Sergio's 2005 Movie Awards

UNIVERSAL REMOTE

While this year's list is pretty strong, I can't help feeling it is one of the weakest movie years in memory. I hope I am not getting too cynical, but time and again (even with most of these films), I left the theater wishing the movie had been better. Last year's three best films (Sideways, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Million Dollar Baby) were all better than any film this year.

SERGIO'S TOP TEN
01. Brokeback Mountain
02. In Her Shoes
03. Capote
04. A History of Violence
05. Good Night, and Good Luck.
06. Match Point
07. Walk the Line
08. Wedding Crashers
09. Syriana
10. The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada

BEST PICTURE/DIRECTOR/SCREENPLAY: Brokeback Mountain

When the Oscar nominations are announced, people always ask me why the movies nominated for Best Picture but aren't always the same as the ones for Best Screenplay or Best Director. I used to ramble about how certain movies were "performance driven" or "about special effects" or something but now I know this is total crap. The best movies of the year are also the best written and the best directed, period. (This also applies to editing but don't get me started on how the Oscar always goes to the movie with the most edits.) There are some elements that you can can seperate from a movie (individual performances, music, special effects, etc.) but not direction and writing. This is because they are part of the whole. Everything else is a part. For someone to say a movie is the best of the year but not the best directed and/or written is like saying you like Shake Shack's burger the best but you think Corner Bistro has a better chef or Houston's has a better recipe. It's absurd. The only reason the Oscar nominations go all out of whack in this regard is because of the voting process. And since I'm the only one voting on this list, I have the power to keep the absurdity out of it. (Then again, you may read my winners and think otherwise.) For that reason, my best picture, director and screenplay awards all go to the same film.

Brokeback Mountain was the only flawless movie I saw this year. An absolutely believable love story that displayed more raw emotion than any other film. Sure it was about "gay cowboys," but anyone can relate to the barriers and compromises that keep these men from true happiness. Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal are superb and the depth and subtlety of their performances has completely changed the way I look at them as actors. Someone said Ledger's performance is as good as anything Brando or Penn has ever done. I completely agree and this is no small praise.

Everything I said about Brokeback Mountain also applies to the direction of Ang Lee and the writing of Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana. Praise shoud also go to Annie Proulx for dreaming this beautiful story up. Every detail from her short story was in the movie, including most of the dialogue. McMurtry and Ossana have expertly expanded her work. They also deserve credit for being the ones who first believed in this story as a film project. They are the ones who purchased the story from Proulx and thought to make it in a film. They wrote the screenplay and then sold it to Hollywood. (I've never heard of a film being packaged this way.) That it took almost ten years to get it made is a testament to their faith and perseverence. McMurtry is the author of my all-time favorite book, Lonesome Dove, and I am looking forward to him accepting his certain Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Brokeback Mountain was easily the best film of the 2005. While I have no doubt it will go down as one of the greatest and most groundbreaking love stories in film history, if you get me drunk enough, I will eventually admit that Wedding Crashers will be the movie I keep watching into my golden years. So much for the arty movies.

RUNNERS UP (DIRECTING): Curtis Hanson, In Her Shoes; Bennett Miller, Capote; David Cronenberg, A History of Violence; George Clooney, Good Night, and Good Luck.

RUNNERS UP (WRITING): Susannah Grant, In Her Shoes; Dan Futterman, Capote; Josh Olson, A History of Violence; George Clooney & Grant Heslov, Good Night, and Good Luck.

BEST ACTOR: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Capote

In the tightest race of the year, I choose Hoffman over Ledger by an upraised pinky. Hoffman's incomparable ability to say one thing and mean another is a tour-de-force. The pinnacle of the performance comes at the end when Capote says goodbye to the killers he has come to love and betray. In the best moment of the best performance of the year, Hoffman cries honestly, and lies at the same time. If you haven't seen Capote, jump it to the top of your Netflix queue.

(Though it must be noted that if I could vote for part of a performance, I would vote for Vince Vaughn in the first twenty minutes of Wedding Crashers. He was comedic quicksilver. You can quote me on that.)

RUNNERS-UP: Heath Ledger, Brokeback Mountain; Joaquin Pheonix, Walk the Line; Russell Crowe, Cinderella Man; Tommy Lee Jones, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada

BEST ACTRESS: Toni Collette, In Her Shoes

The scene where Collette throws sister Cameron Diaz out of her house for sleeping with her boyfriend is stunning. It is filled with more naked emotion then perhaps any other scene this year and one of the biggest reasons In Her Shoes trancends it's "Chick Flick" label and is one of the best films of the year.

RUNNERS-UP: Reese Witherspoon, Walk The Line; Joan Allen, The Upside of Anger

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: George Clooney, Syriana

Clooney's world-weary spook was the heart of a movie that mostly kept its emotions in check. As a man who comes to the grim realization he is being betrayed by the same people he has given his entire career to protect, Clooney's calculated pragmatism is relevetory. He's a close winner over Rourke's amazing lug Marv from the underwhelming Sin City.

RUNNERS-UP: Mickey Rourke, Sin City; Paul Giamatti, Cinderella Man; Matt Dillon, Crash; Ed Harris, A History of Violence

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Shirley MacLaine, In Her Shoes

I called MacLaine's performance "the perfect distillation of human behavior." I can't think of any more praise than that.

RUNNERS-UP: Mario Bello, A History of Violence; Michelle Williams, Brokeback Mountain; Juliette Binoche, Cache; Scarlett Johansson, Match Point

MOST DISAPPOINTING MOVIE: Munich

Spielberg's foray into the Israeli-Palestinian crisis was overly repetitive and surprisingly unmoving. So much for it being my most anticipated movie of the fall.

RUNNERS-UP: Sin City; Domino; Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Mr. and Mrs. Smith

ONE SCENE WONDERS

These actors gave memorable, moving performances in ten minutes or less and were wonders to behold. Any one of them would be worthy Oscar nominees.

Dallas Roberts as record producer Sam Phillips, Walk the Line
Roberta Maxwell as Jake Gyllenhaal's mother, Brokeback Mountain
Norman Lloyd as Cameron Diaz's blind patient, In Her Shoes
Ralph Fiennes as He Who Must Not Be Named, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

BEST VILLAIN: Joseph McCarthy, Good Night, and Good Luck.

The former Senator perfectly played himself in all his pasty, sweating, balding, Constitution-hating glory. Special mention also goes to Cillian Murphy and his crazy-blue eyes which were the best special effects of the year.

RUNNERS-UP: Cillian Murphy, Batman Begins; Cillian Murphy, Red Eye; Ed Harris, A History of Violence; the Martian tripods, War of the Worlds

BLOCKBUSTERS I DIDN'T EVEN BOTHER TO SEE AND HAVEN'T LOST A MINUTE OF SLEEP OVER

Star Wars Episode III: The Revenge of the Sith
King Kong
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
Fantastic Four

So now we're onto 2006. How many more days until Snakes on a Plane?