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The Best & Worst Movies of 2005 "Brokeback Mountain" Best Movie of 2005 by Tim Nasson Wild About Movies publisher  It’s not shocking news that movies are getting progressively worse.
In fact, when interviewing Steven Spielberg this past summer, for “War of the Worlds,” he told me that “It’s not DVDs, cable TV and TiVo that are keeping people out of movie theaters in record numbers. It’s the lack of good movies.” Well, he seems to have heeded his own observation and made one movie this year that many, including this critic, deem Best Picture material – “Munich.” However, his “War of the Worlds” left a lot to be desired, and quite possibly could have been a masterpiece with another actor in the lead. 2005 proved to be a year with many low-caliber big-studio films – more about those in a minute – thereby making room for many ‘independent’ films on Top 10 lists around the nation, including mine. Don’t be surprised to see the majority of the upcoming Academy Award nominations go to films made for less than $30 million – the industry standard for a film to be labeled ‘independent’ or ‘low-budget.’
1. Brokeback Mountain - The first ‘gay’ movie portraying all of its gay characters as masculine and human, putting to bed, hopefully once and for all, the notion that all gay men are raging queens, with limp wrists, and aren’t happy without Martha Stewart on the tube and a glass of Dominus Cabernet in one hand and a Restoration Hardware catalogue in the other. The film, deserving of the plethora of awards it has received and will continue to receive, may go down in history as one small step at humanizing gay men. It wouldn’t have worked, at all, if its stars, Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllehaal were unconvincing, nor if its director, Ang Lee, didn’t get every word, gesture and breath just right. Don’t be surprised if a myriad of men who know they are truly gay, yet have been too afraid to deal with the issue, come away from this movie with the will to do something about it – just like many, after being captivated by “The Passion of the Christ,” confessed their sins, some, even murder. “Brokeback Mountain” is that powerful. 2. Crash – Move over Robert Altman. Paul Haggis who (Academy Award winning screenwriter “Million $ Baby”) wrote and directed this – a powerful, engrossing film telling several stories about a diverse group (the black thugs, the racist cop, the Mexican alarm installer, the ticking Pakistani grocery clerk, the scheming Asian and so on), all intertwining and occurring within 36 hours and concluding with explosive, astonishing and heart-pounding results – is the new master of the original screenplay. 3. Munich – Steven Spielberg, now $200 million richer, what with the sale of Dreamworks to Paramount Pictures, doesn’t make movies just for the money, as is the case with this. This is a powerful, masterpiece of a film about the Israeli athletes killed by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Munich Olympics. Or is it? Actually, it’s a film about what happens after the assassinations – the lengths, counter assassinations, the Jews went to to get back at the Palestinians. Munich is not going to make Spielberg many friends but it will open up dialogue and as Spielberg hopes, “becomes a prayer for peace.” Munich, in many ways, could be called the older brother of “Schindler’s List.”
5. March of the Penguins – This is no National Geographic special, slapped onto the big screen in order to cash in on a few bucks. This is a year in the lives of a family of penguins – over a thousand – who march to the southern most part of the Antarctic, (who knows why?), during its worst season, each year – to mate, sit on the eggs until they hatch, see the chicks off, and then start all over again. You see, penguins mate for life. It’s the insight into their lives, though, that captures our attention and hearts most – the almost human emotions they evoke, when their chicks are stillborn, or, worse, when the egg cracks before its maturation. OK. It’s the closest film, sans humans, to “Terms of Endearment,” and we were endeared.
7. Batman Begins – Yes. We thought it was going to suck, like last year’s “Catwoman.” But how we were wrong. This Batman is the best ever and in no small way, Christian Bale helped, by making Batman human, unlike others who have donned the bat suit in years past. Director Christopher Nolan also deserves credit, as without him the film most likely would have looked like a comic book come to life as all other Batman films have, rather than the somewhat gritty, yet very human look we get this time. 8. Wallace & Gromit – Yes, there were many other traditional, er, Pixar and computer animated films this year, such as “Madagascar,” “Chicken Little,” “The Corpse Bride,” and “Valiant,” but none come close to the uniqueness and hilarity and brilliant screenplay that this film and these two characters – and friends – made out of clay, bring to life on the big screen.
10. Match Point – Woody Allen is back – for the masses. Not since “Hannah & Her Sisters” has Woody Allen had a movie that made any significant money at the box office, ("Match Point" will make some dough when it's released), nor received with such critical adulation. (I, though, hated “Hannah” with a passion, seeing it for the first time during its initial theatrical run, at the ripe old age of fifteen.) “Match Point” pits the beautiful Scarlett Johansson against the dashing Jonathan Ryhs- Meyers in this film about passion, temptation and obsession. This film is so great don’t be surprised to see Best Picture, Director and Screenplay Academy Award nominations for seventy year old Allen.
Worst 10 Films of 2005 1. Bewitched A Sound of Thunder (tie)
Worst Remake
Worst Sequel Worst TV Show Turned Movie
Worst Broadway Musical Turned Movie Best Novel/Novella Turned Movie Worst Novel/Novella Turned Movie (Oscar nominations are announced late January 2006)
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Top 10 Films of 2005
4. Palindromes – Todd Solondz has made his share of eye-openers, “Welcome to the Dollhouse,” and “Happiness,” among them. This is his tribute to Dawn Wiener, the main character in “Welcome to the Dollhouse.” Unlike anything you have seen before, and impossible to explain, this film, which follows a little girl through her childhood and adolescence, (in a unique way – different girls, of various races, sizes and ages, playing her), and the pain she endures, is this year’s best ‘independent’ film, by far.
6. Capote – While Phillip Seymour Hoffman is no Robert Morse, there doesn’t seem anyone alive today, who could have portrayed Truman Capote better at the height of his career – which is what Capote focuses on. And Dan Futterman, (yes, Amy Brenneman’s younger brother on “Judging Amy”), who wrote the film, does an exemplary job. The best character study of the year.
9. Ladies In Lavender – Judi Dench and Maggie Smith. Both Academy Award winners, (Smith two times over), come together as sisters living on the English coast during WWII, in a film we have seen nothing like since “The Whales of August,” (starring Bette Davis and Lillian Gish), nearly twenty years ago. Putting these two together for a movie of any kind would be magic but with the screenplay - and direction - by Charles Dance, this an instant classic makes. 
Top 10 Pleasant Surprises
Top 10 Biggest Disappointments
Best Sequel
Best Broadway Musical Turned Movie
