November 2005

• Shopgirl (11/4, Crit. $9.75 [$1,568.01])—A big surprise: didn’t expect to love it, but did expect to like it; certainly didn’t expect to loathe it. The Danes and Martin characters are both just completely vapid, and the Schwartzman character, marginally more interesting, is completely irritating at the start, then pretty much disappears for an hour, leaving us with just the two bores. On the rare occasion that the Martin character isn’t boring, he’s an asshole: no wonder women expect the worst from us.
• North Country (11/12, Cine $12 [$1,580.01])—Yes, it stacks the deck, and yes, the over-the-top triumph verges on grotesque, but the performances by Theron, McDormand (joining MacLaine on my list of guaranteed supporting actress Oscar nominees), Spacek, Richard Jenkins, et al. make it work, mostly—and the soundtrack dominated by a native Minnesotan helps, too.
• Pride and Prejudice (11/13, Crit. $6.25 [$1,586.26])—Delightful in just about every way, with only a few moments of unfortunate "modernness." Knightley, whose career I have admired since Beckham for her series of ballsy-chick roles, acquits herself beautifully as the mother of all ballsy chicks, Elizabeth Bennet. I like Knightly so much that it’s hard for me to judge her work objectively, but I love the little resistless laugh that she lets escape from time to time--seems like something Elizabeth would do: a recognition of the absurdity of it all. Also nice to see the younger Bennet girls portrayed as they were: silly girls, not young women (including Mary, whose seriousness goes to silly lengths).
• Bee Season (11/18, Crit. $9.75 [$1,596.01])—The trailer made it seem as if the Kabbalistic mysticism—in fact, all trace of Jewishness—had been stripped from the film, but that was not the case, which is both good news and bad. Good because I’d hate to think they’d be so cynical in adapting the novel (though obviously they are that cynical in marketing it), bad because that was the part of the novel to which I responded least happily. It is, in fact, a very faithful adaptation of a novel I didn’t like as much as I expected to. At least with the film, my expectations were realistic.
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (11/19, NoHa $6.75 [$1,602.76])—It is what it is, and that’s pretty darned good. The onset of adolescence is the key special effect here, and it’s handled well.
• Walk the Line (11/19, NoHa $16.08 [$1,618.84])—We pretty much saw this a year ago, except that that musical genius–junkie was black, the central acting performance was more impressive, and the rest of the acting was less so. The reviews had lowered my expectations, so I wasn’t disappointed. Goldfinger at Crit. on Sunday ($4 [$1,622.84].
• Rent (11/23, Crit. $6.25 [$1,629.09])—Although I absolutely despised the trailer for this, which I think I must have seen a thousand times, I went because the reviews did not confirm my prejudice and—crucially—because it showed downtown, and I must say it was one of my most pleasant surprises of the year. Some clever songs and wonderful Hairlike energy.
• Paradise Now (11/25, Cine $12.75 [$1,641.84])—Very smart, very tough depiction of Palestinian friends, one of whom is kneejerk eager to be a martyr, the other of whom is more thoughtful, and moreover finds what may turn out to be love just before their martyrdom. The result is predictable in an unpredictable way.
• The Ice Harvest (11/25, Cine $11.25 [$1,653.09])—Yeesh! I didn’t let the reviews chase me off of this one because I so like many of the people involved, but it’s about as sour a film as I’ve seen all year.
• Sarah Silverman: Jesus is Magic (11/27, Union Sq. $10.75 [$1,663.84])—Another one I saw in Manhattan only to discover the next day that it was coming to New Haven. Oh well. Parts of this are wonderful, and she’s to be saluted for her obsessive need to destroy all borders of taste. Sometimes, though, just destroying those borders isn’t enough to make it funny. [160]
• Down to the Bone (11/27, Quad $18.50 [$1,682.34])—Wonderful performance by an actress whose name I don’t know offhand but who sometimes looks a bit like Cate Blanchett [this was my first look at Vera Farmiga], but there’s nothing much new in the story: it’s hard to stop being a junkie.
• Žižek! (11/27, IFC $10.75 [$1,693.09])—Exhilarating portrait of an iconoclastic (and often hilarious) Czech leftist (Stalinist, he would say) philosopher.
• Classe tous risques (11/27, FF $10 [$1,703.09])—Another French noir—good, but no Ascenceur. It's a Wonderful Life the following Sunday at Crit. ($4 [$1,707.09]), and Miracle on 34th Street on 12/11 ($4 [$1,711.09]).

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]