Ryan McNeilWow – time flies! I’m already in the back nine of my Decade Series, looking back at the best films of the last ten years.
It was the year Catholics mourned the death of a Pope. It was the first time in 86 years that the Stanley Cup wasn’t awarded. And it was the year a terrible fate befell the City of New Orleans. It was 2005.
At the movies, 2005 is an especially auspicious year. I’ve primarily kept the discussion of this decade Oscar-free, but 2005 is a year that merits mention. This was the year that gave us the least deserving Best Picture of the 00’s. This was the year that CRASH took home the golden guy over BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, CAPOTE, GOODNIGHT AND GOOD LUCK, and MUNICH.
More often than not, The Academy picks the wrong film. However, few years rival ’05 where any of the other four nominees were more deserving than the eventual winner!!
Three of the four made my list, and the fourth just barely missed the cut. Take a look after the jump to see which three, and the other two that make up my list for…
#5. A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE… Director David Cronenberg has really had quite a nice decade, with his body of work including SPIDER, EASTERN PROMISES, and this my favorite of his recent films. Viggo Mortensen is chillingly good as a seemingly innocent small town citizen, who gets caught up in a tough situation. It’s tense, it’s haunting, and yes – it’s violent. It’s worth a look just to hear William Hurt ham his way through the phrase “Jee-zus Joey!”
#4. BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN… Here’s the memory I will forever link with one of this decade’s most divisive movies. I was lucky enough to attend the Toronto International Film Fest premiere, where I walked in knowing precious little beyond “Ang Lee…Heath Ledger…Jake Gyllenhaal…ranchers”. I can actually remember my exact thought when the house lights came up: “Sweet movie – too bad nobody’s gonna go see it”. It unfairly got turned into a lightning rod for bigger questions, but politics shouldn’t change the fact that it’s one of the best cinematic offerings of the decade.
#3. CAPOTE… Phillip Seymour-Hoffman’s Best Actor Oscar was richly deserved. Conversely, the moving performance by Clifton Collins Jr would be overlooked. How deep should an artist go in the pursuit of their art? And if they descend too deep, is it possible to get pulled back before all is lost? In the case of author Truman Capote, the answers are “as deep as necessary” and “no”. The man was so obsessed with creating the first non-fiction novel, that he thought nothing of using one of the accused killers. The chilling thing about the movie, is that it shows us that before long, the killer was actually using Capote. Sadly, neither of the two would find themselves better off.
#2. EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED… This might well be the most under-rated film of the decade, and it gains bonus points for coming from source material that creeps on being unfilmable. It’s quite a personal movie for all involved. While a story of searching for one’s heritage is not exactly a new one, I can’t remember the last time I saw it with such humour and sweet sorrow. Indeed, seldom does a film start out so funny, and quickly become so very touching. Elijah does his Elijah thing, but watching Eugene Hutz’s transformation from wannabe American B-Boy, to the young man learning about the past he never knew makes this movie. Reminding us all that to understand who we are, we first have to understand who we were…that “everything is illuminated in the light of the past”.
#1. GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK…This is what a movie should be. Beautiful, timely, and to the point. It has aged splendidly over the last four years, so much so that I find myself more a fan of it now than I was when I first watched it! Something I found rather attractive about watching GOODNIGHT AND GOOD LUCK, was that it comes it at a lean 93 minutes- proof that you can tell a captivating dramatic story in less that two-twenty. The glorious black and white provides so many beautiful shots, and the acting is flawless. During a time when Americans were often being painted as traitors, who knew that fifty year old quote like “Do not confuse dissension with disloyalty” could once again seem so relevant? Stacked with some of the finest actors this generation has to offer, and perfectly assembled by director George Clooney, GOODNIGHT AND GOOD LUCK is easily the best film 2005 had to offer, and quite likely one of the best of the decade as a whole.
Others on my shortlist for 2005 include SIN CITY, BROKEN FLOWERS, JARHEAD, MUNICH, WALK THE LINE, KING KONG, THE CONSTANT GARDNER, THE 40-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN, BATMAN BEGINS, MATCH POINT, CINDERELLA MAN, NORTH COUNTRY, WAR OF THE WORLDS, MARCH OF THE PENGUINS, JOYEAUX NOEL and SERENITY. (Edit – Many thanks to fellow blogger Bob Turnbull for reminding me of others that would make my shortlist including MURDERBALL, GRIZZLY MAN, BRICK, THE ARISTOCRATS, and ENRON: THE SMARTEST GUYS IN THE ROOM
Check in on September 29th for the next installment, my top five films of 2006.
Did I miss one? Feel free to leave comments with your own favorite movies from 2005, along with suggestions for the next top five.
My favourite movie of 2005 has become one of my all time favourite films (Top 20 easily): Chan-wook Park's "Lady Vengeance". I have to try to write this up at some point – it's really incredible.
My fave of the 5 Oscar contenders was "Good Night And Good Luck" (though there are a couple I haven't yet seen). Looking at my list of roughly ordered films from 2005, I placed 22 films above that (11 of them documentaries!). Just for fun, here they are:
1. Lady Vengeance
2. Riding Alone For Thousands Of Miles
3. Street Fight
4. Brick
5. Linda Linda Linda
6. C.R.A.Z.Y.
7. The Aristocrats
8. Fuck
9. Mad Hot Ballroom
10. 49 Up
11. Anytown U.S.A.
12. Heart Of The Game
13. Funky Forest
14. The Prize Winner Of Defiance Ohio
15. Wallace And Gromit: The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit
16. Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room
17. Grizzly Man
18. Sin City
19. Murderball
20. The Wild Parrots Of Telegraph Hill
21. Hustle & Flow
22. Princess Raccoon
The only reason why "Crash" wasn't at the very bottom of the entire list for the year was that I also saw Hal Hartley's "The Girl From Monday" – holy cow that was awful.
So there ya go. Once again, way more than you cared to know…B-)
Pretty great list. I couldn't agree with you more about "Crash". I hated it. Awful, awful, awful. It's one of the few movies that I can't stand to see so well reviewed. It screams and yells about racism and tries to get us to think about it by being racist, all while ripping off its narrative structure from different, far better films.
I've always wanted to see Everything is Illuminated but have had a hard time finding a copy.
Some fun trivia … Elijah Wood discovered the music of Gogol Bordello while filming and brought it back to North America … you probably already knew that though … knowing you 🙂
@ Bob… Crap! I forgot about BRICK!! Nifty list though, I'm gonna have to add at least a few of those titles into my shortlist at the bottom of the post.
@ Joel… Don't get me started.
@ Danger… No no! Gogol came from NYC, hence their brand of music being called "Gypsy Punk".
Liev Schrieber, who directed ILLUMINATED, first noticed lead singer Eugene Hutz in a poster for one of the band's gigs in Greenwich Village.
When he saw the outlandish image, he arranged to meet him and see if he'd ever done any acting (he had, but just a little).
Impressed by his meeting, he cast Eugene in the part of "Alex" the Ukranian wannabe B-Boy.
If he hadn't already, Frodo probably woulda discovered Gogol around that time 🙂
My credibility as a cinephile always drops whenever I say the following: I loved Crash.
*ducks from the onslaught of tomatoes*
It plays like a PSA and doesn't stop swinging until it punches you in the throat but there's just something I like about that. It knows it's over-the-top, which is something I think a lot of people misread, and I think that it's lack of subtlety makes a bigger impact on the Average Joe Filmgoer (not the ultrabrain bloggers like us!) so I'm glad someone made this movie for them.
Bob –
Great calls on Brick, Street Fight, and Linda! Linda! Linda!
@ gringo aka Scott… No need to dodge tomatoes, there will always be a movie one loves, that everyone else hates. I actually did a post about just that very situation a few months ago.
good list, although i would like to second elgringo (with his/her cute pic of Doug) and say I too liked Crash.
so i too am making a dash out of the trenches into the crossfire, albeit hiding behind Elgringo and his/her Doug-shaped face.
yes Crash is manipulative. yes it is preachy. but its a good old-fashioned emotion-stirrer and has great performances from Thandie Newton (who i cannot watch in anything else) and Matt Dillon (who i would watch doing the washing-up).
had it not have won the Oscar, Crash would be hailed as a nice ensemble piece.
and come on, was it really the worst film to win Best Picture in the 2000s? Chicago (has a musical ever had less memorable songs?), Million Dollar Baby (hideously sentimental – equal if not worse than Crash – and overrated)and Return Of The King (like watching a video game, only in a video game you actually care what happens to the characters) were all worse.
right, Crash-defending rant over. in the words of the great Alan Patridge, let battle commence…
Definitely a fan of History Of Violence. I would probably have ended up with Serenity in my top five. One of the best Science Fiction films of the decade.
I'm not a fan of Brokeback though. Good movie, but I still feel it's overrated in my thoughts. I felt the performances actually rose above the storytelling.
@ Ross… I don't mind CHICAGO (though I personally woulda picked THE PIANIST or TWO TOWERS). RETURN OF THE KING was good, just with a crappy-ass ending (though that year my vote woulda been for MYSTIC RIVER).
The '03 Oscars are another year that kill me becuase it turned into the LOTR love-in.
@ Heather… Can't argue with ya on SERENITY, 'specially since I'm finally watching episodes of "Firefly" on dvd now!
As for BROKEBACK, I've always had a different opinion of it because I saw it knowing preciosu little and without expectation. I know how hype can kill a moview, so I understand how it can feel overrated.
To be clear, I like CRASH (even own a copy), but not nearly as much as I like those other four.
Thank you mentioning the moving and unjustly overlooked Clifford Collins performance in *Capote*. I thought he inhabited the Perry Smith role as well as it could be done–until 2006's *Infamous*, in which Daniel Craig's Perry Smith went farther and dug deeper. An unforgettable masterpiece, both bitter and fiery. In fact, it was that performance of Craig's that finally convinced me he had the raw materials of a powerfully convincing actor…
@ Margaret… Over the last month or two, I've had a lot of conversations about INFAMOUS. I think I'm gonna have to finally get my hands on a copy. Can't wait to see this amazing Daniel Craig performance you mentioned.
Oh, and thanks for reading!
P.S. In my original Comment, while I was busy shaking my head because Clifton Collins had been unjustly overlooked, I proved it by getting his name wrong. DOH!!! Please forgive my Homer Simpson moment.
@ Margaret… You're lucky I'm such a sucker for new readers. Consider your Homer moment officially overlooked.
That's amazing that you got to see Brokeback at Toronto. I'm so jealous.
I know it's been said before in this forum, but "Crash" is one of the worst movies I've ever seen … OK, that may be a bit of hyperbole, but it truly has to be close … and I don't know how in the world I forgot about "Brick" either, because that movie just kicks all kinds of ass … And I would say "Good Night and Good Luck" was my No. 2 for the year, since as you already know, I just have a thoroughly unreasonable amount of love for "Hustle & Flow"
@ Danny… It was an awesome premiere, and like I say – I coulda swore the movie was bound for oblivion. You should try to make it up to TIFF sometime 🙂
@ Reel… Damn, I forgot about HUSTLE & FLOW. Fail! CRASH wasn't so tremendously awful…it just certainly wasn't anything close to Best Picture. As for GOODNIGHT AND GOOD LUCK, I'm thinking it might very well end up as my best of the decade. Time will tell…