Despite all the terms and comedic monologues that have been associated with the film Brokeback Mountain, as a “gay cowboy” movie, one of the many terms I find missing most are introspective and reflective. This is a film that stays with you, long after the final credits. This film has sparked long, intense discussions with friends, casual acquaintances, even strangers. These discussions usually occur hours or even days after the initial viewing because most find themselves in a state of stunned silence, looking inward for answers, then feeling the need to share.

Brokeback Mountain
4 & 1/2 Stars

At the start of the summer of 1963, two itinerate cowhands, the uber-quiet Ennis Del Mar (a surprising, excellent Heath Ledger) and a more animated Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal)sign up to herd sheep in the high country of Montana.  Ennis’s situation is made clear when he departs from a bus and by the fact that his possessions fit into a small paper bag.

Surrounded by the scenic beauty of the mountain range, with its pristine waters and possible danger of a coyote or two, the pokes perform their duties. Herd boss, Joe Aquirre (played by a crusty Randy Quaid), insist that they have no illegal camp fires to keep warm and what should have been a routine herding job, turns for both men on a freezing night when they are forced to share a small tent, for warmth and possibly survival. During a strange dance of what seemed to be a form of rough and tumble boy’s play, the two become intimate.

Ennis, a man who has a hard time stringing more than three words together, declares this encounter a one time thing cause, “he ain’t no queer.” Throughout this almost, fairytale time, of herding, playing, the two men grow as close as Ennis allows them to. One feels as if this was the happiest period of their lives.

With their sheep gig over, the men disappear into their own worlds only to promise to return the next year, but boss man, Joe, refuses to hire them again.

Jack decides to go back to his life as an also-ran bull rider on the rodeo circuit, landing in Texas where he meets and marries, Lureen (Anne Hathaway), a rich, spitfire. Jack settles into his new life, working for his father-in-law’s combine dealership.

Ennis ends up in a small Wyoming town and marries Alma (Michelle Williams) and fathers two girls. 

But, what fuels both of these men’s lives are their “fishing” trips to Brokeback Mountain, once, maybe twice a year. There, they can relive their first summer on the mountain, over and over.

As 1963 turns into 1973 and beyond, the two keep up the illusions of a family life. Jack, always restless, wants to stop the trips and try to live some idealized life on a ranch somewhere. But, Ennis, who is the loneliest soul in the world, does have a deep love for this daughters, especially Alma Jr., who he can not abandon.

Most of all, Ennis is unwilling to believe in Jack’s fantasy of a life together for them. He can not face what is truly in his heart. The rest of their lives is one of heartbreak, dangers and most of all a loneliness that can not be filled by anyone.

While the great director, George Stevens, was filming a pivotal scene in his 1951 classic, A Place in the Sun, an assistant informed him that Shelley Winters socks did not match a prior scene, whereas Stevens replied (and I am paraphrasing) that if the audience notices her socks, then he had failed and his perfect take stayed.

As I rode the emotional, mountain rollercoaster, I could not help but be distracted by small, but, significant choices director, Ang Lee, made. In other words, is there no way for all the makeup geniuses to age someone where it isn’t so obvious (Ledger’s body language was a more accurate guide to his aging) or better yet, when the script calls for a character to have a mustache, try and not let the audience be so aware that it is a phony, glued job.

That criticism aside, any film that can enter my head, my dreams and continues to stay with me, provoking internal dialogues about love, life, loves lost, never found, is a powerful film. All the alchemy that is required for a good film are there, from Larry McMurtry’s screenplay to the choices of the casting director, even the soundtrack.

It is a shame that so many people find the fact that Jack and Ennis would remain in the closet, suffering and sacrificing a life of love and possible happiness unbelievable . The fact is that Jack and Ennis’s story is still being lived today. In the future, maybe the social scientist will be able to explain the “closet” phenomenon. The complicated formula that is love and the pursuit of that loves takes courage and that is what our cowboys lacked.

Some may feel, at over two hours, this is a slow-moving film, but, viewers, pay attention or you will miss many subtle signs that Lee uses to further tell this story.

Okay, I made my top 10 list of what I think are ten very fine films, and rarely have I been as happy with what I consider the best of the year.  Sadly those weren’t the only films that cinema audiences were blessed with this year.  So let’s take a look at the other end of the spectrum…

Worst Films of 2005
N/A

Rather than doing a straight top ten countdown of my list I decided to do something a little different.  Below you will find fifteen films divided into three categories as I countdown to the worst film of 2005. 

The first group (The Bad #15-11) are the films that had a chance to be good and might have been saved but for poor management, directorial ineptitude, ridiculous plot twists or bad casting.  These are films that if other choices or decisions had been made they could have been fair or even decent films.

The second group (The Ugly #10-6) is a collection of the just plain awful; nothing could save them.  Nothing could be done to save this group and you should be able to find all or most in the bargain bin of your local Best Buy in 6 months or less.

The final group (The Crimes Aganist Humanity #5-1) is a collection of such slipshod substandard shit they barely can be classified as films.  They are malignant tumors that fester and suck the life out of audiences.  These are the films that lower your IQ just by viewing them, that rely on the audience to be as stupid as they are to make money, and in the best cases appear to be the work of film students (in the worst cases retarded pre-schoolers).  Since almost every one of these was a hit I’m guessing we’ll get more of the same next year.

A final note before we begin our countdown:  You may notice a few absences from this list (ex: Deuce Bigelow European Gigilo, Mindhunters, The Brothers Grimm, xXx State of the Union, and Alone in the Dark) Now I love you guys and do my best to keep you away from the shit that is out there but even my tolerance for crap only goes so high (Tara Reid as a scientist, oh god!) and honestly I don’t have time to catch everything that’s released.  I don’t know if any of these would have made my list (keep in mind I had no trouble finding 15 movies for a 10 movie list and still not include such cinematic achievements as Into the Blue).  Well, enough already let’s get to it; enjoy folks, I know you’ll have more fun reading about ‘em than I did watching ‘em.

The Bad

15. Flightplan

Flightplan wastes a tremendous performance by Jodie Foster in a classic example of why Hollywood needs to stay away from twist endings.  After the death of her husband Foster boards an overseas flight with her daughter to return to the United States.  After falling asleep she wakes up to find her daughter missing and not a single passenger can remember seeing her.  Is the woman nuts or has someone kidnapped her daughter in mid-air?  What starts as a tense psychological thriller spins into the realm of Hollywood hack writing as the truth of the situation is so illogical and improbable that contains a conspiracy that involves the death of her husband, the flight attendants on board, removing all traces of her daughter, relying on the improbable idea that no one would notice a cute little girl, and a terrorist plan to hold the airline passengers for ransom; it is impossible to be taken seriously.  The film wastes Foster’s performance as well as nice turns for Sean Bean and Erika Christensen.  It’s quite a shame that a film with this much going for it crashes so spectacularly halfway into its flight time.  (check out the full review)

14. King Kong

Peter Jackson’s 3 hours plus remake of the giant ape is less than impressive. There hasn’t been a really good version of the film made and I’ve been a fan of the character for many years and was hopeful that Jackson could give us the definitive Kong film.  Oh boy was I mistaken!  Full of odd choices and hammy performances (Jack Black fits both of these categories).  Full of needless CGI monsters and bugs the heart of the film is completely lost for more than two-thirds of the movie.  For a 187 minute movie you’d think at least the film would know what it is and have a coherent plot, story, and point.  The problem is it doesn’t.  It’s an exercise in pointless CGI that makes you remember the films it steals from (who did them better) while almost completely burying and ignoring the point of the story behind odd musical cues, countless monsters, an hour and a half romp through monster island.  The story at it’s heart is a morality tale about the monstrosity of human beings; Kong isn’t the monster, we are.  However the film never gets around to telling that story between Kong’s battle with three T-Rexes and Kong and Naomi Watts playing paddy-cake in the mountains and sliding across on the frozen pond in New York.  (check out the full review)

13. Sahara

Based of the Clive Cussler novel, Dirk Pitt (Matthew McConaughey) and his kinda’ wiseass assistant (Steve Zahn) are treasure hunters after a lost Civil War ship in the middle of the Sahara desert.  Yeah, pretty dumb, but wait it gets worse.  See these are maybe the most inept treasure hunters of all time.  Instead of searching for the treasure they take up with a doctor (Penelope Cruz) who is searching for the source of a plague in that region.  I like treasure hunting movies, but despite what the plot promises this isn’t one of them.  About 30 minutes of the films overall running time (the first 25 minutes and five very late in the movie) are actually searching for treasure and when the treasure is finally found it is due to complete dumb luck rather than any knowledge or break through by Pitt and his crew.  And Cruz as a doctor that can’t even pronounce the word doctor is just a completely unnecessary character that hijacks the film.  Included in this film are a bad guy with a non-descript accent and scowl, and the MacGyver-like building of a motor-powered sled in the middle of the desert, and finding the treasure by haphazardly blowing up sand dunes while trying to kill bio-terrorists. 
(check out the full review)

12. The Producers

Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick star in this remake of The Producers.  Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder these two ain’t.  More of a rehash of the stage version than an actual movie; the movie never finds the right beats or look of a theatrical film.  I am not a fan of remakes and I consider the original to be one of the funniest movies of all time.  Once again, this movie ain’t.  Missing important characters and scenes from the original yet almost an hour longer (yeah, kinda strange right?) the film just never works.  The film also lacks the warmth of the original that came from the Wilder and Mostel friendship.  Uma Thurman and Will Farrell come of best, but they have been asked to stretch thinly written characters far, far past their breaking points and are just saddled with doing the same shtick over and over until the film mercifully ends.  The infamous “Springtime for Hitler” scene also fails due to odd editing and direction that allows the audience to anger and then show appreciation for the number before either is remotely possible.  I understand Brooks wanting to cash in on a film version of the highly profitable Broadway show, but this one is a flop that no matter how much is done wrong never will turn into a hit. 
(check out the full review)

11. Shopgirl

From a film adapted from a play to one adapted from a novella.  Shopgirl tells the tale of Mirabelle (Claire Danes) who works behind the glove counter as Saks Fifth Avenue.  She lives a dreary and lonely life that two different men enter at the same time.  Aside from being dreadfully boring the film is predictable and pretty doggone awful.  Danes character is placed in a situation to choose a partner from an unstable and broke younger man, Schwartzman in a cringe inducing performance, and a loveless relationship with an older and wealth man, Steve Martin.  If by reading this you haven’t already figured out who she ends up with you need to get your film IQ checked.  Danes never considers that she might be better off alone than with either of these two flawed characters or that she might want to keep shopping for a better model than what’s currently available.  Her choice to start and and continue relationships with both of these men is driven only by plot as a real woman with half a brain would be out the door about three minutes into each first date.  Filled with unanswered questions (what brings Martin into the store to begin with?  He shows up to buy her a gift but where does her know her from or does he just enjoy prowling women’s clothing stores for hot young ass?), inconsistencies, and just bad writing (Schwartzman learning to appreciate a woman from books on tape and yoga while traveling with a rock band across the country).  Wretchedly stupid.  I’m afraid you’d do better shopping somewhere else.  (check out the full review)

The Ugly

10. Stealth

Do you know the names Brent Maddock, S.S. Wilson, Kevin Elders, and Sidney Furie?  Well the makers of this high speed jet crash obviously do because they crib so much from Short Circuit and Iron Eagle II (among others) it’s hard to pick out anything truly original.  Pointless action scenes, boring shots of jets zooming by over and over and over and over again, and ludicrous plot and story by people who think the Navy must be run like Howard Johnson’s (who knew that you got half your time off in beautiful tropical islands when you sign up to be Navy pilot?).  How dumb is this film?  It’s a film called Stealth that doesn’t contain a single Stealth Bomber!  The planes we do get are visually appealing but the cribbed story of the military robot hit by lighting and becomes alive and won’t follow any more orders was done almost twenty years ago with Steve Guttenberg and Ally Sheedy in performances that are Oscar caliber compared to Josh Lucas, Jamie Foxx, Sam Sheppard, and Jessica Biel.  The movie creates a self aware artificial intelligence but then doesn’t know what to do with it.  The biggest bummer of the early summer films that never takes flight.  (check out the full review)

9. The Ice Harvest

Strike Two.  Much like 1999’s Cusack and Thornton collaboration Pushing Tin this one fails to ever get off of the runway.  The “plot” involves a lawyer (Cusack) and his friend (Thornton) trying to swindle the Wichita, Kansas mob on Christmas Eve.  You know traveling to Wichita and seeing what the town is actually like is probably a good idea if you are going to make it the setting of your film; Wichita this ain’t.  As for the “plot” the film requires so many leaps of faith over a grand canyon sized plot holes it’s impossible to take seriously.  Cusack looks like he’s hung over from a 36 hour binge of alcohol, drugs, and sleep depression and he just wants his paycheck so he can get to bed.  Oliver Platt and Connie Neilson show up to provide some charm but their roles are so small and inconsequential that once they are off screen the movie fades back into the foggy marsh.  The story wanders through unfunny comedy, boring action, silly drama, and unsuspenseful suspense on it’s way to striking out in every single genre of film.  Kudos!  It’s a most unfunny film by Harold Ramis who directs (but didn’t write—maybe he should have!).  It’s like the nerdy kid at school that wants to be really cool but the harder he tries the more foolish he becomes. 
(check out the full review)

8. Be Cool

Here’s a classic example of why most sequels should never be made.  Get Shorty is one of my favorite Travolta films so when I heard a sequel was coming I was filled with a sense of joy and dread.  About five minutes into Be Cool the sense of joy disappeared.  Chili Palmer was a loan shark that was likeable because of his love and joy for movies.  The sequel has Palmer jump from the industry he loves into the music industry because…um, everyone got a big fat payday for a sequel?  Oh, he sees a sex young singer (Christina Milian) he thinks I got nothing better to do (what?  the script for Look Who’s Talking 6 wasn’t available?) so he decides to be her agent and enter the music business.  Travolta oozed cool in the original, but here he’s just another thug in the music business.  Uma Thurman (making her second appearance on my list) shows up to reunite the Pulp Fiction stars in a dance sequence.  Ya’ know I’ve got a DVD player and I can watch that scene whenever I want so I really didn’t need such a pointless and unoriginal remake.  For a story that was based off an Elmore Leonard novel and has such a large cast of well known actors only The Rock (a former wrestler) as the one-joke bodyguard who wants to be an actor and Milian (star of such hits as Torque and Love Don’t Cost a Thing) come off well. 

7. Dukes of Hazzard

Any movie where Jessica Simpson is cast as the smart one is probably ill-conceived.  Aside from about 20 total seconds of the General Lee leaping into mid-air there’s precious little right about the rednecks of Hazzard County.  Knoxville and Sean Williams Scott turn the Duke boys into horny in-bred idiots who look at the General Lee with more than brotherly love, and they are sadly the best of the bunch.  Roscoe P. Coltrane is turned into a mean spirited shit-kicker, Boss Hogg is unrecognizable except for his white suit, and Willie Nelson is drunk or stoned throughout the entire movie believing he is in an episode of Comedy Central Presents totally ignoring what’s going on and spouting off his lame ass stand-up comic riff as he stumbles through the frame.  The plot ignores many of the shows basic tenets (the Duke boys never leave Hazzard for the big city) and the plot which somehow involves both legal alcohol and moon shining is something that I guess only made since to Jessica Simpson and director Jay Chandraskhar.  Super Troopers is looking more and more like an aberration from the growing list of crap from the Broken Lizard gang.  But hey what do I know; I’ve got more than an 8th grade education which is more than I can say for the creators and fans of this dud.

6. Fantastic Four

I don’t know what’s more bewildering to me that the people making this film thought it was good, that the studio deemed it acceptable to release, or that it made $150 million at the box office.  The entire movie runs like an old Ed Wood film; it’s just catastrophically bad.  The “plot” we are forced to buy:  scientists who can’t tell the difference between seven hours and seven minutes but can make space age suits (form-fitting for Jessica Alba) that will miraculously get the same powers as the four, that the crap Michael Chiklis is covered in is rock, that Dr. Doom (one of Marvel’s oldest and most revered villains) is only a greedy businessman who becomes Magneto and just happens to keep a metal mask on his desk for the climax of the film, and New York City is the size of two square blocks as characters (super and plain human) miraculously appear just in time for the camera to pan to them.  As for the acting and directing of the movie, since I found little evidence of either I’ll refrain from commenting.  The film just looks cheap and poorly put together almost as if it was a fan film rather than a mega-million dollar summer blockbuster.  The sad thing is that people still ate it up and the sequel was greenlit after the opening weekend tentativley titleed FF2: Still Craptastic.  On the brightside if the Internet rumors are true maybe I’ll get to see the Silver Surfer in the next installment, though if it’s done as bad as this I might have to burn my comic collection and start reading Oprah’s book club. 
(check out the full review)

The Crimes Against Humanity

5. Doom

There’s a reason that video game makers aren’t Hollywood script writers and if you have any argument to that try and come up with a list of video game movies that aren’t classified as depressants and are banned from the suicide ward at every local hospital.  Doom isn’t just dumb; it marvels and basks in its own stupidity.  If Doom was a person it would be Ashlee Simpson.  If you enjoy sitting on a stranger’s couch watching people you don’t know play a boring, pointless, and poorly thought out video game well Hollywood has just cornered the market!  The plot of the game, er..movie, involves an unexplained Martian magical loogey portal (kinda’ like that thing that shoots Tim Allen around in Galaxy Quest) and a Mars space station complete with airducts and sewers, a team of roughnecks led by a professional wrestler (making his second appearance on the list), and a team of scientists playing god with Martian DNA they got from…oh somewhere near the perfectly functioning loogey machine all nice and preserved after thousands of years, and a bunch of guns, dead bodies, and killin’.  Aside from being completely inane and stealing story, plot, effects, and characters from everything from Aliens to Star Trek, and being almost completely without charm it’s….no, it’s awful.  As I predicted in my review this “braindead regurgitated slop” did indeed make millions and proved the pessimistic side of me correct as people ate this up and begged for seconds.  This is the worst type of pseudo-scif-fi (a theme you will find in all of these top five films) and should come with a warning label and restraints to stop people from bashing their heads open on the seats in front of them just to make it stop.  (check out the full review)

4. White Noise

White Noise is a “movie” about an architect (Michael Keaton) whose wife mysteriously disappears and he begins to think she might be trying to talk to him through the static on the television.  Yeah, that’s a normal reaction.  The convoluted “plot” involves the living and dead making contact with Keaton to be their personal protector, a group of three ghosts (well, I’m not sure they are ghosts since not even the director had an explanation for them except he thought they were really cool…yeah, maybe in MST2000 kinda way).  So Keaton works with an expert in EVP and meets other people who believe their dead friends and relatives are talking to them through static.  Keaton’s character never considers he is being taken for a ride (the so called experts seek him out) or that his wife might be alive and consider something sane like hiring someone to find her; instead he totally ignores his young son and delves into a rather ludicrous obsession.  Nor do the police find it troubling that Keaton keeps showing up at the scenes where dead bodies are discovered, I don’t know folks but maybe that sounds a tad suspicious to me.  The movie attempts to use EVP to create a suspsenseful horror movie, the result however makes those who believe in EVP look more pathetic than people who believe Elvis and Hitler are living together on a mountain in Tibet with Amelia Earhart.  (check out the DVD review)

3. Stay

Stay is the type of movie that today’s Hollywood loves to produce.  Find a couple of likeable stars (not too expensive ones) and put together a slick looking film with a twist ending with enough odd camera moves and flashbacks to try and hide the fact that there is nothing actually worth watching.  The film looks and feels like a film student’s exercise in film techniques he only recently read about and doesn’t really comprehend.  The “story” (I refuse to call it plot) involves Ewan McGregor as a psychiatrist with a suicidal patient and a girlfriend who once tried to kill herself.  Problem is his patient is so dark and angry we don’t care if he kills himself and Naomi Watts’ (making her second appearance on the list) character is so needy and whiny we want her to die.  McGregor worries that either or both may attempt to kill themselves, but then maybe he doesn’t because that might not be the story after all.  The film is filled with flashbacks, deja vu scenes where characters replay scenes over and over, and dream-like effects.  The plot twist at the end offers an explanation that makes the twist in Flightplan look Hitchcockian by comparison.  Aside from the fact that the solution it offers makes absolutely no logical sense and makes the structure of the film we watched actually impossible it’s just really, really lame.  This film is a complete waste of celluloid and a tremendous waste of time.  (check out the full review)

2. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, & the Wardrobe

I was shell shocked coming out of the theater and as I regained my senses I grew angrier and angrier at the “children’s film” I had seen.  Aside from the obvious that allow it to make our list: poor acting, bad special effects, edited in that English Patient kinda’ way, the absence of anything real, and huge plot holes (the kind you could drive the Death Star through), besides all of this the film has much, much more to answer for.  The film is -less, i.e. emotion-less, talent-less, tact-less.  First off the film presents war and violence as a good thing for children to not only take part in, but lead the way.  It presents killing and death as bloodless events comparable to walking your dog; no consequence for such actions or emotions involved other than resembling the boredom of the audience.  The film “teaches” that war is not only a good way to solve problems, but it’s a just and necessary one and a war based on belief (i.e. a jihad) is noble.  The film puts the children directly in harms way by giving them weapons and putting them at the forefront of the battle for no reason other than it was predetermined to be so.  Uh-huh.  The films idea about an army no matter how outmatched or outnumbered or ineptly led can win because it has God on its side is one of the most subversive and evil things I’ve ever encountered in a film.  The movie includes the torture and resurection of the Christ Lion (with the young children in attendance to view, well you wouldn’t want them to miss that!).  Wow, a film that preaches the nobility of jihad, the necessity of religious intolerance, and the story of Jesus.  Finally a movie that fundamental Christians and Al Qaeda can gather with all the Who’s in Whoville around a crucified beggar and a disemboweled homosexual, and hold hands and sing as they stone a 13 year-old crackwhore to death.  Joy to the world.  (check out the full review)

1. A Sound of Thunder

As bad as the movies on this list are there is one that is worse than all of them.  A Sound of Thunder is perhaps the worst adapted sci-fi movie of all time.  The Ray Bradbury short story from which the film takes it’s name is about a time traveling business in the future that allows it’s customers to travel back in time and hunt dinosaurs.  Time Safari is very careful to make sure to choose animals that are already about to die and doesn’t allow the customers to leave the path or take any souveniers.  The whole experience must make sure that even the tiniest and most subtle change doesn’t occur because it might cause catastrophic changes.  During a trip where things go wrong a butterfly is killed on the path creating a time quake that alters known history.  In the book the time travelers return to a totalitarian future (which could have been rife for satirizing today’s political culture) but in the film the group returns to their world that is gradually changed through time waves (that you can see coming, who knew time looked like surfin’ waves?) that change reality more and more with each wave.  We get dinoapes and monster plants as everything in the evolutionary cycle is slowly evolved; the group must try to solve the problem before the time waves make their way up the evolutionary chain to humans.  The film’s special effects are so bad they make Narnia’s look Oscar worthy with the worst blue screen scenes I’ve seen done in twenty years (TV or film).  The film creates huge continuity problems by allowing different customers to kill the same dinosaur at the same time in the same place over and over but yet somehow not running into each other, but then allowing them to come into contact in the scene where they return to the past in an attempt to put everything right.  Also problematic are the bonehead decisions the scientists make that put themselves in danger and make them monster food.  The idea behind the gradual time waves is a different idea of time change, but the explanation and execution are rather ridiculous.  Inconsistent story, bad effects including the roller coaster time machine, and dumb, dumb, dumb plot and dialogue make this the worst film of the year.  Much like Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report a great sci-fi short story is ruined because it was given to writers who didn’t understand it and decided to write their own version not realizing how careful you have to be because a butterfly can be crushed by such hamfisted idiocy. 
(check out the full review)