Top 10 of 2005: #1

First a rundown of films 20-2 (I wrote captions for films 10-2):

20)The Upside of Anger
19)Transamerica
18)The Skeleton Key
17)Rent
16)North Country
15)Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit
14)Cinderella Man
13)Pride & Prejudice
12)Match Point
11)Howl's Moving Castle
10)Sin City
9)Brokeback Mountain
8)King Kong
7)Memoirs of a Geisha
6)Walk the Line
5)Heights
4)Cursed
3)November
2)Junebug



Crash dir. Paul Haggis

Typical? Maybe to some people. However, to all the haters out there, Crash rightfully won the Oscar for Best Picture. That's it, let the bile flow. Crash is a better film than Brokeback Mountain. Crash examines the lives of several people over a 36 hour period in Los Angeles, and how different accounts of racism affects each of them. These people are Rick Cabot (Brendan Fraser), a district attorney, his wife Jean (Sandra Bullock), Anthony (Ludacris) and Peter (Larenz Tate), two thieves, Graham Waters (Don Cheadle) and Ria (Jennifer Esposito) two detectives, Officers John Ryan and Tom Hansen (Matt Dillon and Ryan Phillippe), Cameron and Christine Thayer (Terrence Howard and Thandie Newton), Daniel (Michael Pena), a locksmith and Farhad and Dorri (Shaun Toub and Bahar Soomekh), a shop owner and his daughter. We come to care about all of these characters and they are fully fleshed out in the screentime given to them. We want all of their situations to be resolved in the right way even though we know some of them might not end happily. The writing here is extremely strong and powerful. The way these people talk, although not pretty at times, speaks volumes about how some people act today. Paul Haggis and Robert Moresco have fashioned an amazing script and all the actors speak their lines with conviction. Paul Haggis is a great director too, doing everything perfectly from the get-go. All of the actors are amazing. I mean every single one of them. My favourite performances come from: Sandra Bullock (giving the performance of her career), Thandie Newton, Matt Dillon, Michael Pena, Don Cheadle, Terrence Howard and Ludacris. My most favourite performance however, is Thandie Newton's. The pain and sadness she conveys is shattering and in every one of her scenes, I felt for her. She was unrightfully robbed of an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Every scene in this movie is fantastic and absolutely perfect. Crash is one of the best movies I have ever seen and definitely the best movie of 2005.