Best Films of 2005

Popcorn Picks: The Top Eleven Films of 2005
Adam Valen Levinson
Freelance Movie Critic
        If you take the time to sift through the bottomless landfill that was the 2005 movie season, you will find that there were, in fact, a handful of deserving films. Deserving, of course, means worthy of a spot on this year’s prestigious Top 11, where musicals, documentaries, comedies, dramas and junk can finally coexist.
  1. Crash* is amazing. It documents a day in the lives of a dozen ethnically and spiritually diverse Los Angelans, exploiting the ensemble cast to present each character’s story as equally important. Soul-stirring and provocative, Crash forces us to collide with our stereotypes, to confront them in the hopes that they may change. As Don Cheadle says in the opening narrative, “we crash into each other just so we can feel something”. This film is the collision that can break through to our cores, stare us straight in the soul and say “hey you, wake up.”
  2. Lord of War was both powerful and funny, examining with an eagle eye the corruption of international arms dealing. Writer-director Andrew Niccol shows us the world from both a personal and a detached perspective, forcing us to examine our own reactions to the tragedies on screen. Nicolas Cage, in one of his greatest performances, narrates his twisted rags-to-riches story amidst a plethora of artillery, “merchandise”, and unspeakable violence. A perfect pair with Syriana, Lord of War shows us the deceit that holds our world together, one bullet at a time.
  3. As an astute movie critic mentioned in June, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith was like the George Washington Bridge, providing a link between the New Jersey-like garbage of the two prequels and the New York-esque awesomeness of the original trilogy. Special effects are more than special in the epic saga that has become such a favorite piece of Americana. We will always remember that long time ago in a galaxy far, far away that touched all of our hearts.
  4. Wedding Crashers was this year’s best comedy, starring Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn as womanizing impostors who unfailingly become the centers of attention at dozens of springtime weddings. An unapologetically raunchy romp, the movie uses both the terrifyingly creepy and the brilliantly bizarre to knock you off your seat in a fit of R-rated giggles. Witty and original, Wedding Crashers never ceases to be painfully funny, till the credits do us part.
  5. George Clooney’s Good Night, and Good Luck is a clever presentation of the CBS reporter Edward R. Murrow’s battle against Joe McCarthy during his fearmongering Red Scare in the 1950’s. Mixed with real footage of the senator, the black and white Good Night shows us an America plagued by paranoia and cured by good journalism. Perfectly timed to mirror today’s own political dishonesty, the film and its message do not beat around the bush.
  6. Mel Brooks’ The Producers leaves you without any sides left to split. Anyone who does not think it’s better than the original should refrain from attending movies, for fear of breaking his plastic hip. Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick fill their characters with the perfect amounts of insanity, absurdity and vibrance that made the original so... original. With new songs from the musical, and Will Ferrell as a neo-Nazi playwright, Producers will have you singing along with the Führer ‘til the curtain drops.
  7. In the aftermath of the slaughter of eleven Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics, a son of a hero is chosen to strike back. With a newborn daughter at home, Avner, played by The Hulk’s Eric Bana, risks everything to carry out his country’s vendetta. Controversially portraying the Israeli government as manipulative and self-righteous, Munich still tells a thrilling story of a man’s journey between hunter and hunted – between nobody and somebody. With its unhesitatingly gory style, Munich is a gripping look at murder and revenge, asking us to draw our own line between what is wrong and what seems right.
  8. The fourth installment in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was finally frightening enough to keep unaccompanied 12 year-olds out of the theater. The magical world of Hogwarts is in even more danger with You-Know-Who’s return to the corporeal. Braving even more adolescent squabbles, Harry must survive the prestigious Tri-Wizard tournament in order to make the next three sequels. Goblet of Fire is clearly the cream of the Harry Potter crop.
  9. Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson is back with his larger-than-life King Kong, a three hour long journey that is both exhilarating and heart-warming, and always a little bit funny. At times, the dizzying chases through the uncharted forests of Skull Island seem to be a curious blend of Apocalypse Now and The Land Before Time, but with the cast dropping like flies, and giant flies dropping like rocks, Kong glues you to your seat. In the era of the remake, Jackson has managed to make one that brings a new chest-pounding zazz to the original, making Kong this year’s best film starring a giant primate.
  10. Now on the silver screen, Rent presents the New York stage’s poignantly raw rock-musical in a clearer, more illustrative way than Broadway ever could. Close to 5,256,000 minutes after the show’s debut, the entire original cast is back, replacing only Mimi with the mind-numbingly perfect Rosario Dawson. The film breathes new life into the late Jonathan Larson’s fiery vision, captured in this heartwarming gem in a way that will make you laugh, cry, and perhaps measure your years a little differently.
  11. The Aristocrats documents the funniest, most offensive, and downright wrongest joke in existence, as told by dozens of today’s top comedians. In Philadelphia, Aristocrats managed to merit a No-Admittance-Under-18 policy, a stricter rating than anything the MPAA has to offer. To be released in January, the DVD will allow even pre-schoolers to laugh at comedians like Hank Azaria’s depiction of *** ** **** dog ***** **** ***** **** daughter ****** ***** ear ****** ** ******* *** oatmeal.

* Officially released in September, 2004 at the Toronto Film Festival. However, Canada is insignificant, and the movie was released in the civilized world in 2005.

Written January 7, 2006 for the Friends' Central Focus

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Awesome
Adam Valen Levinson
Freelance Movie Critic
      With more poise and hair than ever before, the three British teenage wizards are back in the fourth installment of the Harry Potter series. As expected, The Goblet of Fireone-ups its prequel with more magic, more violence, and just a touch more romance. Scene after scene, we are bombarded with the terrifying and the spectacular in a movie that accentuates both triumph and tragedy. At a rate of approximately five pages per minute, the film flies by in a flash of epic, breath-taking flair.
      Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire tells the story of Harry’s fourth year in school, where he once again battles bad dreams and daunting challenges on his way to the credits. This year, Hogwarts has been selected as the host for the Tri-Wizard Tournament, where a chosen student from schools in Bulgaria and France join the Hogwarts champion in three tests of courage, ingenuity and magical aptitude. Harry, while officially three years too young to enter, is chosen as Hogwarts’ second representative. After the French entrant surrenders (surprise, surprise), and the Bulgarian is cursed, Harry must compete against his friend and schoolmate for the glorious title, Tri-Wizard Champion. From a breathless aerial chase among the school’s spires to a breath-stopping underwater rescue, The Goblet of Fire leaves us panting. And with a good portion of the cast trying to kill him, Harry is tested more than ever before by the ensuing trials.
      Mona Lisa Smile director Mike Newell allows the series its first PG-13 rating, letting audiences know that the squeaky voices of the earlier films will be abandoned for a good two and a half hours of hearty supernatural chaos. Do not refrain from parting with your eight dollars, however, because of the bloodshed and frightening images that may have kept your children home with the sitter. While the love-struck teen on my right quivered at Harry’s every appearance, and cried at his every torment, the more aged audience members (say, above 17) could enjoy a less superficial, more meaningful film than the first three. The new Harry Potter lets us delve even deeper into labyrinthian intricacy, allowing the cleverly organized world of Hogwarts to create suspense and tension even for those who know the story.
      The Goblet of Fire shows us even more of our heroes’ romantic, emotional sides than the prequels. Friendships are strained and tested under the weight of new emotional challenges. Rowling’s characters deal with honesty and trust like any teenagers would, but in the end, the movie presents a clear lesson about moral fiber. As the ever-perfect protagonist, Harry lets us know where our priorities should lie on the shifting scale of fame and friendship. For this, Harry is rewarded for his outstanding demonstration of “moral fiber”. Mr. Newell’s fibers come in all colors, as he leaves no ethnic stone unturned in casting dates for the Hogwarts ball.
      In short, this is a great movie for those who have never seen a Harry Potter before. The book’s compacted story presents itself clearly and imaginatively, letting a movie-goer enjoy the film without having to do any “reading”. A breakthrough in the cinema of fantasy, The Goblet of Fire is nothing short of magical.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
157 Minutes
Release Date: November 18, 2005

Written November 19, 2005 for the Friends' Central Focus

Religion in Cinema

Blue Collar, White Collar, Clerical Collar
The Appeal of Religious Movies
Adam Valen Levinson
Freelance Movie Critic
     CRUCIFIXION. Jesus. Buddha. Keanu Reeves. It seems these few words have caught your attention, and our multicultural friends in Hollywood know exactly why. What is it that shapes society as we know it? What finds its way into every field of entertainment, sports, science and politics? What institution contains the most recognizable figures in the entire universe? If you said religion, you gain ten karma points. The film industry knows how universally two-hour installments of good feeling are accepted, and how “documentation” of a sect’s favorite deity will be swallowed whole. But religious movies are not solely serious. See, the movie business caters to what its viewers know, and for 90 % of the United States, that knowledge includes beliefs, prayers, and legendary stories.
      The most religiously saturated, and often most controversial religious films are the epics, most recently 2004’s The Passion of the Christ. The Passion deals with Christ’s last day in an unoriginal way, but still manages to reach out to a huge portion of the world. Even in Arabic countries where the prevalent religion is different from that of the Gibson film, meaning is found (even if it is communal anti-semitism). Even though the story is one almost every viewer would know, most are still captivated and touched. Even though similar movies have been made over and over in the past, a stunning $610 million was soaked up at theaters near you. Supposedly, we can see our hero’s suffering, and so be made closer to our faith. These movies let us visualize the stories we may have been told from infancy, and in projecting giant Jesuses onto giant screens, religion begins to take tangible form.
      Another epic, made forty eight years earlier (note: this is Jesus’ age at death plus fifteen) tells the story of Moses and his deliverance of the Jews to freedom. I am speaking of course of Cecil B. Demille’s The Ten Commandments. This is 1.3 % of America’s Passion, showing a tale of self-understanding and justice in a huge and spectacular way. It is with these grand gestures and 220 minutes of Bar Mitzvah-worthy stories that Charleton Heston (Moses) and his staff blazed the path for every epic ever made. These movies insight within us a feeling of excitement and pride. One might expect Heston to descend Sinai carrying a rifle and the second amendment, but after seeing him proudly holding the ten commandments it is easy to feel exhilarated, even if you did do some coveting the night before. These epics are designed to strengthen the viewers’ faith, or at least summarize seven years of Hebrew/Sunday school in four hours.
      However, Moses cannot climb Mount Sinai everyday and Jesus must take a break from the cross, so religion in movies often takes the form of comedy. There is something enticing about treating what some find a serious topic in a lighthearted way, something that lets us explore faith and religion without being grabbed at by conscience-shaking epics. Unquestionably the best religious comedy ever made is Dogma. Being a comedy, Dogma can address subjects that would be seen to be too touchy or controversial in purely serious films. For example, director Kevin Smith answered the untouchable question, what does God look like? with Alanis Morissette. In this movie, serious postulates can be masked with jokes, but Dogma can still leave you wondering if that really is how it all works without offending anyone (with a sense of humor). Another easy to watch God-filled movie is Keeping the Faith, about a best friend rabbi and priest and their relations with a female childhood friend. Keeping the Faith attempts to make a sappy moral statement, that people of all religions can get along, without being sappy. When the priest walks into the bar at the beginning of the film, you might wonder if it’s a joke, but by the end the true meaning is visible. Had the film been serious and ordered its viewers to GET ALONG!, it would have been a flop. The Comedy has the ability to make people see everything in a different light. Almost misleadingly, like South Park or Huck Finn, these movies pull us in with jokes and when we least expect it, we’re hit with something meaningful.
      Satire is another approach that lets an audience laugh at their own surroundings. The movie Saved makes fun of fanatical Catholic society by caricaturing Mandy Moore as a bible-toting, anti-Semitic student who plans to rid sin from her school. As the movie takes its course, we begin to see that the sinner is Moore herself, and her lack of tolerance eventually leads to her own lack of acceptance. Lines like “I crashed my van into Jesus!” make a serious social commentary hilarious. In this way, an unwelcoming, intolerant person could leave the theater laughing, but realize two hours later that they were laughing at themselves.
      Being in America, most of us are only exposed to Judeo-Christian movies, but there are others. Little Buddha, starring Keanu Reeves, shows parallels between the life of a little American boy, and that of Prince Siddhartha himself. Little Buddha is a welcome change of pace from other religious films as it somewhat explains Buddhism as a whole, instead of exclusively telling a story. Unlike the epics, it is not grandiose with majestic movie music, and unlike a comedy, it is not truly funny. But as we watch Reeves become totally, like, enlightened we are educated and shown new ways to live.
      Sometimes religion in the cinema is neither funny nor straightforward. Sometimes it comes in horror form like The Exorcist and sometimes it comes as a musical like Jesus Christ Superstar, but no matter what genre, religious films aim to make a statement that can be understood in all corners of the world.

Written September 16, 2005 for the Friends' Central Focus

Star Wars Episode Three: Revenge of the Sith

Episode III: Return of the Awesome
Adam Valen Levinson
Freelance Movie Critic

      After exactly 28 years to the day, the Star Wars sextet has concluded – finished, or rather middled, by its prize sixth. As the Star Wars fan struggles to explain where in the storyline these 144 minutes fit, George Lucas chuckles with glee, resting in his mansion, presumably counting money. Simply put: this sixth-released installment is actually the third chronologically. The last in the first trilogy, released years after the second trilogy, III: Revenge of the Sith finally fills all the gaps in the epic saga’s story. According to Lucas, this will be the last Star Wars film ever made. Reportedly, Lucas will be building a spaceship with the double trilogy’s gargantuan gross, to spend his remaining years on the planet Naboo. He does deserve it, though, despite popular opinion. Lucasfilm, his self titled company, has created six movies spanning over fourteen hours that have brought excitement and joy to life forms across the galaxy.
      Around 11:30, upon arrival at the theater, I found the parking lot surprisingly full. They were playing the movie in all ten theaters, each one packed with fans of all ages. While most seemed between the ages of twenty and thirty, there were exceptions, like the tiny, Yoda-sized little girl who refused to talk to me. Unfortunately, there were no appearances by Wookies or Darth Vaders. There was, however, one man in a Star Trek uniform, who was immediately pummeled by the audience.
      The film was slow to start as our theater was sill dark even after others began buzzing with the sounds of coming attractions. In time, though, the preview reel began, and with the patience of a jedi master, I waited. Then, after almost losing hope, the unmistakable Star Wars music began, and the audience erupted into the nerdiest cheer imaginable. For the last first time, I watched as the yellow letters drifted towards the invisible horizon. Surely an emotional moment for all in attendance, these thirty seconds forced thousands of people, in a benevolent plea for literacy, to read.
      Unlike the other five episodes, Revenge of the Sith did not waste any time drifting in black space after the introduction. Instead, we are immediately thrown into a fire laser-filled battle. Anakin, played by Hayden Christensen, and Obi Wan, played by Ewan McGreggor, lead the fight of the republic against the evil forces of the Sith. From the start, Anakin, dressed always in black, seems to be more powerful than his master. The opening minutes are heart-racing, moving quickly through the well-written plot. We see what becomes of some old powers from Episode II, and are introduced to new, and even weirder evils.
      Later, we see how relationships in the original trilogy were formed. As Yoda says, “good relations with the Wookies, I have.” Here, he calls on Chewbacca and his planet for help, letting them demonstrate their incredible strength and supreme hairiness. Also, we see Chancellor Palpatine’s rapid transformation into the Emperor Palpatine we all know from Episodes IV-V, as he gains control over the newly christened Darth Vader. Anakin, overwhelmed with prophetic visions, pledges to be Palpatine’s apprentice, if the Chancellor will teach him the ways of the dark side of the force. His fear of losing loved ones is so strong, he becomes will to murder anyone and everyone with whom he bears no connection. As Vader embarks on his “crusade” of sorts, he walks over the cross-patterned tiling of the Congress Building. With newly evil Storm Troopers behind him, he sets out his missions to kill, foreshadowing his future life as a glamorized hit man.
      With Anakin, who seemed so virtuous earlier in the film, as a shriveled old man’s private assassin, the movie takes a turn for the tragic. Because Episodes I and II are, for the most part, lighter and happier, and because the original trilogy begins with only one jedi, this missing piece has to connect all the dots. This is what makes this movie so much better than the preceding two. Lucas is not afraid to show tragedy, but still manages to give the trilogy’s end a positive feeling. Knowing what will become of each character, an element of suspense is lost. However the movie is good enough to make you nervous even with a known outcome. If you have not seen Episodes I and II, I wouldn’t recommend seeing this yet. However, seeing it without seeing the later episodes might make the whole thing a little more enthralling. In fact, it might add a layer of surprise and intrigue even the most diehard Star Wars crazy could never imagine.
      The sextet climaxes with two simultaneous battles, one between two young jedi, and the other between two seasoned veterans. As Vader takes on Obi Wan in a river of molten lava, Yoda battles with Darth Sidious (Chancellor Palpatine) in the room of the Senate, ironically using the very building in which he claims to make peace for war. Meanwhile, Obi Wan and Anakin fight across shaky metal structures suspended over lava in a Lord of the Rings-esque battle. Episode Three has what the first two prequels lacked: the voice of James Earl Jones. Like the cherry atop the computer generated ice cream, Mr. Jones adds the finishing touch.
      It seems, every American has an opinion about Star Wars. Either you reject them, saying you “don’t like that kind of stuff”, or you anticipate them, waiting patiently for the next release. Just like many practicing Christians’ desire to attend The Passion of the Christ, many Americans feel there is almost an unspoken rule that without a decent excuse, attending Star Wars is mandatory, if not only for its value as priceless Americana. Mike Dohrmann [classmate], who I stumbled into waiting for popcorn, told me he had always liked Star Wars because “jedi powers are exhilarating”, then adding “I’ve always identified with Emperor Palpatine”. Everyone has their favorite parts or favorite characters. I even asked the concessions manager what drew her to the theater at midnight. She replied simply, “your total is $4.25”. For those of you who dislike these films, I cannot imagine why you read this far; for those of you who do, there are a few key things you should look and listen for: First, watch R2D2 carefully–he has more up his sleeves than an Ewok in the forests of Endor. Second, listen attentively to Yoda, his speeches just might change your life. Third, wait for the quadrouple-light saber-wielding robot with a cold and heartburn. Fourth, enjoy; this episode is arguably the best of the six, as it combines the symbolism and plot devices of the old trilogy, with the mind-melting special effects of the new. Anyone who misses this movie is truly missing out on one of the greater film experiences in recent memory. Go now, and fulfill your destiny...

Star Wars Episode Three: Revenge of the Sith
140 Minutes
Release Date: May 19, 2005

Written May 21, 2005 for the Friends' Central Focus