Cursed (2005)

Siblings Ellie and Jimmy both receive injuries from a large animal. Soon it becomes clear that the animal was a werewolf and they're turning into werewolves too. Jimmy's a nerdy high schooler, so he's having fun with super strength and new sex appeal. Ellie isn't enjoying increased leers at work -- even though her somewhat disinterested boyfriend is super into her all of the sudden.

There were attempts at humor, but they all pretty much fell flat. Judy Greer does what she can to amp it up in the final act and Milo Ventimiglia is surprisingly charming as a douche bro who opens up to Jimmy but, as a whole, this is a stinker.

C-

Whisky (2005)

Jacobo owns a rundown sock factory, which Marta manages for him. When his rich brother Herman decides to come visit, Jacobo asks Marta to play house with him so that his brother won't know what a sad little life he's living (apparently). During the visit and the subsequent impromptu holiday on the coast, Marta begins to blossom.

I had to infer a lot of meaning here because nothing was spelled out, which is usually alright right with me. But here, I wasn't sure if I was missing nuance since I don't speak the language or if their activities were "normal" for the area, but a lot of the happenings completely confused me.

Overall, I believe this is a story of two people going through the motions -- one by choice and one because she didn't know there was a choice.

B-

The Quatermass Experiment (2005)

Quatermass -- an Elon Musk-type -- sees his private manned rocketship return to earth, but two of the three men aboard are missing and the third is wrong. While everyone's freaked out, they're not careful in the least. This is dumb dumb dumb. Clearly, I need to stop adding films to my queue simply because David Tennant is in them.

F

Just Friends (2005)

When visiting online with my family, we had this question come up, "What's the funniest movie of all time?" When our secretly given answers were revealed, everyone had said "The Big Lebowski" except one, who claimed that this movie is the funniest of all time. And, while I love the answerer, the answer itself is just plain wrong.

I can only think of one moment in this film that got a chuckle from me, and it's none of the big, "wacky" segments, but a small one where -- after watching two brothers continually antagonize and pummel each other throughout the film -- we see them matter-of-factly say "love you, bro" without even thinking about it. But the rest of the film is just so one-dimensional. Everyone loves the nice and pretty girl. No one loves a fatty, even if they're kind and smart. And if you're sexy but shrill, you can be abused and mocked without a thought.

Either the world has evolved a lot in 15 years or this was never funny. I'm honestly not sure which it is.

C-

Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005)

I can definitely see why Brad and Angelina fell in love with each other while shooting this: their chemistry is impossible to deny. The film itself -- though full of action and banter -- isn't bad for a popcorn flick. But it takes a while to get going and Jolie's acting is a bit one-note, bringing things down a tad.

C+

Fingersmith (2005)

A little "family" of fingersmiths (con artists/petty thieves) from the fringes of London concoct a scheme to bilk a lonely heiress out of her fortune: a young woman from the group will apply to serve as her personal maid and then use the influence of her position to push a marriage to a young man of the group.

It's nicely told from the perspective of the uneducated Sue and then the same ground is covered from rich Maud's point of view. It's really quite good, but there wound up being maybe two twists too many and the ending was less than satisfying because it was a little too tidy.

B

The World's Fastest Indian (2005)

Such a weird movie.

Burt Munro's a nutty guy who lives in what amounts to a garage, pees on a lemon tree in his yard, and owns a genuine "Indian" motorcycle. He's a kind of joke in his New Zealand town, but he's decided to run his bike on the Salt Flats in Utah, by golly, and he aw-shucks his way all the way there and, wouldn'tcha know it, becomes a bona fide folk hero in the process.

Munro meets a cross-dressing clerk in, as (s)he calls it "Hollyweird," shacks up with a lonely widow who helps him fix up his broken down rig along the way, and generally charms everyone he meets, though I'm not sure how he does it because he just got on MY nerves.

I'm betting that the real story, stripped of all the force-fed feel-goodness, is a dandy. But this telling, because it was so obviously tarted up with smiley stickers and pixie dust, just left me cold.

D

Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont (2005)

Utterly charming movie about a widow relocating to a hotel for older residents to be nearer her only grandson, who doesn't care to be near her. No matter since she finds a friend in young Ludo (Rupert Friend -- simply lovely) who is happy to play the part of her grandson, both for the other residents and because he enjoys her company.

Made me hopeful about humanity in general -- I love a movie that can pull that off.

A

Kingdom of Heaven (2005)

Historical epics can go either way for me. Without a doubt, history has always been my worst subject (followed closely by geography) - so I have very little natural interest. It MUST be a compelling movie on its own for me to care. Unfortunately, this wasn't.

Orlando Bloom plays Balian, a small-town blacksmith who's just lost his family. Liam Neeson drops by to introduce himself as a Jerusalem baron and Balian's long-missing father then dies leaving Balian to defend the Holy Land from invasion.

There's a disintegrating young king wearing a metal mask, an adulterous woman as Bloom's love interest, and a lot of interchangeable second bananas. I wasn't interested enough to make a real effort to keep things straight.

C-

Tony Takitani (2005)

The name "Tony" singled him out from his classmates in Japan. The fact that he nearly raised himself while his father was on the road playing jazz was another thing that made him different. He was almost bred to be alone and his skill at precise, but cold, drawings gave him the perfect lonely career: bent over a desk producing technical illustrations. When he falls for the colorful and much-younger Eiko, his loneliness dissipates but a fear that it will some day return is constant.

I just loved this movie -- at first I didn't know what to think because it's so unlike anything else. It's narrated in an almost monotone with the characters sometimes raising their heads to meet the camera and deliver a line directly to us, breaking the fourth wall very briefly before slipping back into their film world. It somehow managed to deliver a complete life in a very short runtime, while still feeling leisurely and poetic.

Blew me away.

A

Rory O'Shea Was Here (2005)

Slightly sappy movie about two guys who'd be unlikely friends if it weren't for the fact that they're both in wheelchairs. One's a rebel, one's a good-goody, and they kinda need each other to be all that they can be. I pretty much knew what kind of movie this was before I popped it in the player and I still decided to watch it.

But, you know: James McAvoy. He makes even treacly stuff watchable.

C+

Strings (2005)

I picked up this movie for the sole reason that James McAvoy (swoon) provides the voice of marionette-on-a-mission Hal.

Unlike other puppet movies, this one takes itself completely seriously. The characters' acknowledge their strings as the source of their life: if their head string is severed, they can no longer live; if a lesser string is cut, as we see when Hal's hand string is sliced during combat practice, the hand is no longer connected to the "source of all life" and is, therefore, dead. No worries though when incarcerated slaves are on hand to be used for parts.

The photography is beautiful and the puppets are stunning -- but they're still puppets and I could never embrace that in the way that I was clearly meant to. Even in the hands of masters, marionettes walking still looks like bouncing or very careful marching. When one puppet couple was gearing up for sex, I could only think of the resulting tangle, which I'm sure would be far more embarrassing than the "hooked braces" threat that scared me away from any silver-smiled potential suitor for two high school years.

An impressive, but unsuccessful, attempt at an interesting idea.

C+

Ong-bak: The Thai Warrior (2005)

Bad guys steal the head off of a small village's Buddha (Ong-bak) and they send young Ting to the big city to fetch it back for them. Ting's a nice, uncorrupted (read kinda bland and boring) kid, but he's been trained in the Muay Thai martial art by a local monk.

What follows is a light on plot/heavy on elbows to the head series of chases and brawls -- which is just fine by me. Ting's moves are so amazing that the film often repeats the more incredible moves from different angles and different speeds, just to make sure we saw them. No wires, no CG, just awesome athleticism; at times I actually laughed in delight.

The movie reminded me somewhat of a Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers movie. It never really mattered what the story was, it's all about the dancing. In this case, we're here for the beat downs and they don't disappoint.

B-

Bleak House (2005)

Extremely well-done miniseries. Well-acted and great-looking.

I did hate that everything was so intertwined as to often feel convenient -- and I know the adaptation isn't to blame for that as it's straight from Dickens, but still. Sometimes it was a little much.

And while I agree that the heroine of the story (Esther) was a marvelous human, the idea that her visage could be compared to that of an angel was pretty crazy. She was, by no means, a looker (even before she got smallpox) and she bore no resemblance whatsoever to her mother (played by Gillian Anderson). That she would ever be mistaken for her is laughable.

B+

Derailed (2005)

Clive Owen's in a happy -- though maybe a little stale -- marriage. He winds up flirting a bit with a fellow commuter (Jennifer Aniston) and can't leave well enough alone. So he checks her company's website and gives her a call...then they grab a bite and enjoy each other's company...then they decide to enjoy each other even more.

The fun ends before it can really start when their hotel room is invaded, Owen is knocked down, and Aniston is assaulted right in front of him. Saying much more could spoil the script's "surprise" -- but, basically, his life becomes a nightmare. An eye-rolling nightmare, but still.

Between this and Fatal Attraction, I don't know why men ever cheat.

C-

Sweet Land (2005)

I love it when I know nothing about a film going in and it winds up being so good (as this one does) that I feel so lucky to have seen it -- it's kind of like when I'm thisclose to missing a shooting star but turn my head on chance just in time.

This is a mail-order bride story set around 1920. Inge has arrived in Minnesota to marry a quiet farmer. They run into some time-consuming opposition with the town and, in particular, the preacher, when it's discovered that she only speaks German and comes from a socialist background. The subject matter is weighty, but doesn't weigh everything down.

I don't think the bookending really worked. I'd have preferred that the story took place naturally rather than in flashback -- one of the same complaints I had about The Bridges of Madison County. I don't need a modern-day perspective to appreciate the real story; it stands on its own.

A-

Elizabethtown (2005)

A failure on every conceivable level (except maybe the soundtrack).

1) The premise is ludicrous: supremely ugly and stupidly named sports shoes ("Spasmodica"!) make a company lose more than 900 million dollars. How is that even possible in a country that embraced day-glo crocs? And if I suspend my disbelief on the point that the public ignores ugly (or renames it something better) when it's the "next big thing" -- I'll ask a) did no one at the company have eyes? b) did they not test them? c) why did they spend so damn much on such a risky venture? It's absolutely mindboggling that one kid has to take entire blame for this and would fall apart over it rather than lash back at the company who let him fail.

2) The voice over is stilted and is neither poetic nor meaningful enough to be an asset.

3) Orlando Bloom looks about 10 years younger than (and bears no physical similarity to) Judy Greer, yet is cast as her older brother.

4) Susan Sarandon, someone most people can agree is a pretty decent actress, actually made me CRINGE in her big scene on the stage. It was so awful that I forced Gary to sit through it so that, in years to come when I refer to the hideous scene, he'll know what the heck I'm talking about.

5) The love story was crazy. Kirsten Dunst is a possible stalker and seems to have way more time than everyone else in the movie. How else to explain that she was able to put together a tailored scrapbook complete with maps, photos, and mix CDs for a days-long road trip all timed precisely for the driving time? That project was the type of thing that college-level art students are assigned at the beginning of a semester to be completed as part of their final grades. The only way it's even possible she'd be able to present that to him would be if she'd pre-made several in her spare time to be used as needed.

6) Absolutely no one in this movie was real: none of the central characters, none of the peripheral family members, none of the people at the shoe company, and none of the people in the hotel's ubiquitous wedding party. They were all bad actors playing characters in a sucky sitcom -- something on ABCFamily, maybe.

Seriously, nothing worked in this movie. It's a terrible mash-up. I'm sure I'm not the first person to call this movie Cameron Crowe's Spasmodica. I just hope he doesn't go all "suicide bike" over it.

F

11:14 (2005)

One of those movies where lots of different story lines cross-over and affect each other. It's not too bad, really -- but once we've seen all the threads to the story, it just feels like "well, we've seen everything now" rather than the "so that's what was going on!" or the "whoa" that would've made this film worthwhile.

Also, for a story so dependent on precise points in time, I was particularly annoyed by the time warp that Patrick Swayze's character seemed to enter. He got so much done in about 15 minutes that I was surprised that he wasn't revealed as some sort of minute-stretching superhero at the end.

C+

Lord of War (2005)

I don't know why in the world I keep thinking that Nicolas Cage's name on a movie means it's likely to be good. Is it the Moonstruck effect? That because I loved him the first time I saw him, he will forever hold a place in my heart?

I do truly believe that Cage is one of the most talented actors of the current era. I mean -- the dude rocks it in off-the-wall silliness, is surprisingly effective in romances, can amaze me in serious fare, and even makes some terrific popcorn flicks. Since he's got no genre limitations, you'd think he'd have a better-than-average chance at always having a decent script waiting for him. But no -- about three-fifths of his stuff is junk and I feel betrayed whenever I'm suckered in to watching another Cage stinker.

This one certainly sounded better than average. Gary and I sat down to watch it and were paying strict attention to voice-over, not wanting to miss a bit of nuance. We absorbed the lectures and the images, sure that doing so would pay off in later scenes. About an hour in, Gary said "are you as bored as I am?" and then abandoned me on the couch to go do something more enjoyable -- I think he clipped his toenails and drew up the budget.

D

Sarah Silverman: Jesus is Magic (2005)

Sarah Silverman cracks me up. She's so different than anyone else who makes people laugh for a living. She's completely fearless -- her list of "taboo" subjects is non-existent -- and her delivery is sometimes so clever that I often feel as though I'm the only one who catches all of the jokes she carelessly drops, sometimes under her breath.

So I love her. And that's why I hate to say anything negative about the movie, but it sometimes doesn't quite work. Don't get me wrong, it worked in my living room -- where it didn't work was with the live audience. Perhaps some of the subject matter was too...what? Raw? Hard to understand if you're not on the right wavelength? Subtle? Out there? I'm not sure, but whatever it was, the audience didn't always respond as though they found the funny and that hurt the film. It felt a little like I was the only one laughing...which would have been embarrassing if I were in the theater...which made me think "what is WRONG with those people"...which made me realize that a concert film probably was a bad idea for Ms. Silverman.

Not all of the bits killed me -- I could've done without her harmony number (her ass taking a mic for its part), for example -- but most of the material was inventive, brave, and hysterical. I just think she works better in small doses, a theory which seems supported by the fact that her Comedy Central program is gold and I think it's because she's bouncing off a game cast and it's the right length for her.

The comedy gets an A- but the movie gets a

B