movie feature | Thu. 12 29. 2005 12:00 AM EST
This list might be more notable by what's missing than what made it, but 2005 was short on fulfilling expectations and long on everything else. Can someone please tell the studios that forcing an audience to sit still for nearly three hours in an uncomfortable multiplex seat does nothing for the box office? So while an honorable mention goes out to
H. G. Wells' original novel was a warning against complacency in an age of accelerated development. Steven Spielberg's update is more of an "I told you so." The Martian invasion invokes the 9-11 attacks with scenes of evacuation and toxic ash. The rest of the movie imagines America as a defeated nation that turns against itself to survive -- and only gained more resonance when Hurricane Katrina struck. Was the celebrated writer a literary vampire? This "How I Wrote My Masterpiece" story follows the swish writer as he drains two murderers dry of their tales for his In Cold Blood masterpiece. Philip Seymour Hoffman makes Capote compelling through an extraordinary invocation of his wicked charm. But don't forget the sterling work by Catherine Keener as Harper Lee, and Clifton Collins Jr. as Perry Smith. With Ben Stiller taking a much deserved break, it was up to second-tier comedians Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughan and Steve Carell to take up the slack. While The 40-Year-Old Virgin was too scattershot to provide more than belly-laughs, Wilson and Vaughan created a
The Wedding Crashers DVD goes on sale on January 3. A remake that revels in its own absurdity, with Jack Black's director making frequent asides about how much money could be made from showing the audience what they've never seen before. Peter Jackson definitely over-eggs his pudding, but if you can't find something to like amid the Kafka allusions, T-Rex rumble, and an ice-skating Kong, then get thee to Skull Island. The adaptation of Douglas Adams' silly sci-fi novel worked the same way the Lord of the Rings films did: it put a book on screen exactly the way you imagined it. The world ends with a cough, and it's harder to think of a more surreal screen vision than the giant factory floor on which worlds are created. Some inspired Pythonesque sparring between Mos Def, Sam Rockwell and The Office's Martin Freeman, too. Full confession: I've never read a word of J.K. Rowling's stories or seen a Harry Potter movie before. So maybe it's ignorance which made the latest installment of the boy wizard's adventures so spectacular. Amid much mumbo-jumbo, our hero runs a gauntlet that might have come from a Flash Gordon serial or Fortune Cookie Theatre, but seems more akin to the demented imagination of David Lynch. My aching sides do not lie: This was the funniest movie of 2005, provoking hilarity from its tour de force opening shot all the way to its no-holds-barred finale. Stephen Chou, Hong Kong's answer to Jim Carrey, paid tribute to the chop socky flicks of his youth by creating a vertigo-inducing homage crammed with more "movie movie" than a Tarantino film. The first thought on meeting overly enthusiastic bear lover Timothy Treadwell is "What a dickhead." His overbearing manner makes the Crocodile Hunter look like a model of reserve. But the genius of Werner Herzog's documentary is to understand this man and his bond with Alaskan grizzlies, and then show how casually nature can betray that trust. This sexy Turkish film was the year's best romance -- throwing together two explosive soul-mates. Cahit is a drunken screw-up who accepts the marriage proposal of Sibel, a suicidal tear-away looking to escape her orthodox family. The convenient coupling turns serious, but not in the way either intended. Fatih Akin's movie careens from emotion to emotion, heady with booze and the seaminess of rankled sheets. This documentary told the tale of Klaus Nomi, a lost hero of New York's 1980s Bohemia. The singer had the operatic falsetto of a eunuch, but cultivated a bizarre image that crossed Berlin cabaret with Plan 9 From Outer Space. Vintage clips and interviews suggest a remote being whose skewed career reached its apogee with an unforgettable Saturday Night Live appearance alongside David Bowie. |
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