MCN Top Ten: The Top Twenty


756.5		"It may be tempting to call Brokeback Mountain a gay movie or a man's movie, especially since no woman even shows her face in it until the one-hour point. But that would be so far from the mark. It's a movie about love that knows no boundaries and loneliness that knows no relief, feelings that aren't determined by the saddles and harnesses of physical forms. Brokeback Mountain is simply the year's most stirring love story, one as fragile as the human heart yet as strong as the beat that pumps blood through our veins." xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx...........xxxxxxx Peter Howell , Toronto Star

687		"A History of Violence finds Mr. Cronenberg at the top of his form. Few directors working today know more about the erotics of screen violence than this filmmaker, who can make your head spin and your pulse quicken with a single edit. Fewer directors still bother to acknowledge that the canard "it's only a movie" is not only an article of bad faith, but also a deceptively comforting one. Movies, Mr. Cronenberg understands, make meaning: they entertain, therefore we are." xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Manohla Dargis, New York Times

520		"In all, Capote gives you plenty on which to chew. It is a movie that carefully lays out the exploitative nature of the journalistic act, and when the journalism (as is the case with In Cold Blood) vaults to the level of art, the subject only becomes more fascinating. Capote has the look of a little movie, yet it stands as a bona fide American tragedy. It's shot through with a sad fatalism that haunts Capote, his subject and this finely wrought and sobering movie." xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Robert Denerstein, Rocky Mountain News

353.5		"The Squid and the Whale has the power to break your heart and heal it again. Acutely observed, faultlessly acted, graced with piercing emotion and unsparing honesty, it will make you laugh because you can't bear to cry. It is Baumbach's sensitivity to nuances within (his) characters, his ability to capture the painful yet comic intricacies of troubled relationships, that brings to mind Tolstoy's epigram that "every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxKenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

346		"Good Night, and Good Luck is essentially a western, with all the complexities inherent in that largely misunderstood genre. Like the great '50s westerns -- movies made by the likes of Anthony Mann and Budd Boetticher, which served as cinematic markers for the stress points in American life -- Good Night, and Good Luck is a story about tough, principled men in a new frontier, forced to make rough choices in situations that aren't always clear-cut." xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx....xxxxx Stephanie Zacherek, Salon.com

329.5		"This ape rocks! At three hours - divided among exhilarating action sequences, raucous humor and romance of both human and bestial variety - the latest version of the classic 1933 beauty and the beast story feels less like a remake than the original film revived, expanded and pumped up on steroids." xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx,,,,,,,xxxxxxxJack Mathews, NY Daily News

321.5		"There are sequences in Munich that make you sick with fear, that are impossible to shake off—among them one in which a Palestinian professor's little daughter is on the verge of answering a booby-trapped telephone. Most horrible of all is the movie's one pure vengeance killing, which is among the most appalling things I've ever seen. We want that revenge—we want it fiercely. But it's staged with such ugliness—as a sexual violation—that we choke on it." xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx,,,,,,,,,,,,xxxxxxx David Edelstein, Slate.com

301.5		"'I will protect these bears with my last breath,' Treadwell says. After he and Amie become the first and only people to be killed by bears in the park, the bear that is guilty is shot dead. His watch, still ticking, is found on his severed arm. I have a certain admiration for his courage, recklessness, idealism, whatever you want to call it, but here is a man who managed to get himself and his girlfriend eaten, and you know what? He deserves Werner Herzog." xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxRoger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times/RogerEbert.com

291.5		"Daring to reveal the harder truths about American urbanite, and allowing the unspoken to be spoken, Crash reveals more about people than they care to know, much less show. A necessary wake-up call, ht movie shows that we are only a block away from falling apart, one block away from crashing." xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxdEmanuel Levy, EmanuelLevy.com

269		"Wong stands as the leading heir to the great directors of post-WWII Europe: His work combines the playfulness and disenchantment of Godard, the visual fantasias of Fellini, the chic existentialism of Antonioni, and Bergman's brooding uncertainties. In this film, he drills further into an obsession with memory, time, and longing than may even be good for him, and his world reflects and refracts our own more than may be comfortable for us. Love hurts in 2046, but it's the only way anybody knows they're alive." xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx...................xxxxxx Ty Bur, Boston Globe

224		At times Caché resonates, none too subtly, with the oft-repeated post-9/11 question: Why do they hate us? Because we don't hate ourselves sufficiently, Mr. Haneke responds, doing his bit to make up the shortfall. But while this film can seem politically simplistic, it is nonetheless psychologically astute, and more complicated than it at first appears. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx..............xxxxxxxxx A.O. Scott, New York Times

209.5		"The Constant Gardener, which tackles the of-the-minute topics of African exploitation by the West, of international pharmaceutical companies and government corruption, doesn't take storytelling shortcuts, doesn't dumb things down. Meirelles respects his source material - le Carré's book - as well as its audience. And the filmmaker's assurance and vision in reimagining the novel are downright inspiring." xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer

195		"Allen has always cast his movies well, and he scores a bull’s-eye here, with an absolutely perfect ensemble led by Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Scarlett Johansson, Emily Mortimer, Brian Cox, Matthew Goode, and Penelope Wilton. They bring to life an interesting array of characters, led by a young man and woman who are undone by their own weakness. I suppose Allen could have played the same story for laughs, but just because Match Point is serious doesn’t mean it’s ponderous. It’s a story about luck and fate... and what marks it most as a Woody Allen film is that it’s an original." xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.........xxxxxxxxx Leonard Maltin, Movie Crazy

188.5		"How much is going on in every scene of Kings and Queen, how loaded with eccentric detail it is, and how finely its mode of wrenching emotional realism is balanced on the edge of absurdity and chaos. With all his artifice, his prodigious narrative risks and seemingly undisciplined mélange of styles and tones, Desplechin has made a film that feels more like real life than anything I've seen in years, from any source. It's a masterpiece." xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx............xxxxxx Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com

179.5		"Syriana isn’t going to have you sauntering out into the lobby singing a happy song. You will leave Syriana unsettled; you may leave it trying to untangle plot strands, or arguing with friends about what you just saw and what it just meant. Syriana is a big, bold movie full of ideas that also has a warm and real sense of humanity and provides more questions than answers. That realism – an uncertain film for uncertain times – is what truly makes Syriana the must-see film of 2005." xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.......xxxxxxxx James Rocchi - Cinematical.com

158.5		"The New World blows centuries of dust and schoolkid romanticism from the oft-mythologized tale of Pocahontas and the English settlers, relaying old news with an abundantly poetic and visually startling point of view that makes us feel as if we're bearing witness for the very first time." xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.....................xxxxxxxx Jan Stuart - Newsday

148		"Sacred allusions abound: the waterfall baptism (or final ablution?), the Mormon callers, the devotional ecstasy of the featured songs, and above all the climactic separation of body and skyward-bound soul. Not unlike William Blake, Van Sant risks religiosity and arrives at spiritual clarity—in a ghostly afterimage that transcends both the Christian notion of Ascension and the rock cliché of the stairway to heaven. Pointedly contradicting Cobain's Neil Young–quoting suicide note, Blake doesn't burn out—he fades away." xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Dennis Lim. Village Voice

140.5		"Their lives will interact in surprising ways with the epochal events of modern Italian history - the floods that devastated Florence in the '60s, the mafia scandals in Sicily, the street battles between students and police, the rise of the terrorist Red Brigades in the '70s. There's nothing schematic or generic about this sweeping tale: Giordana and his writers respect the mystery, and the humanity, of all its characters. Rarely have tears been so well earned. Smart, generous, as subtle as it is expansive, this is storytelling of a rare order." xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx David Ansen. Newsweek

134		"There's no telling how many people were helped by Cash's songs — for starters, the thrilling prison scenes that bookend the movie suggest lots of people behind bars took comfort from them. But, by weaving a life out of Cash's music, "Walk the Line" makes it clear that Sam Phillips was right. Cash's songs had the power to save at least one person: himself." xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Chris Hewitt. St Paul Pioneer Press

127		"With rich irony, The World juxtaposes the teasing, grand images of the outside world's wonders with the insular community and the mundane lives of the park employees. As we watch, some of them find success of sorts, some suffer tragedy and some just keep rolling on. This is the world, Jia suggests, a realm of everyday lives set against a backdrop of universal images and grand illusions." xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Michael Wilmington. Chicago Tribune