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Blog From The BenchJudge Jesse Ataide's Blog
Jesse's Favorite Films of 2005
July 7th, 2006 2:10AM Yeah, so it's seven months into 2006, and I'm just posting my favorites list from 2005 only now. Well, as I think is the case with the vast majority of film buffs, I had to wait for DVD releases to see a number of last year's most acclaimed films. Plus I spent a long time on this. So...
"...Match Point may be a sleek and highly sexualized take on existential angst, and it could be written off as Dostoyevsky-lite for the Starbucks crowd, but theres that undeniable sense that rot is beginning to seep through the gloss...and then suddenly the film is stewing in its own outburst of ugliness. Dirty pretty things indeed." My Full Review
"...The Upside of Anger is a perfect example of a "messy" film that in many way succeeds much more than many more technically precise ones. I suppose its rambling, episodic plot could be considered a drawback, but I thought it ended up being one of the film's greatest strengths—it's one of the closest depictions of the novel format I've ever come across in cinema." My Full Review
"...Yes, the period trapping are retained, but what is brought to the surface is that very thing that makes Pride and Prejudice so beloved in the first place: the smart and witty story that still remains surprisingly fresh even after 200 years of nonstop idolization. In this film the Bennetts, Bingleys & Co. are real, recognizable people, and sleepy Longbourn is transformed from a fairy tale location of the imagination into a real place where people live and love and die." My Full Review
"...it really dug into me—I realized that even months after seeing it I still couldn’t get it out of my mind, that images and sequences and moments and music selections managed to imprint themselves on my mind with much more permanence than many “better” films. What can I say? Ma Mere was reviled by just about everyone on its release, and it’s not hard to figure out why—it’s a disturbing, aesthetically beautiful but emotionally ugly film..." My Full Review
"...in a lot of ways, C.R.A.Z.Y. reminded me a lot of The Royal Tenenbaums, a great favorite of mine—there’s the same technique of using vivid details as a touchstone for audience orientation and identification, but C.R.A.Z.Y. strikes me as a much more organic, maybe even more honest take on the subject of identity and frazzled family units.” My Full Review
"...it’s a romance film, a slight variation on the familiar chick flick formula, but with a streak melancholy that gives it a slight bite. And that’s what I was really drawn too—that desperate sense of despair that seems to be rotting the underside of the SoCal gloss (which is something I observe frequently in my own life). Maybe that’s why I never thought the filmed lapsed into preciousness—I always felt an underlying awareness that the prettiness could crack at any moment.” My Full Review
"...it seems so ridiculous that a single film can so easily reach for such heights and depths of human emotion—the effect is quite dizzying. Arnaud Desplechin’s Rois et Reine is the type of film that reads like an incomprehensible mess, any yet, as the film (all 150 minutes of it) unwinds itself, it all seems so natural, so effortless… and as a result, it’s easy to forgot how many risks the film navigates.” My Full Review
"... instead of serving as necessary pawns shuffled around to present the filmmaker’s message (usually of tolerance), Junebug presents its characters as people—absurd, contradictory and infuriating, but each with their own endearing and redeeming qualities (though in some characters it takes more searching than others).” My Full Review
"... the film initially seems rather banal in an innocuous kind of way, but it just takes a little while to get going, and quite soon I was completely wrapped up in this tiny, seemingly inconsequential story of friendships and the creation of memories that last a lifetime.” My Full Review
"... filmed in vivid colors that seem to blur around the edges, Mysterious Skin unfolds like a dream, or a half-remembered nightmare; it’s one of the best depictions I’ve come across demonstrating how the memory latches onto scattered fragments of emotions and experiences and mysteriously synthesizes them in a way that they end up forming the foundation of the self...” My Full Review
"Coming as a surprise to absolutely no one, Wong Kar Wai’s feverish, lopsided love ballad tops this list. Simultaneously an ode to love and an elegy to love lost, it haunted my memory and my mind for months after seeing it—and still does… 2046 is the type of film I can point to and say “this is why I watch movies.” I can’t, and don’t, ask for anything more than that.” My Full Review
"...it's such an intensely beautiful films in so many ways—the acting, the craftsmanship, the sets and art direction, and most of all, Christopher Doyle's luminous cinematography that brings 1930's Shanghai to vivid life." My Full Review
"The name makes it sounds like an Impressionist masterwork, but this unassuming little TV movie is actually more in the key of Edward Hopper. A muted little character piece that covers a lot of the same territory of the more flashy and critically lauded The Constant Gardner, I found it much more accessible, and perhaps more importantly, the more emotionally resonant of the two." My Full Review
"...our generation's Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers equivalent—only the game has changed, and instead of being forced to dance backwards in high heels, the girl’s got a gun. And definitely not a "girl gun," thank you very much." My Full Review And that's it. See you all July 2007. Trackback The trackback URL for this entry is: Note that trackbacks are held for moderation prior to posting. |
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