The Best Movies of 2005

by Erik Childress of eFilmCritic.com

10. Walk the Line

The year's most beautiful love story was within the biopic of Johnny Cash, played with more than just impersonation by Joaquin Phoenix. Unlike many biopics which tackle the greatest hits approach to someone's life, Walk the Line used them as footnotes to the evolving relationship between John and June Carter (Reese Witherspoon, doing her best work since Election and deserves to take home the Oscar.) The music was kickin', Cash's warts wasn't just another "oh, poor you" examination and its underlying theme of both the salvation and the damnation of Southern Christianity and rock 'n' roll resonates nicely. June was Johnny's angel and by embracing her and his music, he found salvation. A truly great musical biopic.

9. Capote

Everyone can't stop talking about Philip Seymour Hoffman's portrayal; one making him the clear front-runner (and maybe one true lock) at this year's Oscars. But there was also a great film surrounding him, an emotionally draining one which seduced us with the charms of the flamboyant writer only to watch as his betrayals and lies while writing In Cold Blood caught up with him in the worst way. Just as their subject found something deeper and sadder in the circumstances crafting his masterwork, director Bennett Miller and screenwriter Dan Futterman do the same; not reinventing the biopic but focusing on the one event where fame and infamy would meet head on and destroy nearly everyone involved.

8. Sin City

It was the first anticipated WOW movie of the year and WOW wasn't big enough of a word to describe it. Robert Rodriguez had so much respect for Frank Miller's graphic novel series that he fought the Director's Guild to include his name as a co-director. Add Quentin Tarantino as a "special guest director" and you had a classic triple-feature film noir in silky black-and-white and a use of color that would have made the Tin Man go blind. Bloody, sexed-up and tough, everyone involved with the project simply got it (except for Jessica Alba and her misguided choice of clothing) and gave its all-star cast (particularly Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis and Clive Owen) iron-man dialogue to deliver in the greatest visual feast of 2005. Even beyond Carla Gugino's first appearance in it.

7. Me and You and Everyone We Know

Here was a film I avoided entirely at Sundance this year because I saw the words "performance artist" splashed across the synopsis. My sincerest apologies to writer/director/star Miranda July who spawned an instant connection with me with what has to be the year's most original charmer. A group of characters from middle age to grade school all looking for connections while an uncertain future awaits them. Much of the subject matter is sexual in nature, but played off in such a whimsical fashion that it's impossible to wince at situations which would normally be taboo or seem ugly in the hands of a director whose initial instinct is to make their audience gasp. July doesn't do that. Instead she basks in the beauty of the moments and the quirks of the characters who are too innocent in nature to cause pain to anyone but themselves. Hilarious and real in just about every scene.

6. King Kong

Yeah, it's a simple story that runs for three hours. Yeah, it takes 45 of those minutes to get to Skull Island and another 25 until Kong makes his first appearance. Yeah, its yet another remake of a classic that was probably sacrilege to touch. I've heard all the arguments, but you should see the damn movie anyway. Peter Jackson's love letter to both the original and moviemaking itself is a big, wet Valentine, Sweetest Day and every other Hallmark holiday you can think of. The first hour is more slow going on repeated viewings than the initial, only because once you know what's waiting for you on the island, it's kid-in-the-chocolate-factory time for every adventure-lovin' moviegoer out there. Naomi Watts does maybe the best work of her career (akin to Bob Hoskins in Who Framed Roger Rabbit) instilling as much heart into this CGI beast as Andy Serkis does behind-the-scenes. Hyperbole doesn't do the film justice and neither does an entire box of Kleenex.

5. Up For Grabs

Penguins, paraplegics, ballroom dancers and dirty jokes. But it's a story about a baseball that is one of the most entertaining documentaries I have ever seen. First seen at 2004's South by Southwest festival, filmmaker Michael Wranovics struck gold by following the story of the two men who laid claim to Barry Bonds' 73rd Home Run ball during the 2003 season. Like the best documentaries, it plays with your allegiances and evolves into a lasting statement about American greed and the drug of extending those fifteen minutes long after they've expired. Alex Popov goes from the most sympathetic individual to the Douche of the Decade winner before your eyes and Wranovics chronicles the journey from the ballpark to the courtroom with candid personal footage, priceless video evidence and great humor right up to a final irony that puts everything in perspective. It was the best film I saw at SXSW 2004 and only received a small release in a few theaters across the country which was a crime. Those who missed it or never heard of it are in for a true treat. (http://www.upforgrabsmovie.com/)

4. Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

More than just a fanboy paradise, George Lucas concluded his epic saga with honor. Gone (mostly) were the overly clunky dialogue exchanges and Jar Jar Binks' voicebox. Replaced by Shakespearean intrigue and nearly all the loose ends neatly tied up, Lucas gave his Star Wars brethren the film they deserved; a breathtaking tragedy with some of the darkest moments in the series. (Younglings, anyone?) Not since 1980's second (or fifth) chapter, The Empire Strikes Back have all the elements come together so fluently to combine Lucas' vision with the artistry of some of the best in the sci-fi genre. Ian McDiarmid came full circle as the story's true villain and did Oscar-worthy work as the treacherous Palpatine that the Bard himself would have been proud to write. Naysayers can nay all they want, but Revenge of the Sith was both a happy and a sad day for Star Wars fans everywhere. We may never get another, but we went out on a major high note.

3. Batman Begins

After a second viewing, I am convinced that this may just be the best comic book film ever made. It certainly will stand as the best of all the comic hero origin stories and puts to shame (seriously to shame) the four previous Batman films from 1989-1997. No other film in 2005 moved as briskly through exposition, character/plot development and action as Christopher Nolan's masterful take on the beginnings of the Dark Knight. Christian Bale did what all great actors do - they make the role theirs - and that's precisely what he did to both halves of the Bruce Wayne legend. Liam Neeson does the best of his mentoring work here and the amazing cast including Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Cillian Murphy, Tom Wilkinson, Ken Watanabe and Rutger Hauer all sink their teeth into a screenplay that didn't just pay respect to the origins but visualized itself into a world where we absolutely believe it possible for the events to be occurring. Operatic and exciting, this is a film that just as easily could have been done in 1989. Sixteen years later, it was more than worth the wait.

2. The 40-Year Old Virgin

No film came close to being as funny as what Judd Apatow and Steve Carell did this year. In fact, no film has come close to being this funny in years. A makeshift list of the ten funniest films I've ever seen would have to include this brilliant and perfectly sweet comedy. A mixture of high concept, low-key slapstick and simply put, one of the most insightful films about the way guys communicate and think in a world where sex is all around us. Steve Carell has affirmed his status as one of the funniest guys on the planet. Catherine Keener got the role we've been waiting for her to play after a lifetime of typecast bitch roles. And Paul Rudd, Seth Rogen and Romany Malco were the ensemble friends of the year, each of them providing big laughs and real characters to a premise that could have easily become just the one joke it suggests. Who says comedy gets no respect? It does when it respects the audience this much. Say Wedding Crashers is funnier and I'll smack you.

1. Munich

The words "Spielberg" and "masterpiece" have been bandied about so often they should be synonymous by now. But he's done it again, and arguable though it may be, it's impossible to deny the sheer craftsmanship on such a tight schedule to put a film such as Munich together. With a script by one of the best screenwriters working today (Eric Roth) and a legend-in-his-own-time playwright (Tony Kushner), Spielberg has molded an epic tale of revenge that cuts through decades of politics and their response to terrorism and becomes a throwback to the great political thrillers of the 70s that still resonate today. Hitchcockian (or DePalmaesque) at times, Munich becomes the prayer for peace that governments and organizations have been trying to communicate for decades through either a call-to-action or none whatsoever. Spielberg throws out black-and-white and settles in a gray area too brutal for one-sided sycophants to acknowledge with intelligence and too true to rest on our laurels about.