December 2005

• Syriana (12/11, Crit. $15.47 [$1,726.56])—My best advice: don’t eat popcorn or do anything else that will distract even the slightest share of your attention from the screen. A bit like The Big Sleep in that you can’t expect to figure out all the complexities on your first viewing, but also in that figuring everything out is less the point than simply recognizing and appreciating the complexity itself. Seems a certain top-ten for me this year.
• King Kong (12/17, NoHa $16.08 [$1,742.64])—This will be #1 on my list this year—if I make a list of biggest disappointments. Dreadfully slow pacing is the biggest of my complaints—somebody tell Mr. Jackson that not everything needs (or wants) the The Lord of the Rings treatment. Don’t get me wrong: there were things I liked—wonderful special effects, a beautifully developed relationship between girl and ape—but my expectations were too high.
• White Christmas (1954; 12/18, Crit. $4 [$1,746.64])—Never even occurred to me when going that this fits the rules for my counting it: seen in public, never seen before. I went because I’d been given to believe it wasn’t awful, and it wasn’t, but Crosby and Kaye are no Kelly and O'Connor. Best feature was the dance numbers, and that was a surprise: credit Vera-Ellen and a young (uncredited, actually) choreographed named Fosse.
• Brokeback Mountain (12/23, Crit. $15.47 [$1,762.11])—Well, yes: I hate to parrot what everybody else has been saying, but beautiful, heartbreaking. Ledger’s performance is amazing, but Gyllenhaal isn’t exactly chopped sheep’s liver. I wonder whether Ang Lee is second-guessing himself for not making the Hulk gay.
• The Producers (12/25, Crit. $15.47 [$1,777.58])—Pretty much the same reaction to this as to the original: some moments of brilliance, lots of tedium. Matthew Broderick can do anything but convince me of his heterosexuality.
• Memoirs of a Geisha (12/29, Crit. $0 [$1, 777.58])—Not disappointed because (1) reviews have been lukewarm and (2) I didn’t love the book. It’s long, it’s beautiful, it’s mechanical. Did I mention it’s long? [169]