2005 Year End Listery Pt 1: Movies of 2005!

The following are my favourite movies of 2005- the numbers do indicate preference, to a degree:

1. Mindgame
Mindgame is easily the best feature-length animation made in any country for the past 5 years. Wildly innovative, creative and overflowing with energy, this is animation like you've never seen it before. Here's a rather good review that just about sums up what I feel about the movie.

2. King Kong
A justification for $200 million dollar movie budgets- a blockbuster with heart and soul.

3. Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit
The long-awaited full length Wallace and Gromit lives up to the weighty expectations set by its predecessors. It put a smile on my face from start to end.

4. A History of Violence
David Cronenberg's latest movie would be much higher on my list had I actually seen the whole movie- as it is, I walked into the movie and missed the first 15 or so minutes. What I did see, though, was most of one of the boldest and yet most thoughtful examinations of the effects of violence on people that I've ever seen.

5. Bittersweet Life
This Korean movie works in an opposite way to A History of Violence- where that movie examines how an act of violence changes a family man's life forever, this movie looks at how an act of compassion destroys the life of a man who deals out violence as part of his job. More than just a mere revenge story, A Bittersweet Life is a fresh take on gangster movies. Lead actor Byung-hun Lee shows impressive range in his performance as Sun-woo, the coldly efficient gangster who damns himself by showing a shred of humanity. He's so good, in fact, that this movie should cement his status as a movie star in Korea- if he isn't one already.

6. Sin City
Robert Rodriguez's stylish adaptation of Frank Miller's graphic novels is brutally violent and yet very very sexy. This is film noir taken to its logical extreme.

7. Primer
Primer stands in stark contrast to most Hollwood science fiction movies by not assume that the audience comprises of cro-magnon men. Not only that, it's also gorgeously shot and features great performances by its principal leads, who carry the film on their shoulders. That this movie was made on a budget of only US$7,000 is nothing short of remarkable. Expect to see great things from director and lead actor Shane Carruth and his equally-talented costar David Sullivan.

8. Black
Sanjay Leela Bhansali's latest movie is probably his best, surpassing even his sumptuous remake of Devdas. It features the beautiful cinematography and settings (only Zhang Yimou and Wong Kar Wai come close to his careful attention to detail and arrangement of mis-en-scene) now characteristic of his movies while telling a story that is genuinely moving. It doesn't hurt that Amitabh Bachan and Rani Mukherjee turn in some of the best performances of their careers. What keeps the movie from being higher on this list is that it tries a bit too hard to elicit emotion from its viewers, straying into the realms of unabashed melodrama. If Sanjay Leela Bhansali acquires the gift of subtlety, he will become a truly fearsome director.

9. Millions & Tokyo Godfathers (tie!)
Ironic that I saw these, the two most charming "Holiday Movies" that I have ever seen, in March. It is not just because of that similarity that I list them together- both movies are in part about the redemptive power of faith (be it in a higher power, or in one's fellow man) and avoid the usual traps of Holiday Movies. Millions, directed by Danny Boyle, elicits unusually great performances out of the lead child actors. Tokyo Godfathers, an animation directed by Satoshi Kon, manages to make the contrived and implausible string of events that lead to it's conclusion work because the brilliant characterizations of the main characters and the stark sense of social reality that underlies the film.

10. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Director Mike Newell has, by cutting out the fat from the voluminous book that the movie is based on and focusing on the most exciting and emotionally significant events of the book, made perhaps the overall-best movie in the Harry Potter franchise. This is going to be a tough act to follow up.

11. Batman Begins
The best Batman movie. A pretty good summer blockbuster. And a harbinger of greater things to come. All in all, a very good reboot of the franchise.

12. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Danny Elfman turns in his best soundtrack in years and years. The music in this movie is so fun to listen to! And the songs! Such glee!!
Oh yes, the movie itself was really good, too. Watch it while eating a big bar of your favourite chocolate. ;)

13. Corpse Bride
It's an astonishing year in which we see 2 Tim Burton movies, much less 2 GOOD Tim Burton movies. Even more astonishing to consider that this is the 2nd big stop-motion animation movie released in 2005! Though it couldn't reach the heights of Tim Burton's stop-motion masterpiece The Nightmare Before Christmas, Corpse Bride is beautifully animated and tells a delightful, if rather short, story.

14. Land of the Dead
George Romero returns and shows everyone what a REAL zombie movie looks like. Excellent stuff. It's harkening to hear that a sequel to be green-lit.

15. Seven Swords
It's a bit crazy and more than slightly incoherent but the concepts and ideas at the heart of this sword-fighting epic appeal to me greatly and also, it has one one of the best over-the-top villains ever (who goes by the totally rocking name of General Fire-Wind) and an amazing final fight scene.

Note: Not all of these were 2005 releases (Mindgame, Primer and Millions are 2004 releases and Tokyo Godfathers is actually a 2003 release!) but I saw them all at theatres this year (save Bittersweet Life, which I saw on DVD but IS a 2005 release) which I think qualifies them to be on my list.