Get your filthy paws off me you damn dirty ape!
And so forth.
Here we are at the end of 2005, a year in film that was all about, um, let's see now ... about 365 days' worth. What the heck was this year in movies about, anyway?
This was a year that began with a brilliant Spanish film called The Sea Inside and then ended with the hugely satisfying spectacle of King Kong back on the Empire State Building.
In between, there was plenty of mediocre.
Essay question: Which was more putrid:
a) Hide & Seek
b) The Interpreter
c) Kicking & Screaming
d) All of the above
Bright spots? This was the year to be queer at the movies, with Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain, a tale of cowboys in love, and Neil Jordan's superb Breakfast On Pluto, which stars Cillian Murphy as an Irish transvestite. Lest we forget, there's also the Oscar-bound Capote from Bennett Miller, Felicity Huffman's stunning performance in Duncan Tucker's Transamerica and the Pawel Pawlikowski-directed My Summer Of Love -- some of the year's best films, in other words -- all offering stories about gay and lesbian characters.
Or thereabouts.
Another big bright spot for 2005 is occupied by the superb documentary films that provided some gold amid the dross at the multiplex. The Oscar-winning Born Into Brothels is on that list, as is Shake Hands With The Devil: The Journey Of Romeo Dallaire, Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room, In The Realms Of The Unreal (the film from Jessica Yu about Henry Darger, a janitor in Chicago who died in 1973, leaving hundreds of paintings and a massive fantasy novel) and our personal fave, Searching For The Wrong-Eyed Jesus, a bizarre musical tour of the poor white South that has tunes from Johnny Dowd, the Handsome Family, Lee Sexton, the Singing Hall Sisters, David Johansen, Jim White and several others.
On the movie downside, there was no shortage of bad movies this year.
Alert the media.
On the badness front, Yours, Mine & Ours is a standout. The same feeling of homicidal despair was prompted by viewings of Are We There Yet?, Bewitched, Son Of The Mask, Daniel & The Wonder Dogs, The Dukes Of Hazzard, The Adventures of Shark Boy And Lava Girl in 3-D, House Of Wax, The Honeymooners, Undiscovered and, perhaps above all, Supercross: The Movie.
These are but a hint of the effluvia we sat through this year so you wouldn't have to. And that is our merry holiday gift to you, gentle reader.
LIZ'S 10 BEST FILMS OF THE YEAR
- The Sea Inside
- The Merchant of Venice
- Layer Cake
- Best Of Youth
- Looking For The Wrong-Eyed Jesus
- Ice Harvest
- Head On
- Crash
- Capote
- King Kong
... AND SOME OF THE WORST
- Beyond The Sea
- Rumour Has It
- The Perfect Man
- Herbie: Fully Loaded
- The Thing About My Folks
- An Unfinished Life and ... actually, you don't have enough time for this.
2005 SHOWCASE AWARDS
KING KONG
LIZ BRAUN'S ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR
Big, furry, non-existent - King Kong rules at the box office. If there's anything that makes Hollywood hearts go pitter-pat, it's the idea of a leading man who does not require hair, makeup, a trailer or any other amenities, but still brings home the bacon. King Kong is entertainer of the year because he's the guy who just might resuscitate the industry in the 11th hour of 2005. He may be all bluster and bad hair (sort of like Donald Trump), but at least Kong never pretends to be something he is not.
It's great that Andy (Gollum) Serkis is the champ of motion capture and it's mighty fine that he observed the gorillas in Rwanda to get the right moves for Kong and all that, but in the end that computer-generated big ape is the one getting the screen time.
King "Ka-ching" Kong, boys and girls. That's what it's all about.
PREVIOUS WINNERS
2004 Imelda Staunton
2003 Patricia Clarkson
2002 Nia Vardalos
