It Was The Best Of List, It Was The Worst Of List. Everyone else is writing about their favorite and least favorite films of the year, so why not me? A few films in 2005 gave me hours of thoughtful and exciting entertainment. And a few gave me hives.
There are oodles of movies I saw and disliked in 2005. Some I disliked a lot, like Dark Water and Bewitched, and some I disliked a LOT, like Boogeyman and Alone In The Dark. (It just wouldn't be a Worst Of list without a Uwe Boll film, would it?)
And then there are the ones that I actively hated—yes, even more than Boll's bollocks. These films were the ones that actually hurt to watch. I squirmed, I scowled, I scolded myself for not being more discerning. I'm part of the problem.
C.R.A.Z.Y. makes the "give me back my three hours" list. An awful, plot-free, pretentious, and trite film. I only stayed past hour 1 because I was there with friends. I only stayed past hour 2 because I was their lift home.
Diary of a Mad Black Woman is on my "Jesus, would you just shut up about Jesus already" list. Minute after painful minute mixing God Is GREAT messages with fart jokes.
Kicking and Screaming tops the "aren't comedies supposed to be funny?" list. Humorless garbage that any 8 year old would have found insultingly puerile. Well, any 8 year old except the one who wrote it.
Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sucks, like the two toy commercial prequels before it, is dead to me. Mention it not.
There was also a litany of films I didn't see that I'm sure would have made the Worst Of list if I'd been suckered into seeing them. 2005 was the year of Miss Congeniality 2, and Supercross. It was the year of Elektra and Fantastic Four. It was the year of Doom. It was the year of The Ringer.
Tell me again how piracy is the reason movie revenues were down?
Compared to 2004, 2005 was The Year Of Suck as far as movies. Weekend after weekend, regurgitated tripe was shunted in and back out of cinemas as fast as possible to make room for the next ladle of slop.
But as always there were some bright spots. There were some films worth watching, worth keeping.
I tried to come up with a Top Ten list, but I couldn't. There just weren't two handfuls of fingers worth of great films last year. Frankly, I padded my list to come up with seven, one of which I just saw today so perhaps I'll yank it back off the list once it stays with me a while.
But here are 2005's Moderately Magnificent Seven:
- Oldboy
- Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
- Me and You and Everyone We Know
- King Kong
- Good Night, and Good Luck
- Sky High
- Kung Fu Hustle
Some of those will make the Big Boys' lists of best films, and some won't. But everyone is wrong except me. Oldboy was the best film of the year: original, interesting, shocking, daring, exciting, intelligent…damn near perfect. It has the single best fight scene I've ever seen on film, and it has a double-whammy ending that truly rewards attentive viewers.
There were a handful of films that I enjoyed and which almost made my list, but the above seven seemed far enough distant from the pack to deserve their own list. I'd give "alphabetical honorable mention" for 2005 to:
- The Beat That My Heart Skipped
- Crash
- A History of Violence
- Millions
- Murderball
- Schultze Gets the Blues
- Serenity
- Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
Partly for those of you keeping track at home, but mostly for my own notes, there were a few films I didn't see last year that may retroactively make my Best Of list once I do see 'em: The Best Of Youth; Memories of Murder; Godzilla Final Wars; Breakfast on Pluto; and Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada.
I'm not above a little Russian revisionism, so if you come back to this page in a few months don't be surprised if the Moderately Magnificent Seven has expanded to the Predominantly Pleasing Eight, the Substantially Satisfactory Nine, or even the By And Large Bearable Ten.
