50 First Dates
Anchroman:The Legend
of Ron Burgundy
Cellular
Crash
Dodgeball: A True
Underdog Story
Eternal Sunshine of
the Spotless Mind
EuroTrip
Fahrenheit 9/11
Friday Night Lights
Garfield
Harold and Kumar Go to
White Castle
Harry Potter and the
Prisoner of Azkaban
Hellboy
Home on the Range
Hoodwinked
Howl’d Moving Castle
I, Robot
King Arthur
Lemony Snicket’s a
Series of Unfortunate Events
Mean Girls
Miracle
Napoleon Dyamite
Ocean’s Twelve
Saved
Shark Tale
Shaun of the Dead
Shrek 2
Spider-Man 2
Super Size Me
Team America: World
Police
The Aviator
The Bourne Supremacy
The Chronicles of
Riddick
The Day After Tomorrow
The Forgotten
The Girl Next Door
The Incredibles
The Ladykillers
The Life Aquatic with
Steve Zissou
The Machinist
The Phantom of the
Opera
The Polar Express
The Stepford Wives
The Terminal
Troy
Van Helsing
Wimbledon
47 Total
The Best of What I’ve
Seen
5. Wimbledon—I’m
as surprised as you are that this is making my top 5. Must not be a strong year
for me. On the other hand, this is probably my single favorite “chick-flicl”
I’ve ever seen. The tennis angle hooked me (and was probably why I watched it
in the first place), but the romance between Paul Bettany’s over-the-hill pro
Peter and Kirsten Dunst’s up-and-comer Lizzy is genuinely charming and
involving. Bettany and Dunst, both actors I like a lot individually, have great
chemistry and work great together.
For an inconsequential but fun 100 minutes, you can’t do much better.
4. Anchorman: The
Legend of Ron Burgundy—But you can do a little better. It’s a tight contest
between this and Talladega Nights for
my favorite Will Ferrell movie, and Anchorman
is a delight. One of the most rewatchable movies in cinema history, its so
chock full of great one liners that Sportsguy Bill Simmons managed to write a
whole column based on quotes from the move. “What’s that, Baxter? You ate a
whole wheel of cheese and pooped in
the refrigerator? I’m not even mad—I’m impressed.”
3. The Incredibles—While
it falls a bit short of Pixar’s masterpieces (Wall-E, Finding Nemo, the Toy
Story trilogy, and Cars 2 [just
kidding]), The Incredibles still does
an awful lot well. Why is it that one of the most genuinely realistic families
ever portrayed on screen are superpowered cartoons? And why is it that the
Pixar movie most obviously calling for a sequel remains happily single while Monster’s Inc, Cars, and now apparently
even Finding Nemo are getting second
installments (what, is he going to get lost again?)? What gives, Pixar? Why am
I asking so many questions?
2. The Aviator—As
fully realized a biopic as they come, The
Aviator is a tremendously compelling story anchored by a number of incredible
performances—notably Leo DiCaprio as Howard Hughes and Cate Blanchett as
Katherine Hepburn. Maybe Scorcese’s most underrated movie, I’m not sure there’s
been a better biopic since Patton.
1. Eternal Sunshine of
the Spotless Mind—Carrying the title for “Best Movie I’ve Watched for the
First Time on an Airplane” (the
coveted BMIWFTA) in a route, Charlie Kaufmann and Michel Gondry’s sci-fi
anti-romance-but-also-totally-a-romance is an incredible piece of filmmaking. Tackling the juicy potential
of memory erasure in an incredibly nuanced and sophisticated way, Eternal Sunshine has dozens of
opportunities to take the easy, simple route and each and every time goes for
the more difficult, challenging choice. Eternal
Sunshine’s packs more interesting material into each scene than the vast
majority of films contain in their entirety. I think it’s safe to say I’m a
fan.
What I Haven’t Seen
Closer
Hotel Rwanda
I Heart Huckabees
Kill Bill: Vol. 2
Million Dollar Baby
The Passion of the
Christ
Ray
Saw
Sideways
Wow, not many. Either this was a rull weak year or the good stuff isn't well known. By me. Probably the latter.
Wow, not many. Either this was a rull weak year or the good stuff isn't well known. By me. Probably the latter.
No comments:
Post a Comment