ACCORDING TO LINDSEY RAMSEY
5. Munich, Brokeback Mountain, Match Point, King Kong The truth is, I think some of the best is yet to come. That's what late December is for, the studios save their best for last. Steven Spielberg's Munich looks like a return to Schindler's List form. Brokeback Mountain is causing a stir among critics. Match Point promises a new kind of Woody Allen movie and Peter Jackson and his King Kong will not and cannot let us down.
4. Wedding Crashers
If I see a film that I like, I will see it several times. Looking back, the movie I saw the most times this year was Wedding Crashers. Crass and undeniably hilarious, the story of two guys crashing weddings to meet girls was the answer to this summer's string of ho hum, so much so that I saw it six times.
3. Jarhead
Why do I, a girl with little lust for violence, find Jarhead, a film about men obsessed with violence, so intriguing? The only answer I can offer is that the characters are so complicated that I cannot help but find myself enraptured by them. In short, Jarhead is complex, funny, sad and just inexplicably good.
2. Good Night, and Good Luck
Oh those pesky journalists, always getting in people's faces and asking the tough questions. But in Good Night, and Good Luck, Edward R Murrow takes those tough questions and turns them into enough to take down Senator Joseph McCarthy. Directed by George Clooney, Good Night, and Good Luck is a smart and confrontational look at a time when journalism could still make a difference.
1. Capote
Chilling but somehow still beautiful, Capote got me thinking. True, I knew little of writer Truman Capote going into this film but the film inspired me to find out more. Phillip Seymour Hoffman's flawless performance paired with the story of how Capote came to write In Cold Blood creates a fascinating character study about the man and his methods.
ACCORDING TO JON RALSTON
5. Oldboy
From South Korea, Oldboy is a modern Greek tragedy — poetic, strange and emotionally raw. Min-sik Choi plays Oh Dae-su, a man kidnapped and imprisoned in a hotel room for 15 years. When he is mysteriously released without any explanation, he begins his bloody quest for revenge. But that's just where Oldboy begins. This film is not for everyone for the taboo subjects and raw violence it explores (for example, Choi eats a live squid that is still squirming as he swallows it), but it is incredibly effective and stays with you.
4. The 40-Year-Old Virgin
The funniest movie from this year, The 40-Year-Old Virgin shows Steve Carell, about a middle-aged man who acts like a teenager because he's never had sex, is willing to do most anything to make us keel over laughing. You know that scene where he waxes his chest? Yeah, that's actually him doing it. And who'd ever think peeing with an erection could be so funny?
3. Sin City
Gritty. Gory. Great. Director Robert Rodriguez teamed up with Frank Miller to bring Miller's graphic novel to life. Sin City tells the inter-connected stories of three anti-heroes all dishing out their own brand of violent justice. The film is beautiful, shot in black in white with splashes of color, and the noirish voiceovers are raw and poetic.
2. Layer Cake
After watching Layer Cake, it's easy to see why Daniel Craig is the new James Bond. Here he nails suave and smooth playing a nameless antihero, a middle-man in a London drug operation. Directed by Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch producer Matthew Vaughn, Layer Cake takes the quirkiness, style and plot twists that made those two films good and slows down the action so the audience has time to take it all in and have fun watching every second of it.
1. A History of Violence
David Cronenberg's multilevel exploration of the worst of human nature is effective from start to finish. Are murder and violence predisposed in our genes? Or is it just an everyday part of life? Viggo Mortensen plays a diner owner in a small town in Indiana whose life is thrown out of balance when he brutally kills two robbers and is heralded a hero. When a scarred mobster shows up claiming Viggo is not the simple Midwesterner he appears, his family begins to wonder who he really is. Great performances all around.
12. 08.05 Jayplay
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