Sunday, July 24, 2005
2005 < 2004
Exactly what is going in with 2005's movies? By this time last year I had seen 50% of my Top 10 list (#1, #2, #5, #6, and #8 specifically). This year I've only seen three films I'd be comfortable putting on such a list: Me, You, and Everyone We Know, Brothers(from Denmark), and Duck Season(from Mexico) ~the last of which still doesn't have a release date so I might have only seen two. When do the A films start arriving? I grow impatient.
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16 comments:
Yeah, same with me too - I've only seen 19 (2 of which are Australian) and for me there's only 2 that I see ending up on a top 10. MAYBE three, but we'll have to see.
So far only 2046 and Mr & Mrs Smith get a 9/10. I wouldn't be embarassed putting The Upside of Anger or even Crash on the list but they're B+ movies, so...
But out of those 19, 13 are B- or below. The worst is The Ring Two on D+. But I actually have high hopes for many films coming up. In fact I think the second half could be as good as last year was in general... just truncated into 6 months. I do see 2046 being on my list though.
-Glenn
Poland says The Constant Gardener is terrific. It's about to open next month.
Caleb
In regards to The Constant Gardener, John Le Carre's novel was brilliantly written, but considering there is so much to cover, the screenplay could go either terribly amiss or on the other end of the spectrum... surpassingly good. Hope it's the latter, but that depends on Jeffrey Caine, whose writ-ography is not exactly adept (mostly TV material).
I think we found an easy rapport. I don't believe I have seen any films worthy of A-caliber recognition yet, although I do believe that Brothers was indeed a good film.
I do believe, however, that every year holds a potential Million Dollar Baby, the December-released-out-of-nowhere-Oscar-contender.
On paper, the rest of 2005 seems promising, if not misleading me to false hopes of movie grandeur. As far as August goes:
Someone I know saw a screening of Broken Flowers, said it was one of Bill Murray's best work. Then there's Romance and Cigarettes, which I'm growing increasingly excited about for its Surandon+Winslet+Musical aspect.
Anyhow, I'm written too much already. This is my first time by the way. I can never conjure up something worthy commenting.
-Pris.
Absolutely right, Nathaniel. I can't remember a year with so many titles to look forward to and so few decent films on screens by mid-year.
I have a short list of 20 movies I want to see between now and December. But I have yet to see a single 2005 release. None of the 20 has opened!
2046 and Brothers (I'm there with you all the way on that one) have recieved As from me so far. But most haven't seen 2046, and both films are at risk of dropping to A-s the next time I see them (2046 may even drop to a B+ since my first screening of it was over the course of three days, as I was busy, and who knows how it'll go when I see it all together in a theater). Downfall recieved an A-, and my only B+ films are there for those "reasons why they're B+s instead of Bs" types of things (if that makes any sense at all). I can't wait until I see more great films. 2046, Brothers, and Downfall felt full, while the rest of the films have all had something significant missing, and I can't quite put my finger on it.
As of now I'm most excited to see Me and You and Everyone We Know, Saraband, My Summer of Love, Broken Flowers, and The Constant Gardener. All seem fantastic, though the former three have been sort of a mixed bag critically, with Summer of Love reigning as champion.
I wonder what you'll think of The Best of Youth. I've heard it's a masterpiece.
You actually saw Fantastic Four? Nathaniel! I was hoping you'd hold your grudge against those people for firing Peyton Reed, replacing Rachel McAdams, etc. since the trailers were awful anyway. But I guess if you only gave it a C-, it couldn't be THAT terrible.
As for better movies, just cross your fingers for Brokeback Mountain. Although The Corpse Bride, White Countess, Romance and Cigarettes, Shopgirl, 2046 and others look promising as well. This does look to be a backheavy year.
Oh and Rent and The Producers, too. I'm hoping at least one of those is really all it can be.
i saw Fantastic Four yes but I made sure the money went to a small movie. It was my way to not support hiring non-talents to make big movies.
it was harmless but a total waste.
I responded to F4 moreso than I thought I would because it wasn't a depressing WW2 parallel that honestly offended me.
It WAS harmless and I would actually think that a sequel could be MUCH better because it would focus on action moreso than the first which was strangely strong on the getting-to-know-you aspect. I gave it a C+. But then I gave Bewitched a B- so, whatever.
-Glenn
This year I thoroughly enjoyed Howl's Moving Castle, which until the completely abrupt last 5 minutes was for my money Miyazaki's best film since Totoro (although now that I have seen a retrospective of his work I realize that his movies sometimes fall apart at the end i.e. Castle in the Sky and Nausicaa).
Also good was Saving Face, which was quite possibly one of the best romantic comedies/ethnic family comedies I have seen in a long time. It didn't do anything spectacular, it just told its simple story well with engaging characters and stellar acting (particularly Joan Chen and whoever played her daughter).
Finally, I really did like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It was Tim Burton and Danny Elfman back to their best form. They maintained the Dahl tone much better than any other adaptation of his books (except maybe the excellent Anjelica Houston version of "The Witches")While I could have done without the Willy Wonka's childhood flashbacks and the slightly sentimental ending, they were done in the best possible way and didn't detract from the quality of the overall film nearly as much as I thought it would.
The Witches with Anjelica Huston is AWESOME!
Sorry, that one's just a huge personal favorite. That witch convention scene... genius.
Whoa, don't even get me started on the supreme awesomeness that is Witches. Just brilliant stuff there!
-Glenn
YES, another Witches fan. My sister and I have watched that movie more times than I can count. Watching Huston peel off her face to the drumming of the DU-DU-DUUUUUN is one of the great pleasures of life.
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