Nosferatu Pix 2005

This was a terrific year for movies, one of the best. And I sort of blew it. In 2004 I did pretty well with seeing the good movies. My top five for 2004 were:

Million Dollar Baby
Napoleon Dynamite
The Passion of the Christ
Sideways
Super Size Me

The only movies I really regretted not seeing in 2004 were:

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Hotel Rwanda
In the Realms of the Unreal
Motorcycle Diaries
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

This year I fell into the sin of 2003. Of the movies I saw in 2003, these were my favorites:

Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Lost in Translation
A Mighty Wind
Once Upon a Time in Mexico
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

Of the movies available to see in 2003, these were some that I missed that year:

21 Grams
American Splendor
Cold Mountain
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
The Missing
Monster
Mystic River
Seabiscuit

And this year, 2005, to my shame…

Films I Can’t Friggin’ Believe I Didn’t Manage to See in 2005:

Breakfast on Pluto
The Constant Gardener
Constantine
Corpse Bride
History of Violence
Match Point
Munich
Tristram Shandy

More 2005 Movies That I Wanted to See, But Didn’t:

Ballets russes
Bewitched
BloodRayne
Bubble
Cache
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
The Devil's Rejects
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
The Exorcism of Emily Rose
Fever Pitch
The Fog
Four Brothers
Funny Ha Ha
High Tension
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
House of Wax
The Interpreter
Last Days
Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World
Man with the Screaming Brain
Manderlay
March of the Penguins
MirrorMask
The Nomi Song
Oliver Twist
Red Eye
Reel Paradise
The Ring Two
Serenity
Shopgirl
Sin City
The Squid and the Whale
Syriana
The Three Burials of Melquiades

My resolution for 2006 is to see, if not more movies, at least better movies. I knew it was a mistake to pay full admission price for “The Jacket”. Just one of those disasters I’ll try to avoid in the future.

I’ve been waiting for Brian De Palma’s movie “The Black Dahlia” (based on James Ellroy’s novel) starring Scarlett Johansson and Hilary Swank since last year’s Nosferatu Pix. I think it’ll never come out.

I didn’t find any particularly wacky “titles of films I didn’t see” (such as last year’s “Angry and Moist: An Undead Chronicle”). However the title “Duma” got my attention - I thought it would be a movie about the principal legislative assembly in Russia. Then I read the plot outline: “An orphaned cheetah becomes the best friend and pet of a young boy living in South Africa.” Huh?

Anyway, it was definitely a very entertaining year.

Best Film:

2046
Batman Begins
Good Night and Good Luck.
Grizzly Man
Memoirs of a Geisha

Honorable mention:
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

Best Actor:

Simon Baker “Land of the Dead”
Phillip Seymour Hoffman “Capote”
Tony Leung “2046”
Joachin Phoenix “Walk the Line”
David Strathairn “Good Night and Good Luck.”

Best Actress:

Jennifer Connelly “Dark Water”
Dakota Fanning “War of the Worlds”
Q'Orianka Kilcher “The New World”
Reese Witherspoon “Walk the Line”
Ziyi Zhang “Memoirs of a Geisha”

Best Supporting Actor:

George Clooney “Good Night and Good Luck.”
Will Ferrell “The Wedding Crashers”
Cillian Murphy “Batman Begins”
Edward Norton “Kingdom of Heaven”
Ken Watanabe “Memoirs of a Geisha”

Honorable mention:
Michael Caine “Batman Begins”
Morgan Freeman “Batman Begins”
Liam Neeson “Kingdom of Heaven”
David Thewlis “Kingdom of Heaven”

Best Supporting Actress:

Catherine Keener “Capote”
Gong Li “2046”
Gong Li “Memoirs of a Geisha”
Tilda Swinton “Broken Flowers”
Ziyi Zhang “2046”

Honorable mention:
Michelle Yeoh “Memoirs of a Geisha”

Nice to see them working:

Faye Wong “2046 ”
Robert Downey Jr. “Good Night and Good Luck.”
George Romero (director) “Land of the Dead”
Noah Taylor “The New World”
Rebecca De Mornay “The Wedding Crashers”

Wasted time that I’m never going to get back:

Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist
Hostel
The Jacket

Favorite Music:

5x2
2046
Good Night and Good Luck.
Memoirs of a Geisha
Walk the Line

Painful Probes:

5x2
Good Night and Good Luck.
War of the Worlds

Beasts Getting Hold of Women and Degrading Them:

5x2
King Kong
Land of the Dead
Memoirs of a Geisha
The Wedding Crashers

Folk Being Physically Violated Against Their Will:

5x2
Capote
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Grizzly Man
Hostel

Slumming:

Jane Seymour “The Wedding Crashers”
Stellan Skarsgård “Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist”
Keira Knightley “The Jacket”
Jennifer Jason Leigh “The Jacket”
Dennis Hopper “Land of the Dead”
Takashi Miike “Hostel”

Favorite Moments:

The foxes in “Grizzly Man”.
Ziyi Zhang dancing/writhing around during her big show, "Memoirs of a Geisha".
Colin Farrell as John Smith wandering around in the swamp in his armor, “The New World”.
Obi-Wan Kenobi shoots Count Grievous with a gun, “Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith”.
Will Ferrell calling for his mom to bring meatloaf, “The Wedding Crashers”.