail to do that?!), Spielberg’s polemic on revenge and murder is not out for blood, it’s out for a self proclaimed brand of “balanced” message making. And while the film’s overly lofty why-can’t-we-all-get-along speechifying has a way of lessening stark intensity of the plot, there is a movie here. The emphasis is on is because with Spielberg there is usually not a movie underneath his cotton candy sensibilities. Here, Spielberg directs with a great, Hitchcockian verve that follows four Israeli hired agents (lead by a Eric Banna in a poignant, underrated performance) as they receive covert orders to extract revenge on the terrorists that killed Jewish athletes at the infamous Munich Olympics.

   We know that the Arabs can be bastards. And we really know that the Germans can be bastards. But this film is making headlines for positing that maybe, just maybe, the Israelis can be bastards too. That maybe revenge in the eye-for-an-eye sense puts the ever-suffering Jewish people on the same level as terrorists. While I disagree with Mr. Spielberg's thesis that fighting terrorism is as unacceptable as terrorism itself, that doesn’t prevent me from finding the story --whose overriding theme is simply home-- to be heartfelt and worthy. Fact is, this is the director's best work since Raiders of the Lost Arc… and that was 1981! With great performances, even better cinematography by best living DP in the world (Janusz Kaminski), and Spielberg not being his usual hack self (though there are still some icky Spielbergian mother/father themes in the characters of Golda Meir and Avner's French contact), Munich is the plastic explosive equivalent of a movie—incendiary but also soft.   

7. Serenity
Directed by Joss Whedon

   Anyone who says Hollywood isn’t making films pleasing to audiences hasn’t seen Joss Whedon’s Serenity. Then again, maybe Serenity is proof of what audiences don’t want: brains and beauty in their sci-fi gumbo. A spin-off to Whedon’s cult Sci-Fi/western Firefly television show, the comfortably cinematic Serenity contains dialogue so vivid, so crisp, so down right clever in its precise usage and intention that the words practically fly --warp speed, of course-- off the screen. Serenity contains not only an auteurist ear for dialogue, but real characters delivering said dialogue. You've never heard a film like this! The universe created by Whedon and inhabited by the Serenity crew is so lived-in that in watching the story of a fallen renegade bring down a futuristic fascist regime by exposing their brain-washing secrets, it becomes clear that this is one of those rare science fiction films that is able to naturalized the discourse and position the story before the concept; the fiction before the science.

8. Wallace and Gromit
In the Curse of the Were-Rabbit
Directed by Nick Park and Steve Box

   Are Wallace and his pet dog Gromit the best duo in animation history? You bet. Are they the funniest? Yup. The most romantic? Er, yah, kinda. The coolest? Goes without saying. Just about the only thing these two delightful characters aren’t is human but they’re not going to let that hold them back from venturing into the most delightful mystery of the year. To quote a bunny: Aaa-WOOOO!!!

9. Grizzly Man
Directed by Werner Herzog

   “The bears probably thought there was something wrong with him… like he was mentally retarded.”

    The best documentary of the year is one where time stands still. As we learn of the story of a man who lived amongst wild grizzly bears for months at a time while filming them the audience is thrown into the mind of this man and left wondering: is there a place for man within nature? How about nature within man? Interweaving live footage with details of how this man was tragically --and perhaps ironically-- eaten alive by his bear "friends," Herzog’s blunt thesis may be no surprise to anyone familiar with the director’s austere worldview. When Herzog looks into the eye of nature he does not see beauty and serenity, he sees “chaos, hostility and murder.” He sees life feeding on life and, accordingly, ends his mesmerizing tale with a close-up of a hungry bear while declaring the “overwhelming indifference of nature.” Nature in all its nakedness fascinates the filmmaker and he allows the viewer to experience a similar revulsion/attraction to the material.

   In attempting to explain why this is one of the very best films of the year I could try to write something profound or I could simply allow Herzog's scene stealing narration to describe his subject, “As a filmmaker, he captured such glorious improvised moments, the likes of studio directors with their union crews can never dream of.” And here's the twist, after watching I realized that what works so magnificently well about this self aware documentary is not the tragic environmentalist’s filmed adventures with bears but, rather, how Herzog is able to turn a documentary about nature into a documentary about himself.

10. Pride & Prejudice
Directed by Joe Wright

   While I love me some Jane Austin, watching this film’s rather cumbersome “I love you... most ardently..." trailer got me going off about how no mass audience pleasing abridgement was going to top my Colin Firth-ized, BBC-ized baby. Ten minutes into Joe Wright’s magnificently directed adaptation I was all, Colin who? As a pre post-postfemenist satire on upper-class English morays, this stylish version of Pride & Prejudice distills what is so special about the source material while enhancing it with a unique voice and graceful timbre. The film is traditional in terms of content and purpose but revolutionary in terms of how the director is able to bring to life the material in every aspect of his film's mise en scène (be it camerawork, blocking or heavily symbolic close-up shots). While Keira Knightly is oh so ever slightly miscast (not a fan of her work), Matthew MacFadyen as Mr. Darcy is the reason to watch. This Mr. Darcy remains stoic and smoldering --as required-- while subverting the role through nervous mannerisms that enrich and humanize the deliberately cold exterior of this finely crafted character. Sorry Brokeback, Pride & Prejudice is the most romantic film of the year!

Looking Back At The Year That Was:

The unifying theme that sprung from the best films of 2004 was love. This year another incidental theme became clear only after I was done compiling my list. Darkness. Looking at my favorite films of this year I was astounded to see another thematic pattern defined my year end list. The pattern consists of something called hamartia which is defined by Aristotle as the "tragic flaw" of the protagonist, and psychomachia which is defined as a battle for one's soul. The best films of 2005 include characters embarking on an internal struggle. Consider the subjects I (unconsciously?) included in my top twenty:  Joey in A History of Violence, Anakin in Star Wars: Episode III, Howl in Howl's Moving Castle, Avner in Munich, Malcolm in Serenity, Timothy Treadwell in Grizzly Man, Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins, XXXX in Layer Cake, Wallace in Wallace and Gromit, Blake in Last Days, David Spritz in The Weather Man, Ennis in Brokeback Mountain, and Chris Wilton in Match Point.

   Allow me to look closely at my my top three selections, A History of Violence, Match Point, and Star Wars: Episode III. These films are separated by time, place and even galaxies yet are unified by their themes. The characters start off in a seemingly ideal condition. An event happens that disturbs the equilibrium and tests each character. The characters find themselves drawn to darkness that resides within the self. In essence, each character engages in a battle for his own soul and the tragic flaw is inherent in the fact that all three come to embrace this darkness instead of rejecting it. Each man turns. As such, A History of Violence, Match Point and Star Wars III are basically the same film with different clothing.

   Now, I'm not interested in whether these fictional characters are byproducts of an uncertain world full of war, terrorism, Bush and Paris Hilton. Rather, what I mean to get across is that I did not deliberately choose these films for their likeminded themes.  The moral ambiguities these characters are confronted with are not dictated by fate, they are instead rooted in a very human condition defined by freedom of choice and action.  Each character listed above is presented with a choice somewhere along the line and seeing how all these men deal with and are affected by these life altering choices is what made 2005 a truly rich year for film.

11-20

11. Last Days
But, really, the whole Gus Van Sant trilogy: Elephant, Gerry, and Last Days

   Gus Van Sant’s meandering Last Days is nothing more than (A) a film about a man who walks around his house and backyard mumbling to himself, eating Coco Crispies and staring at his feet for extended periods of time; (B) a film containing an isolating aesthetic composition in which the filmmaker watches --in long-shot documentary fashion-- without ever intervening or even cutting to a close-up of the character we’ve been watching stammer about for the last 90 minutes; (C) a silent film by virtue of the fact that nobody really talks, or at least talks audibly (though they do play music); and (D) a film is based on Kurt Cobain tormented final days. All that being said, if I also called Last Days top 20 worthy it might sound like I’m being a pretentious film elitist that, like so many pretentious film elitists, has some sort of beef with accessibility. Breaking nearly all narrative rules, Gus Van Sant is able to turn this rock-bottom character’s empty, agonizing wanderings into a hypnotic ode to the fleeting moments of one’s very soul—they should have called it The Passion of the Cobain. By simply observing this figure as he waists away, the movie reaches the heights of an art form rather than the depths of the student film. No film dealing with a character’s last day has ever said so much, and so perfectly, without really saying anything at all.

12. Layer Cake

While Michael Cain is the patron saint of blond Limey thugs, Daniel Craig announces himself with this primed role as a business minded British drug dealer running scared from an even bigger business minded British drug dealer played magnificently by Michael Gambon, in full I'm-Not-Dumbledore mode. With a great visual flair, director Matthew Vaughn has crafted a sly thriller full of twists, turns and, ug, Sienna Miller--two out of three ain't bad. Sure there’s a message about drug enforcement, organized crime and corporate corruption but the audible onslaught of “wankers,” “cunts,” and “bollocks” keep this film grounded in the glorious gangster tradition. As Craig and his crack crew of exhausted executive drug dealers get rolling...and running, the exuberance leaps off the screen and it’s quite the rush.

13. Land of the Dead
   In the midst of a blood-soaked renaissance, another great zombie movie has graced the big screen and another great zombie movie has made the list. With a caustic combination of edgy political allegories and flesh eating action I cannot say enough good things about Romero's Dead follow-up except that this perpetually unsung filmmaker, working within a perpetually unsung genre may represent the smartest zombie movie ever made. And, you know what, that's saying something.

14. The Weather Man

"I wish I had two dicks."
Dave Spritz, thinking to himself. 

The title says it all. Nicholas Cage plays Dave Spritz, a local Chicago weather wan… with issues…like having to tell his daughter about her camel toe... and people throw food at him when they see him on the streets because he just looks like a "total ass hole.” Oooookay? They don’t make movies like this anymore. And for good reason: there’s not a market for them. Our loss because it is slippery films like The Weather Wan that, regrettably, kind of need to be trounced when they come out just so they can be cherished when we actually end up seeing them. The Weather Man simply got lost in the shuffle. The film arrived in a long list of 2005 films that were impossible to sum up in one sentence or concept. Because audiences love their McMovies to be the same shape and size so as to curb the element of surprise, Hollywood tends to reduce everything it makes to its base concept. Works like The Weather Man, however, prove that Hollywood is not out of ideas and that the system is still taking chances. I’ll wager that in time you’ll feel pretty stupid that you went to see Saw II while you let The Weather Man dissipate like a cold front on the surface of the sun (like my weather metaphor?). On a final note, long have I been a supporter of Gore Verbinski’s unique style and dark sense of humor. What can I say? The guy’s an auteur… and a good one, too! If the V-Man’s got to do crap like Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and 3 and 5 to get moody personal projects like The Weather Man made then, well, so be it.

15. Good Night, And Good Luck

There’s not much to it, which is exactly why there is so much to it. For all its black-and-white minimalism, internalized performances and in-the-moment vérité, George Clooney’s subtle political drama about news reporters taking on extremist politicians is bold and colorful. Urgent, one might call it. This is not so much a politically charged movie as it is a historically charged one. Granted, any reasonable person could (and should) apply the events depicted in this film to what’s going on today but that’s optional. Plus, a message alone doesn’t make a movie great (Crash is proof of that). Biopics, in my opinion, rarely go right but this film is successful because is strips everything away except for Robert Downy Jr.’s gay. Unlike Clooney’s pervious film, Good Night is focused and restrained. The same could be said about David Strathairn’s performance as the gripping Edward R. Morrow, a legendary reporter who risked his livelihood standing up against bullies posing as patriots. If only we had the equivalent for today’s times.

16. Batman Begins

   To be honest, I’m not what you might call a "fan" of this film but let me explain its placement on my top 20. I SAW ALL THE OTHER BATMAN FILMS. That’s it. By simply seeing the state of the 90s era Batman franchise and witnessing how each one was worse than the next I really started to appreciate how Begins gets the formula right. Namely, Christopher Nolan got the franchise on track by emphasizing the torture and psychology of what is perhaps the most nuanced comic book character of all time. Batman is not a superhero, he’s just a slightly crazy rich boy with Daddy issues and the film plays up that aspect as it devours Bruce Wayne's psyche. With a great cast headed by Christian Bale as “the Batman!”, the film emphasizes the realism of the world without becoming tedious like a certain melodramatic geek who cares more about girls than dressing up like a spider.

17. Kings & Queen
   A stunning French production that is so much more than the sum of its plot. When I say Arnaud Desplechin’s latest is both a tragedy and comedy that parallels the journey of two ex-lovers, an eccentric man (Mathieu Amalric) with “no team spirit” forced into an asylum and a woman (Emmanuelle Devos) who is dealing with the death of her father and the fact that "I've loved four men in my life and killed two of them," that leaves out all the heart, humor and human drama—the three Hs! Like the best works of Truffaut, the light this film casts is simple and warm while the shadow, the unseen elements, envelops the audience in an atmosphere of moody elusiveness.

18. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and The Matador

   A sleeper noir comedy so goddamn self aware that you’ll want to drop-kick it after a first encounter. But after heads cool you think about it and realize what a cool little prick of a flick it is. Don’t believe me? At the end of this picture the prickly antihero turns to the camera and says, “To all you good people in the Midwest, sorry we said ‘fuck’ so much.” You see… lame but somehow, funny. Starring Robert Downey Jr. as a looser thief mistaken for an actor and Val Kilmer as a gay private investigator, this buddy comedy/mystery, as directed by smart-ass screenwriter Shane Black, has a great 90s noir feel to it. The absurd jokes slide down like white castle burgers, which I’ve never had but I’m sure they slide down.

Speaking of sliding down, The Matador, a trendsetting hit man comedy in the vein of Sexy Beast. I use the term trendsetting because I can't imagine watching another ordinary hit man movie and digging it after experiencing this extraordinary comedy in which two men form an unusual bond. Granted, the film is a bit of a mess in terms of structure and editing but every step of the way it, like Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, manages to subvert its genre, offering up some of the most unusual and strangely charming moments since Grose Pointe Blank. Leaving in the dust his Bond persona Pierce Brosnan delivers a fiercely funny career topping performance as a sexually ambiguous hit man with identity issues. While in Mexico, the hit man with a heart of Gold Label realizes (on his birthday no less) that he is completely alone. He meets Greg Kinnear in a bar soon after and decides to confide in him. That's all that needs to be said except that Brosnan throws alcoholarific out lines like "I wouldn't do that for all the teenage twat in Thailand" and "I look like a Bangkok hooker on a Sunday morning, after the navy's left town."   

19. Brokeback Mountain

   Due to its homosexual content Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain has become a controversial topic. A buzz word. A punch line. A box office hit. A film cretin Utah theaters refuse to show. I don’t know why people care about gays and their private life but, well, they do so… here we are. When films make headlines for their content more than their quality we must be skeptical. And if awards are given to a film simply because it came at the right time and fits a certain agenda… then perhaps we must note the film’s place in cultural history more so than the film’s aesthetic achievements.

   So then the test for a movie like Brokeback Mountain is as follows: would it be as good without the polarizing elements? Would Brokeback Mountain be great without all the yapping about the “forbidden” cowboy sex theme? My final conclusion is that, yes, the film is, at its core, well made. Touching, even. Brokeback Mountain* is great but with an asterisk. It is the number one critic movie of the year and, no doubt, it will win the most awards. Speaking objectively, however, it is nowhere close to the best made movie of the year (it is too slight to be anything beyond a great little film) and so I must conclude that by singling out and awarding this film we are sending the right message to the wrong people…but for the wrong reasons.

20. Nine Lives

   A movie composed of nine stories and nine continuous takes. Nobody saw this curious film when it came out last summer (who could blame them?) but while Nine Lives was easy to miss, it is hard to forget. Watch it for the way it was shot (I love moves with unbroken, real-time performances) but stay for the heart and tragedy felt in these nine women’s lives. Though each segment is unbroken and many of the nine women's lives do connect in some way or another, this isn’t some gimmicky or pretentious movie in the vein of Crash (thank god). It’s simple, it’s true and most of all worth renting. 

21. Films That Just Missed The List
A couple of films I really liked but couldn't find a place on the list were The Constant Gardner, Downfall, Melinda and Melinda, Me and You and Everyone We Know, Cinderella Man, The Aristocrats, In Her Shoes, Junebug and Kingdom of Heaven. These are superlative films that would have easily made the list in other years this decade (certainly 2000, 2001 and 2002). The good news is that 2005 is, perhaps, the best year for film in the 00s.   

Top Ten Moments of the Year

• The Concert Sequence from Star Wars: Episode III—Lucas imagines, with great wonder, an expressionistic art form unbound by human conception. As this surreal opera is playing in the background, the Emperor’s seducing of Anikin in the balcony is the stuff of sci-fi nightmares. A great, evocative moment.
• Upon introducing us to the cold Mr. Darcy, director Joe Wright cuts to a shot of his hand. It twitches, indicating that our Mr. Darcy is not cold, he’s just love struck and nervous. Ahhh.  (Pride and Prejudice)
• Viggo meets with a crime boss and goes all John McClain on them.
• As a clump of chest hair is torn off the 40-Year-Old virgin’s ape like chest he screams in agony. “ARGH, KELLY CLARKSON!” Perhaps the best curse word of the modern era. (The 40-Year-Old Virgin)
• Werner Herzog listens to an audio of his documentary subject, Timothy Treadwell being eaten by a bear. He then turns to Treadwell’s ex-lover and cautions her “You must never listen to this… you must destroy it because it will be the white elephant in your room all your life” The film is about bears but, really, Herzog is the star. (Grizzly Man)
• Jonathan Rhys Meyers tosses an incriminating ring into the Thames River. In a split second moment of randomness (not fate!) the ring doesn’t go in. I get chills thinking about this essential plot point that will makes sense when you see the movie. (Match Point)
• Mal and Co. give the alliance a big F-you. As the ship Serenity is heading right for the government armada, out of the cosmic fog a fleet of Reavers are revealed to be on his tail. Suddenly the two armies are face off. You can just hear Mal going “suckas!” (Serenity)
• The Weather Man gets hit with, lets see, a burrito, a large coffee, a Big Gulp and, my favorite, a McDonalds apple pie that sticks on his coat. Think fast Malkovich, er, I mean weather man! (The Weather Man)
• Daniel Craig’s partner in Layer Cake going apeshit at a diner.
• Kong Kredits. King Kong finally ends and I finally get to go home. Stupid monkey.
• POW! A shotgun blast grazes a furry little bunny's hide. Just then the creature gets sucked into Wallace's bunny catching contraption. While going through the underground dirt tunnel and into the light the bunny thinks he’s going to heaven. (Wallace and Gromit)