What In Tarnation?!?!? » Blog Archive

28 Dec

The Movies of 2005

Posted by Christopher in The Screening Room.

Previously on WIT?!?!?

As is the tradition here at WIT?!?!?, I like to look back at the year in POP culture and share with the world what my favorite was, because that is all that really counts, right? In the past, I have ranked my choices using the ubiquitous top ten list. This year I throw off the constraints of the top ten list. I do this for several reasons. First, I haven’t seen all the movies that I think would make a top ten list for 2005. Second, this year seems to have made up in the lack of movies that I lacked last year and to rate them would be difficult. So this year we have two groups, Movies I Liked and Movies I Didn’t Like. If a movie didn’t land in either list it doesn’t appear. See how simple this is going to be! Enough with the talking, let’s get down to business.

Movies I Liked

Phantom of the Opera - The movie had a few missteps including the casting of the Phantom but it held pretty close to the original.
Million Dollar Baby - Well made movie that went in a direction that I wasn’t expecting.
Constantine - A movie that I rented on a whim. Turned out I really kind of enjoyed it.
Millions - I just watched this movie last night. What a delightful movie about a family dealing with the loss of the mother. The boys find a bag full of money that flew off a train. From Roger Ebert.com:

Danny Boyle’s “Millions,” a family film of limitless imagination and surprising joy, follows the two brothers as they deal with their windfall. They begin by giving some of it away, taking homeless men to Pizza Hut. Damian wants to continue their charity work, but Anthony leans toward investing in property. They have a deadline: In one week the UK will say goodbye to the pound and switch over to the Euro; maybe, thinks Anthony, currency speculation would be the way to go.

The only reason I wouldn’t recommend this as a “family film” is a scene of the older boy looking up some things on the Internet that I don’t consider appropriate for a family film. Other than that, this movie is a real treat.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - One of my favorite books turned into a very funny movie. At least I found it funny. It did end up on a Worst movies of 2005 in Entertainment Weekly. No accounting for taste I suppose.
Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith - It certainly doesn’t live up to episodes IV and V but is wasn’t as bad as VI or II. It barely finds itself on this list.
Batman Begins
March of the Penguins
War of the Worlds - The first half of this movie belongs on this list, the latter half (from the moment that Tim Robins appears) belong on the Movies I Didn’t Like list. This movie avoids most of the typical disaster movie cliches. Now if I could just fix the ending.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Not as good as the original but still good. Dragonflies?
Sky High - I just recently saw this on Christmas. It found it to be a clever and funny take on the superhero genre. A nice mix of Harry Potter and Superman.
Flightplan - A fun thriller that reminded me a bit of Panic Room, but I liked that movie too.
Serenity - If I was ranking the movies, this one would probably appear as number one on the list. As a huge fan of the TV series Firefly, I am forced to. The movie wraps up several plot points that were left over from the series while still leaving some questions open for future movies. However, it was recently reported in EW that more movies for the crew of Serenity isn’t likely. Whedon has made his peace and is ready to move on. Too bad I’m not.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - This sequel continues the quality movies from this series. This movie brings a fun sense of humor that is quite unexpected in the film that is the darkest to date.
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe - I hope to write more about this later.