The 2005 Mini-List

[domino harvey]

This was in incredible year. I think something like the first fifteen films on my list were all five stars - I don’t know that any other year was quite that effusively rated by me

Willing to share your list?

Here are the fifteen films I rated five stars in alphabetical order (it would have been sixteen but Pervert’s Guide to Cinema wasn’t in the selections), since ranking is for post list (and I don’t remember my exact order anyways )

Spoiler

the Baxter
Combien tu m’aimes?
Down in the Valley
Elizabethtown
Gespenster
Hard Candy
Junebug
L’annulaire
Manderlay
Match Point
Me and You and Everyone We Know
the New World
Reefer Madness: the Movie Musical
the Upside of Anger
War of the Worlds

[therewillbeblus]

I can't believe I missed The Baxter this year. Would've cracked my top five!

Edit: Thanks swo for letting me amend that

[denti alligator]

Domino, I put two of those fifteen in my top 4. I consider that pretty good overlap, especially since of the remaining 13 I’ve only seen two further ones.

[therewillbeblus]

I count an overlap of 12 for the list, with 9 overlap in my top 15. Solid

[swo17]

The 2005 List



##. Film (Director) points/votes(top 5 placements, aka likely votes in decade list)/highest ranking

01. The New World (Terrence Malick) 383/21(10)/1(x4)
02. Caché [Hidden] (Michael Haneke) 366/20(11)/1(x4)
03. A History of Violence (David Cronenberg) 305/17(7)/1(x3)
04. The Squid and the Whale (Noah Baumbach) 276/16(6)/1
05. Moartea domnului Lăzărescu [The Death of Mr. Lazarescu] (Cristi Puiu) 259/14(8)/1
06. L'Enfant [The Child] (Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne) 248/15(5)/4
07. Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee) 193/12(3)/2(x2)
08. Munich (Steven Spielberg) 190/12(4)/2
09. Grizzly Man (Werner Herzog) 184/13(1)/2
10. Match Point (Woody Allen) 182/13(3)/1
11. 天邊一朵雲 [Tian bian yi duo yun] [The Wayward Cloud] (Tsai Ming-liang) 179/10(4)/1
12. 最好的時光 [Zui hao de shi guang] [Three Times] (Hou Hsiao-hsien) 152/9(4)/1(x2)
13. War of the Worlds (Steven Spielberg) 144/9(4)/5(x4)
14. Me and You and Everyone We Know (Miranda July) 140/11(2)/1(x2)
15. リンダ リンダ リンダ [Rinda rinda rinda] [Linda Linda Linda] (Nobuhiro Yamashita) 133/7(3)/1
16. A Cock and Bull Story (Michael Winterbottom) 122/8/6(x2)
17. Good Night, and Good Luck (George Clooney) 107/8(1)/3
18. Brick (Rian Johnson) 106/6(3)/1
19. Bubble (Steven Soderbergh) 98/9(1)/3
20. 극장전 [Geukjangjeon] [Tale of Cinema] (Hong Sang-soo) 96/6(1)/2
21. Manderlay (Lars von Trier) 93/5(1)/3
(tie) De battre mon cœur s'est arrêté [The Beat That My Heart Skipped] (Jacques Audiard) 93/7(1)/3
23. Сóлнце [Solntse] [The Sun] (Aleksandr Sokurov) 89/5(1)/2
24. カミュなんて知らない [Kamyu nante shiranai] [Who's Camus Anyway?] (Mitsuo Yanagimachi) 88/6(2)/2
25. Batman Begins (Christopher Nolan) 84/5(3)/3
26. The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (Tommy Lee Jones) 83/5(1)/5
27. Batalla en el cielo [Battle in Heaven] (Carlos Reygadas) 77/5(1)/4
28. Broken Flowers (Jim Jarmusch) 73/6(1)/4
29. The Constant Gardener (Fernando Meirelles) 71/7(1)/3
30. Last Days (Gus Van Sant) 69/4(1)/5
31. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (Shane Black) 68/5/7
32. The Baxter (Michael Showalter) 66/3(2)/1
(tie) الجنّة الآن [Al-janna al-aan] [Paradise Now] (Hany Abu-Assad) 66/4(3)/3
34. Junebug (Phil Morrison) 61/5(2)/2(x2)
(tie) Gespenster [Ghosts] (Christian Petzold) 61/4(1)/4
36. Le Petit Lieutenant [The Young Lieutenant] (Xavier Beauvois) 60/3(1)/1
(tie) 친절한 금자씨 [Chinjeolhan geumjassi] [Lady Vengeance] (Park Chan-wook) 60/4(1)/5
38. 49 Up (Michael Apted) 57/4(1)/5
39. Breakfast on Pluto (Neil Jordan) 53/4/12(x3)
40. No Direction Home: Bob Dylan (Martin Scorsese) 50/3(1)/5
41. Domino (Tony Scott) 49/4(1)/5
42. The Meaning of Life (Don Hertzfeldt) 47/3(1)/2
43. Le Couperet [The Ax] (Costa-Gavras) 45/3/8
44. Capote (Bennett Miller) 44/3(1)/2
45. Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical (Andy Fickman) 43/2(1)/3
(tie) Tideland (Terry Gilliam) 43/3(1)/5
(tie) Romanzo criminale [Crime Novel] (Michele Placido) 43/4/7
48. 紀子の食卓 [Noriko no shokutaku] [Noriko's Dinner Table] (Sion Sono) 41/2(1)/3
49. Un amour à taire [A Love to Hide] (Christian Faure) 40/2(1)/1
(tie) Outerborough (Bill Morrison) 40/2(1)/3
(tie) 黑社會 [Hak se wui] [Election] (Johnnie To) 40/2(1)/3
(tie) Elizabethtown (Cameron Crowe) 40/3/11

ALSO-RANS

Mary (Abel Ferrara) 39/2(1)/3
The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (Nick Park & Steve Box) 39/4/10
The Garden (Frederick Wiseman) 38/2(1)/2
Sin City (Frank Miller & Robert Rodriguez) 38/4(1)/5
Keane (Lodge Kerrigan) 37/3(1)/1
Mirror Mechanics (Siegfried A. Fruhauf) 36/2(1)/4
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (Alex Gibney) 36/4/9
Celestial Subway Lines/Salvaging Noise (Ken Jacobs) 35/2/6
L'Annulaire [The Ring Finger] (Diane Bertrand) 35/2/8
The Upside of Anger (Mike Binder) 35/2/8
Red Eye (Wes Craven) 35/4/10

Man Push Cart (Ramin Bahrani) 34/3/8
Sophie Scholl – Die letzten Tage [Sophie Scholl: The Final Days] (Marc Rothemund) 33/2/7
Шар нохойн там [Shar nokhoïr tam] [The Cave of the Yellow Dog] (Byambasuren Davaa) 32/2(1)/4
Worldly Desires (Apichatpong Weerasethakul) 32/2/6
The Wild Blue Yonder (Werner Herzog) 30/2(1)/3
Die große Stille [Into Great Silence] (Philip Gröning) 30/2(1)/4
A Joy (Jodie Mack) 30/2/7

Hard Candy (David Slade) 29/2/6
Cinderella Man (Ron Howard) 29/2/7
Syriana (Stephen Gaghan) 27/2/8
My Dad Is 100 Years Old (Guy Maddin) 27/2/9
جزیره آهنی [Jazire-ye ahani] [Iron Island] (Mohammad Rasoulof) 27/2/9
Instructions for a Light and Sound Machine (Peter Tscherkassky) 27/2/12
Les Amants réguliers [Regular Lovers] (Philippe Garrel) 26/2/7
フリック [Furikku] [Flic] (Masahiro Kobayashi) 26/2/8
달콤한 인생 [Dalkomhan insaeng] [A Bittersweet Life] (Kim Jee-woon) 26/2/9
Pride & Prejudice (Joe Wright) 26/3/8

Wolf Creek (Greg McLean) 25/2/13
The 40-Year-Old Virgin (Judd Apatow) 24/2/9
One Way Boogie Woogie/27 Years Later (James Benning) 24/2/13
Mutual Appreciation (Andrew Bujalski) 23/2/12
Jarhead (Sam Mendes) 23/2/13
그때 그사람들 [Geuddae geusaramdeul] [The President's Last Bang] (Im Sang-soo) 21/2/7
Odete [Two Drifters] (João Pedro Rodrigues) 21/2/10
Ballets Russes (Dayna Goldfine & Dan Geller) 20/2/8
The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes (Stephen & Timothy Quay) 19/2/15
長恨歌 [Chang hen ge] [Everlasting Regret] (Stanley Kwan) 19/3/15

The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio (Jane Anderson) 18/2/13
Bad News Bears (Richard Linklater) 18/2/14
The Descent (Neil Marshall) 17/2/17
Kingdom of Heaven (Ridley Scott) 17/3/17
Where the Truth Lies (Atom Egoyan) 16/3/14
The Proposition (John Hillcoat) 14/2/17
Björk: Triumph of a Heart (Spike Jonze) 10/2/20
King Kong (Peter Jackson) 8/2/19
千里走单骑 [Qian li zou dan qi] [Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles] (Zhang Yimou) 3/2/24

ORPHANS

Film (Director) highest ranking

Daguerreotypes: Photographic Objects (Agnès Varda) 24
Mi mejor enemigo [My Best Enemy] (Alex Bowen) 19
Memory for Max, Claire, Ida and Company (Allan King) 23
Sound Barrier (Amir Naderi) 5
Sommer vorm Balkon [Summer in Berlin] (Andreas Dresen) 9
The Red and the Blue Gods (Ben Russell) 2
The Twenty-One Lives of Billy the Kid (Ben Russell) 22
Combien tu m'aimes? [How Much Do You Love Me?] (Bertrand Blier) 4
Štěstí [Something Like Happiness] (Bohdan Sláma) 10
Babam ve Oğlum [My Father and My Son] (Çağan Irmak) 4
无极 [Wu ji] [The Promise] (Chen Kaige) 17
Joyeux Noël [Merry Christmas] (Christian Carion) 23
Vers Mathilde [Towards Mathilde] (Claire Denis) 14
Hustle & Flow (Craig Brewer) 17
In Her Shoes (Curtis Hanson) 23
Tiempo de valientes [On Probation] (Damián Szifron) 8
Elements (Dariusz Kowalski) 8
Wedding Crashers (David Dobkin) 16
Down in the Valley (David Jacobson) 11
जल [Jal] [Water] (Deepa Mehta) 25
Transamerica (Duncan Tucker) 12
Hostel (Eli Roth) 18
Be with Me (Eric Khoo) 12
Tickets (Ermanno Olmi, Abbas Kiarostami & Ken Loach) 14
El aura [The Aura] (Fabián Bielinsky) 11
Sisters in Law (Florence Ayisi & Kim Longinotto) 7
Le Temps qui reste [Time to Leave] (François Ozon) 10
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Garth Jennings) 3
Tsotsi (Gavin Hood) 19
ცამეტი [Tzameti] [13] (Géla Babluani) 15
Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith (George Lucas) 18
The Weather Man (Gore Verbinski) 12
孔雀 [Kong que] [Peacock] (Gu Changwei) 6
The Girl from Monday (Hal Hartley) 13
The Ice Harvest (Harold Ramis) 8
Murderball (Henry Alex Rubin & Dana Adam Shapiro) 10
好きだ、 [Su-ki-da] [ I Like] (Hiroshi Ishikawa) 18
Šílení [Lunacy] (Jan Švankmajer) 11
The Puffy Chair (Jay & Mark Duplass) 13
The Devil and Daniel Johnston (Jeff Feuerzeig) 8
Les Yeux clairs [Pale Eyes] (Jérôme Bonnell) 22
Made in Chinatown (Jim Jennings) 22
Serenity (Joss Whedon) 9
Æon Flux (Karyn Kusama) 20
Spicebush (Kevin Jerome Everson) 3
Äideistä parhain [Den bästa av mödrar] [Mother of Mine] (Klaus Härö) 14
Sorstalanság [Fateless] (Lajos Koltai) 3
Green Street (Lexi Alexander) 24
La Marche de l'empereur [March of the Penguins] (Luc Jacquet) 22
Voces inocentes [Innocent Voices] (Luis Mandoki) 23
Espelho Mágico [Magic Mirror] (Manoel de Oliveira) 1
O Quinto Império – Ontem Como Hoje [The Fifth Empire] (Manoel de Oliveira) 2
Someday My Prince Will Come (Marc Isaacs) 10
Vitalic: My Friend Dario (Marco Laguna) 25
バッシング [Basshingu] [Bashing] (Masahiro Kobayashi) 16
China Blue (Micha X. Peled) 21
William Eggleston in the Real World (Michael Almereyda) 20
North Country (Niki Caro) 21
Unser täglich Brot [Our Daily Bread] (Nikolaus Geyrhalter) 10
Overtime (Oury Atlan, Thibaut Berland & Damien Ferrié) 15
Gabrielle (Patrice Chéreau) 14
Para que no me olvides [Something to Remember Me By] (Patricia Ferreira) 6
Crash (Paul Haggis) 16
Le Domaine perdu [The Lost Domain] (Raúl Ruiz) 25
Wah-Wah (Richard E. Grant) 24
Extras (2005-2007) (Ricky Gervais & Stephen Merchant) 13
Police Beat (Robinson Devor) 10
George Carlin: Life Is Worth Losing (Rocco Urbisci) 6
Oliver Twist (Roman Polański) 25
Bouquets 11-20 (2005-2009) (Rose Lowder) 4
Little Fish (Rowan Woods) 22
Scen nr: 6882 ur mitt liv [Autobiographical Scene Number 6882] (Ruben Östlund) 19
疾走 [Shissō] [Dead Run] (Sabu) 11
I for India (Sandhya Suri) 15
Cidade Baixa [Lower City] (Sérgio Machado) 23
夢の中へ [Yume no naka e] [Into a Dream] (Sion Sono) 1
Je ne suis pas là pour être aimé [Not Here to Be Loved] (Stéphane Brizé) 2
Mrs. Henderson Presents (Stephen Frears) 17
オールウェイズ 三丁目の夕日 [Ōruweizu san-chōme no yūhi] [Always: Sunset on Third Street] (Takashi Yamazaki) 13
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Tim Burton) 8
Corpse Bride (Tim Burton & Mike Johnson) 22
Loggerheads (Tim Kirkman) 14

27 lists submitted

[domino harvey]

Thanks swo! Who’s my fellow mad the Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio voter? Never expected that to be saved and the Blier to be orphaned! I suspect general unavailability hurt the Blier and something like Down in the Valley (though the inevitable “discourse” is probably keeping that one from ever materializing on Blu)

EDIT For good measure:

the Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio (Jane Anderson 2005) An astonishing story so outlandish and unlikely that of course it’s true: a 1950s suburban housewife and mother of ten keeps her family afloat almost entirely through her well-timed winnings from assorted sponsor contests. While this sounds like a light-hearted romp, I was surprised at how dark the real story is here. Julianne Moore’s protagonist is stuck in her home, raising her brood, while her husband Woody Harrelson lives out a miserable existence, working as a machinist by day and drinking away his salary each night. He takes up residence inside the kitchen and hurls so many hateful statements and thoughts at his family that eventually everyone just gets used to them and treats them like an uneasy joke. The growing resentment from the kids towards their father, and more importantly the father’s resentment towards his wife and the perceived emasculation of her being the breadwinner, is well-observed and suitably ominous and dark. There’s some cutesy interstitial moments of direct address and levity throughout the film that don’t work, but I understand their use as necessary to make some of the more depressing elements of the narrative more palatable to wider audiences. I thought the Hours was a crock of shit, but Moore does an infinitely better job here of capturing the sad existence of many housewives in the late 50s. The true story of Moore’s character and her family is amazing, and the film itself is pretty good too. Recommended.

Down in the Valley (David Jacobson 2006) Charming "Aww shucks" cowboy Edward Norton strikes up a fast romantic relationship with high schooler Evan Rachel Wood in one of the most singular and unpredictable movies I've seen in recent memory. This one follows a smart but somewhat familiar trajectory for a while, but then about halfway through the film reaches what should be a fitting and satisfying narrative end-place… and then keeps going, not so much transforming into a different film as revealing itself to be as peculiar as its protagonist. I don't want to say too much in specifics about the plot, since the film's surprises are part of its great success, but I will say that the film eventually turns into a perverse R-rated 90s Kids' Adventure Story, sheepishly innocent and fantastical while involving real and present dangers far removed from the safety of the usual markers in this subgenre. Down in the Valley is ultimately uncategorizable and therefore unmarketable, so it's no small wonder this movie barely received distribution (the central underage romance probably didn't help), but I will do my part by making this my Spotlight title.

The film is visually smart, with the requisite amount of pleasing framings, but one moment in particular struck me as wonderfully inspired: Norton and Wood are together in the bathtub, and Jacobson gives us a series of short shot-reverse shots that fade into each other with gradual slowness, before finally overlaying and holding both shot and reverse shot in the same film image as the scene plays on:



Wood is generally pretty dependable anyways but she is just fantastic here, giving us the full emotional spectrum that comes standard-issue with teenagers in vivid, all-too accurate strokes. It is one of the best portrayals of a teenage girl I've ever seen, and the film isn't even structured around it: Wood's perf just exists beautifully within what's constructed here. So, it goes without saying that a viewing for this project will also double for the Youth List coming up in a few months. Multitask!

Learning that Combien tu m'aimes? is not a well-regarded film in Blier's filmography is comforting, as it means I haven't fully mellowed with age and am still naturally drawn most strongly to films that leave others indifferent or worse. Because this is easily the best Blier film I've seen yet, and in its way the most coherent in terms of the through-line of tethering his gimmicks to a cogent meaning. Monica Bellucci stars in what is, in summation, ninety minutes of people trying to cope with how hott she is. That Blier somehow made a successful movie out of what is truly my least favorite movie trope ("Whore likes guy so much she gives it away for free") is praise enough, but of course the film is filled with his requisite oddball detours and unpredictable right-turns as he explores conventional ideas of romance and fantasy and relationships (navigating insecurity around your partner's body count, introducing your new partner to your social circle, the incomprehensibility of getting what you desired, &c) made strange by the funhouse mirror reflections offered here.

I don't want to keep kicking the dead dog of Quentin Dupieux's never-ending love letters to a director he'll never be one-tenth as talented as, but this is the film that finally let me see Blier as a spiritual successor to Bunuel-- not in direct homage (there are none, at least not here) or because "something something surrealism" but because the film solidifies an internal oddball logic and idiosyncratic approach to satire into something that for once doesn't keep the majority of cards close to its chest. Make no mistake, there are still strange aspects of this I have no confident capacity to explain, but I went with it because it mostly does add up and for those parts that don't, there is a degree of confidence at work here that can't be faked like a loud, neighbor-annoying orgasm. Blier has certainly built enough of his own filmic CV of askance flights of fancy that he's his own brand without needing to mention Bunuel at all, and perhaps that's why he wears the comparison best. Combien tu m'aimes? is the first of the eight I've seen from Blier that pushed me into seeing him as more than just a puckish agitator and goof without fully realized ambitions. I mean, he's still mostly that, but now he's also the guy who finally made a great movie I can recommend without reservations... but don't worry, I'm sure you'll all hate it!

[Lowry_Sam]

Thanks swo!

1. Un amour à taire[A Love to Hide]
2. Brokeback Mountain
3. [The Death of Mr. Lazarescu]
4. [The Cave of the Yellow Dog]
5. [Paradise Now]
6. George Carlin: Life Is Worth Losing
7. [Sophie Scholl: The Final Days]
8. Ballets Russes
9. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
10 Murderball
11 El aura[The Aura]
12 Transamerica
13 Caché[Hidden]
14 [The Beat That My Heart Skipped]
15 [Tzameti][13]
16 Good Night, and Good Luck
17 Capote
18 The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes
19 The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
20 49 Up
21 China Blue
22 [March of the Penguins]
23 Voces inocentes[Innocent Voices]
24 Wah-Wah
25 Grizzly Man

[swo17]

it would have been sixteen but Pervert’s Guide to Cinema wasn’t in the selections

In case you missed the memo, that's eligible for 2006

[domino harvey]

Hot dog!

[therewillbeblus]

Thanks swo!

1. Me and You and Everyone We Know
2. Brick
3. Manderlay
4. The Baxter
5. War of the Worlds
6. Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical
7. A History of Violence
8. l’annulaire
9. The Upside of Anger
10. Mary

[yoshimori]

1. Sono, Yume no naka e [orphan]
2. Hong, Tale of Cinema [20]
3. Sono, Noriko's Dinner Table [48]
4. Haneke, Caché [2]
5. Puiu, Death of Mr Lazarescu [5]
6. Weerasethakul, "Worldly Desires" [also-ran]
7. Im, President's Last Bang [also-ran]
8. Kobayashi, Flic [also-ran]
9. Sokurov, The Sun [23]
10. Devor, Police Beat [orphan]

[therewillbeblus]

Wow, who else voted for Where the Truth Lies? I've defended the film here to crickets, since even the most devoted Egoyan fans seem to dislike it!