The Best and Worst of 2005


Best of 2005
I'm asked all the time, 'What's your favourite movie?' Tediously, I don't have a ready answer (although I do sometimes say Goodfellas for the sake of saying something, and I really do love Goodfellas), so in that spirit, although in no particular order and for all sorts of reasons, these are the movies I liked the best at the cinema this year.

If I had to pick one to recommend above all the others, it'd be The Downfall (Der Untergang). That took a few days to get over.


Kung Fu Hustle

The Twilight Samurai

Batman Begins

The Constant Gardener

Serenity

Bad Education

Downfall

Dig!

3-Iron

The Assassination of Richard Nixon

A History of Violence

The Aviator

2046

The Aristocrats

The Beat That My Heart Skipped

Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Wererabbit

The Sea Inside

Broken Flowers

Sideways

Pavee Lackeen

The Machinist

Million Dollar Baby

Primer

Cache (Hidden) - opens in the IFI 27th January

King Kong

The Descent

A Tale of Two Sisters

A Very Long Engagement

The Corporation


Worst of 2005
More than a few of these poisonous pieces of fosillized meso-stupid era Hollywood dog turds would have no trouble making the line-up in Worst of All Time List, should such a thing ever exist.

Especially Elizabethtown. That too took a couple of days to get over, but it was more like waking up to find yourself covered in your own shit and not having a clue how it got there...Kind of a thing that would stay with you.

Surviving Christmas

Alexander

Paparazzi

Darkness

Are We There Yet?

Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo

Stealth

Elektra

The Island

Alfie

The Wedding Date

Elizabethtown

Cursed

Ocean’s 12

Brothers Grimm

The Pacifier

The Perfect Man

Hide and Seek

The Dukes of Hazzard

Bewitched

Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous

Revolver

I don't want you to leave you with the foul hum of Guy Richie's bag of old kabollocks still in the air, so the best book about movies I read this year was The Stanley Kubrick Archives from Taschen and the best song I heard was "Let My People Go" by Darondo, from his soon-to-be-re-issued LP. Happy New Year.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Maguire you poor fucker. Seeing all those turkeys lined up like that boggles the mind. I mean the money that's gone into those... Jesus.

Favourites? Not sure about dates but I'd go for Bad Santa, Batman Begins and Code 46... I think. Bad Santa made me wet my jammies.

Anonymous said...

That's a pretty good list. I'd also include the two Christian Bale films, Batman Begins and The Machinist. I thought Murderball was one of the best documentarires of the year too.
There were a lot of turkeys this year but can I just say that Elizabethtown is the worst movie of the noughties, not just 2005?

Anonymous said...

johnny boy

thanks for the list. for those of us no longer living in the city, I can now take my time working through the recommendations that never made it to the local cinema.

I can also avoid the other list like the plague. Although to be fair, the first 30 minutes of Alexnder was a hoot. the scene where he tames the horse in front of Mick Lally et al, it was like the Ballinasloe horse fair with sandals.