Alas, my header doesn’t rhyme, but a week or two ago, the stores here had their “half-way to Boxing Day” sales, and this reminded me that we are now half-way through the year and, thus, half-way to that point when I will have to come up with a list of my top ten movies. And the pickings are looking kind of slim, so far.
There are a few, and only a few, movies that I consider shoo-ins:
Batman Begins
Born into Brothels
Dear Frankie
Hotel Rwanda
Millions
After that, possible contenders, based on those films that were given a general theatrical release of at least one week in Vancouver during 2005, include:
Brothers
Les Choristes
Cinderella Man
Downfall
Howl’s Moving Castle
Madagascar
The Merchant of Venice
Million Dollar Baby
Palindromes
War of the Worlds
And that’s just based on the titles that stand out a little as I do a quick, casual scan of my film journal for this year; I would have to see most of these films a second time before I could say whether they really belong on my list, and in a few cases, I can’t say I actually want to sit through them again, right now.
Unfortunately, I have also missed a few films that sounded interesting but left town too quickly, while I was working on other things. Anyone want to recommend anything?
JUL 28 UPDATE: I am now adding Moolaadé and Murderball to my list of very strong contenders.