SCOTT TOBIAS
Top Ten
1. Brokeback Mountain
2. Munich
3. The 40-Year-Old Virgin
Calling the debut feature of Freaks & Geeks creator Judd Apatow the greatest sex-comedy ever made isn't saying all that much, but viewers who spent their adolescences scanning through Porky's sequels and Julie Strain vehicles can appreciate its subtle twist on the genre. One nerd's quest to get laid is a common theme in these films, yet The 40-Year-Old Virgin replaces their frathouse cruelty with sweetness and camaraderie while still supplying plenty of raunchy fun. And that's no minor accomplishment.
4. Memories Of Murder
5. The Devil's Rejects
Rob Zombie's brilliantly executed follow-up to House Of 1000 Corpses recalls The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Last House On The Left in its devotion to horror realism, creating a heightened sense of danger without the added assurance that everything is going to be all right. Like those films, The Devil's Rejects may take several years to get the appreciation it deserves, but '70s-horror fans will feel like they've taken a time machine to the drive-in. Oddly enough, this would make a perfect double feature with Munich: Both films deal with the corrosive effects of revenge, and in doing so, comment indirectly on 9/11 and its aftermath.
6. Grizzly Man
7. A History Of Violence
8. The Squid And The Whale
9. Tropical Malady
There was no more radically experimental feature released this year than the latest from Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Blissfully Yours), whose elliptical love story about a country boy and a soldier turns entirely abstract in the second half, when it abruptly shifts into a jungle folk tale, complete with a talking baboon. The two halves may initially seem like separate movies, but they mirror each other in strange and beguiling ways, suggesting that desire brings out our animal nature.
10. Caché
The Next Five
In a year filled with great movies about revenge, nobody provided more of it than Korea's Park Chan-wook, whose mega-revenge thriller Oldboy is a triumph of baroque excess. Nobody Knows is a lyrical testament to the resilience of young people, while My Summer Of Love reveals their intense vulnerability in matters of the heart. Pride & Prejudice may be the year's biggest surprise: What looked like a middlebrow costume drama turns out to be thrillingly cinematic, the best Jane Austen adaptation since Persuasion. Of course, nothing was more cinematic than Peter Jackson's King Kong, a gargantuan spectacle that's also nimble and full of heart.
Performance Of The Year
Playing a Wyoming cowboy who pursues a love that can never be openly expressed, Heath Ledger turns inexpressive in Brokeback Mountain, growling his lines as if he were pushing them through a mouthful of Skoal. In many ways, he personifies traditional Western masculinity as a simple cattle wrangler whose actions speak louder than words. And yet his inarticulateness—bound in shame, self-hatred, and powerful, unrequited desire—gives the film its quiet soul.
Overrated
In any other year, Luc Jacquet's sleeper hit March Of The Penguins might have been utterly charming and irresistible, an inspiring tale of survival featuring astonishing footage from one of the harshest locales on Earth. But this was the year of Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man, which exposed its themes of love and fidelity in the animal kingdom as pure anthropomorphic fantasy. True to form, Academy members preferred the fantasy.
Underrated
Perhaps the most thorough critique of American values since Dogville, the vicious black comedy Pretty Persuasion absorbed similarly hyperbolic disdain from some stateside critics, which is what happens when a movie hits home. As a manipulative Beverly Hills high-school student who fabricates sexual-assault charges against her drama teacher, Evan Rachel Wood recalls Nicole Kidman in To Die For, but she's oddly the most sympathetic character in the film, a violated girl taking the power back. Rarely has misanthropy seemed so righteous.
Future Film That Film Forgot
Somebody keeps telling studio executives that the kids of today are into one marginal sport or another, and that anyone who taps into that underserved market will look like a genius. No doubt the makers of Supercross had visions of MX bikes conquering dirt mounds across the nation, but even racing enthusiasts didn't bother to show up. The film's fate may ultimately rest with fans of teen idol Aaron Carter, who puts in a brief but dreamy cameo appearance. Will they keep him in their hearts?
Worst Of The Year
There were lousier films than Woody Allen's Melinda And Melinda this year—Son Of The Mask, Alone In The Dark, and Diary Of A Mad Black Woman, just to name a few—but none more dispiriting in their creative bankruptcy. The first of two Crimes And Misdemeanors rehashes that bookended 2005 (Match Point is the other), Melinda takes the same McDLT approach to its comedic and dramatic halves, but you know you're in trouble when it's hard to figure out which part is supposed to be funny.
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