2005 Movie Wrap-up

I saw 39 theatrical films in 2005 (40 if you count going back for seconds of Sin City). Most years I try to make a list of 5 films, but this year just 4 stand out right now, with a massive tie for 5th place. Here’s what I came up with:

Bertolucci’s Ultimo tango a Parigi

This past Friday’s Luminous Psyche film was Last Tango in Paris. I thought I had this seen this film a couple of times before, but what I saw Friday night bore little resemblance to the film I remember. (And not merely because the 35mm print arrived too late, forcing us to endure the projection of a DVD. Sigh.)

Bertolucci’s Il Conformista

2005 is off to a great start in Seattle with a Bernardo Bertolucci film series (see Luminous Psyche). On January 28, the series featured “The Conformist” (1970).

2004 Movie Wrap-up

I saw 37 theatrical films in 2004 (39 if you count going back for seconds of two of them). Constructing a list of my 5 favorites seems harder for this set than ever before. I liked a lot of them! Here’s what I came up with:

2003 Movie Wrap-up

Movies? From the list of 31 films I paid to see in theatres in 2003 (even though some are considered 2002 releases)…

2002 Music and Movie Wrap Up

Album of the Year: David Bowie‘s Heathen

Not listed in Rolling Stone’s 50 best albums of 2002. No, my precious. Nastie filthie rock journalists hid it away, they did. (“Most rock journalism is people who can’t write interviewing people who can’t talk for people who can’t read.” Frank Zappa said that.) If you haven’t heard Heathen, if you ever enjoyed Bowie in the past, I commend it to you. The song-writing, performances, and arrangements are first-class. If you have time for listening to music, it will reward you.

My one complaint regards the typography on an otherwise beautiful package. Ornate typographic flourishes are obliterated by a horizontal rule design the “crosses out” nearly every word on the package. It is nearly illegible, at least in the “limited edition” CD version that I have. It is so painful to read that it essentially redirects you to put all your attention on the recordings. If that was the designer’s intention, it would have been better to not hire typographers at all.

2001 Movie Wrap-up

Here’s my personal 2001 Top 5 List:

1. The Others
2. Moulin Rouge
3. Ghost World
4. O Brother, Where Art Thou?
5. You Can Count on Me

1999 Movie Wrap-up

So, apropos of almost nothing, here’s my 1999 Top 5 List:

1. The Matrix
2. American Beauty
3. The Sixth Sense
4. Eyes Wide Shut
5. eXistenz

I also enjoyed (in no particular order) Waking Ned Devine, Thin Red Line, Hilary and Jackie, Rushmore, Limbo, Hideous Kinky, Run Lola Run, Princess Mononoke, The Iron Giant, Romance, Fight Club, Being John Malkovich, Episode 1, and (damn the critics) The Messenger: the Story of Joan of Arc.

1999 Top 5 Disappointments:
1. Affliction
2. Saving Private Ryan
3. The Spy Who Shagged Me
4. The Haunting
5. The Winslow Boy