A Look Back at 2005
One of the advantages of reviewing movies is that I wind up seeing a lot of films I probably wouldn’t manage to see otherwise. I watch at least one film a week, and when covering Cinequest, San Jose’s film festival, I see more like three or four films a day for a week and a half. In 2005 I sat through over 100 movies, ranging from delightful to horrible, from short (only a few minutes) to long (over three hours). Because I get to pick which movies I see most of the time, I only saw a handful I didn’t care for, but I did get to see a lot of films I greatly enjoyed.
There were several films that fell in the ‘classically great’ pile for me The Aviator told us the story of Howard Hughes (Leonardo DiCaprio), the great pioneer in both aviation and filmmaking. DiCaprio proved once again that he can actually act when he puts his mind to it, and the whole film was a wonderful epic. Likewise, The Merchant of Venice was a wonderful retelling of Shakespeare’s play, set in the right time period and starring Al Pacino in a surprisingly effective tragic performance. Brokeback Mountain was another great tragedy, showing the damage wrought by society’s intolerance upon two men deep in the throes of love.
There were a number of fun, feel-good films as well. Millions, the British film about two brothers who find a huge bag of money, was charming and handled its improbably virtuous hero without being overly saccharine. Both Sahara and Mr. and Mrs. Smith were escapist action romps: one in the Indiana Jones vein with explosions, anthropology, and adventure; the other a strange cross between a romantic comedy about a failing marriage and a gangster flick about assassins. The Producers, the screen adaptation of the Broadway musical version of Mel Brooks’ 1968 hit film, was a delight as well. Surprisingly, Hitch turned out to be a fun film in spite of looking from the previews and summary like another “how to fool a woman into liking you” tale. Wil Smith showed surprising heart, and the filmmakers actually offered an awkward, pudgy guy (Kevin James) as a romantic hero for once. Mad Hot Ballroom, a documentary about New York public school kids going out for a ballroom dancing competition, was heartwarming.
Of course, there were plenty of gritty films too. Sin City, the film
adaptation of Frank Miller’s graphic novel series, was horrifyingly beautiful, full of black and white images splashed with occasional primary colors and graphic violence. Batman Begins was a dark take on the origins of the caped crusader, with Christian Bale providing a near-sociopathic performance in the title role. Serenity offered fans of the cancelled sci-fi series “Firefly” some closure while offering newcomers an entry into the worn, grungy world of Western-style adventure and sci-fi spaceflight.
No 2005 retrospective would be complete without mentioning Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire — the fourth entry in the series was easily the best film adaptation so far, packing in all the necessary bits with as little change from the text as possible, while skipping over unnecessary subplots. It’s going to be a long wait for the next installment.
2005 was a decent year for movies. There was plenty of schlock around, as usual, but there were plenty of gems for those willing to track them down. On the whole, it was too much of a mixed bag to define as being a year of anything in particular, but it certainly had a lot to offer moviegoers.