VanRamblings Recommends a Few DVDs For You To Watch

Video & DVD

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IN HER SHOES

Earlier in the week, VanRamblings committed to acknowledging some of the more recommendable 2005 film releases that have débuted — or are about to début — on DVD. So with that salutary chore in mind, we’ll begin by recommending Curtis Hanson’s (L. A. Confidential) critically well-received, but woefully under-attended, In Her Shoes, a caustic, funny, accomplished, emotionally involving, and almost always surprising (but pleasantly so) comedy-drama, with Oscar calibre performances from Cameron Diaz, Toni Collette and Shirley MacLaine. Due out on DVD on Tuesday, January 31st, you’d be wise to reserve it right now.


SISTERHOOD OF THE TRAVELING PANTS

If you’re looking for something to watch this weekend, you could do a lot worse than The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, a real sleeper and one of the most appealing and irrepressibly sunny movie confections of 2005, a coming-of-age fantasy drama that tells a heartening and genuinely moving tale about a consequential summer in the lives of four lifelong best friends who’ve known each other since birth.


HUSTLE AND FLOW

If you’re in the mood for something a bit more gritty, Sundance Audience Award winner Hustle and Flow oughta be right up your alley. A tough, well-acted hip-hop drama, writer-director Craig Brewer’s début film strikes an almost perfect balance between grit and heart, capturing the hard edge of poverty and lack of opportunity but also the ray of hope for a better life. New out on DVD this week.


LAYER CAKE

Another gritty drama — due out on video next week — this time British and starring the new James Bond, Daniel Craig, is the brazeningly entertaining Layer Cake, a stylish and classic gangster saga about the clashing of rival empires, where the only thing worse than the killer before you is the killer waiting behind him. With its propulsive, colour drenched cinematography this corrosive confection emerges as high style, high octane entertainment of the first order.


RED EYE

New on video this week, and perfect entertainment to watch on your home theatre system: Red Eye, surprisingly effective B-grade fare that offers enough playful wit and genuine tension to make it a more than worthwhile DVD rental. Starring up-and-comers Rachel McAdams and Cillian Murphy, Red Eye’s white-knuckle airborne fun comes from director Wes Craven’s old hand familiarity with the way thrillers tick, predicated on the smallest and most banal of missed connections. Celebrated last summer as a minimalist exercise in maximalist suspense, while pulling every nail biting, edge of your seat trick imaginable, here’s one movie that truly entertains.


THE CONSTANT GARDENER

And finally, the most recommendable film of 2005, new on video this week: The Constant Gardener, VanRamblings’ pick as the number one movie of 2005. Don’t miss it. You may even want to purchase it. As we said in our 2005 Top 10 Film posting, The Constant Gardener is “far and away the best film of the year, this provocative and assured thriller-romance provided not only the most alluring love story captured on film this past year, this is a masterwork of suspense and political intrigue.”

Year End Review, Part 5: VanRamblings’ Top 10 Films of 2005

Cinema

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Although a little late in the posting, now that VanRamblings has seen most of the films likely up for Oscar contention, we are able to post our list of what we consider to be the Top 10 Films of 2005.
For the most part, 2005 was business as usual in Hollywood, with the exception, of course, that business was down a whopping 5% (we’re talking hundreds of millions of dollars here), and admissions were down 7% over 2004.
In fact, 2005 produced the worst box office performance since 1985.
Still and all, there were movies to see during the year, many of which are now on video (some movies came and went in one week, while others never even made it to our shores, and more’s the pity in that department). From Capote, Good Night, and Good Luck and Walk the Line to Cinderella Man, Hustle and Flow and Crash there was much that was good that could be seen on the big screen throughout the year.
Overall, declining box office notwithstanding, 2005 was a pretty darn fine year for those of us who love movies. If 2006 exhibits a fraction of the variety and skill represented in the more than 500 films released worldwide in 2005, we’re in for a heady year.
Top 10 Films of 2005


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1. The Constant Gardener: Far and away the best film of the year, this provocative and assured thriller-romance provided not only the most alluring love story captured on film last year, this masterwork of suspense and political intrigue proved to be, as well, the most serious, the smartest and most gorgeously filmed piece of cinematic storytelling to reach the local multiplex in 2005.
2. Brokeback Mountain: Poignant, tender, troubling, beautiful, poetic, mournful and mythic, at once rich and spare, gorgeously filmed and elegiac, it is little wonder Brokeback Mountain is the odds on favourite to win Best Picture at the Oscars come Sunday, March 5th. You’ve read about it. If you haven’t seen it: do. Here’s betting it picks up a slew of Oscar nominations on January 31st.
3. Walk The Line: The best straightforward Hollywood entertainment of 2005, in Walk The Line the music soars, the lambent cinematography of the rural backroads of the southern United States evokes a simpler time and tragedy barely held at bay, and Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon do such a bang up job of portraying Johnny Cash and June Carter, it’s little wonder that both are in line for Oscar nods. If you’re gonna see one picture on the big screen this month, this one oughta be it.
4. Me, You and Everyone We Know: Quirky doesn’t begin to do justice to what surely is the oddest film among VanRamblings Top 10 films of 2005, and yet this film — by turns comic and tender, tragic and absurd — gives off what is surely one of the greatest of moviegoing pleasures — the sense of an artist seeing the world from some private vantage that is as original as it is truthful. On DVD, this was the most auspicious début of 2005.
5. Capote: Winner of the National Society of Film Critics Award, Capote boasts the best performance by an actor in film in 2005, and finally gives Philip Seymour Hoffman his due as one of America’s finest actors for the screen. Gripping, transformative, unsettling — with a mesmerizing performance by Hoffman at its centre — Capote is not to be missed. Now playing at Tinseltown, in Vancouver.
6. Crash: Number one on Roger Ebert’s Top 10 of 2005, Crash is not only one of the best Hollywood movies ever about race, it is an exhilarating, contentious, frank and, at times, tragic exploration of the racial divide in America today. And, yet, director Paul Haggis leaves room for hope. Sure to garner Oscar consideration, as it has a whack of critics’ awards, Crash is available now on DVD.
7. King Kong: As Peter Travers wrote in his review in Rolling Stone, King Kong is “the jaw-dropping, eye-popping, heart-stopping movie epic we’ve been waiting for all year.” Offering magnificent entertainment, and all at once wondrous, sophisticated, smart and funny, with a great emotional, heart-tugging core, this is why we (sometimes) love Hollywood films: because they’re larger than life and can be downright astonishing at times.
8. Look At Me: The first great film of 2005, this marvelous and uncommonly observant French drama offers a brilliant, blistering account of a literary Parisian family who are not at all what they appear to be on the surface. Like the baroque chorales in the film, Look at Me builds to a resonant climax that will reverberate long after you take your eyes from the screen. Available on DVD.
9. Downfall: You’ll be hearing a great deal more about the film’s director, Oliver Hirschbiegel, very soon. And little wonder why. This riveting re-creation of three world-changing collapses: those of the Nazi party, of militarized Germany as a whole, and of the Führer who guided them into self-destructive ruin was one of the most powerful films of 2005. Another must rental.
10. Munich: This was the second-to-last film we saw before compiling our Top 10 list, and we’re not sure if we’ve quite come to terms with it yet. Winner of Entertainment Weekly’s Best Film of 2005 award, Munich probably deserves to be higher on the list. Sure, it may be a superbly taut and well-made thriller, but it is the haunting ethical and personal issues which the film explores that stay with you long after the film has ended.
Of course, there are a great many more films that were released in 2005 that are deserving of consideration, both as potential films for you to see at your local multiplex or art house cinema, or to rent on DVD. We loved far more than the 10 films listed above (although we believe our Top 10 encapsulates what we see as most praiseworthy in film in 2005).
By rights, Ballet Russes — which is opening for a week’s run at the new VanCity Theatre at the Vancouver International Film Festival Centre on January 20th — should have made our Top 10 list, and did for the longest time. But only a handful of us saw it last October. As our favourite film at the 2005 Vancouver International Film Festival, this one is a must-see.
Good Night, and Good Luck just missed our Top 10, as did David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence, both of which are recommendable.
VanRamblings hasn’t seen Noah Baumbach’s The Squid and the Whale, about which we hear many good things, but it’s coming to The Hollywood Theatre next month, and we’ll catch it then (we no longer live our life inside a darkened theatre, seeking a sense of connection; we actually have a life now … occasionally … thus we missed this, and other films, in first run).
Matchpoint hasn’t arrived, and we can’t wait (but we won’t see it at one of Leonard Schein’s cinemas, because we’re boycotting him).
We saw both Pride and Prejudice and Rent over the holiday season, and loved them both (we cried our eyes out at the screenings … always a good thing when attending the cinema, we believe). By rights, each could have made the Top 10 list, but we wimped out and went for the more serious stuff (save, King Kong, I suppose … although King Kong was great), as we did with a number of other ‘chick flicks’ that are now available on DVD.
On the weekend, VanRamblings will post a list of highly recommendable films released in 2005 now available for sale or rental on video and DVD.

2005, Year-End Review Part 4: Best Music and CDs

Music

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Providing solace to the soul, as poetry finds its way into song, the music we listen to all year long not only serves to act as the soundtrack of our lives, the songs we hear generally succeed, as well, in offering inspiration, reflection on the issues in our lives, and a welcome opportunity, at times, to simply tap our toes and dance around in our kitchen.
During the course of 2005, VanRamblings discovered all sorts of great music: Jem, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Bic Runga, Emiliana Torrini, Sarah Slean, Stina Nordenstam, and Tift Merritt — among a raft of other fine artists, none of whom quite made our Top 10 list for 2005 (but are goood!).
Sometimes that was because the artist didn’t release a new CD during the course of the year, and other times it was because the artist was in a follow-up position to those who did make the Top 10, barely missing out.
Whatever the case, whether it be the artists referred to above or the artists that find themselves on VanRamblings’ Top 10 CD releases of 2005, all of the music offered by these artists is just about as irresistibly and breathtakingly beautiful, passionate, emotive, and gloriously produced and rendered as any music written at any time during our brief history on Earth.
Here’s hoping you enjoy VanRamblings’ Top 10 CD release choices of 2005.
1. Antony and the Johnsons: We’ve written about him before, and even posted a song and a video. Antony Hegarty’s music is exquisite and moving. Not for the cynical; just for the rest of us. By far, the best album of 2005.
2. Sufjan Stevens: Sufjan Stevens has taken on a gargantuan task. During the course of his life, he intends to record 50 albums, one for each of the states in the country just to the south of us. So far he’s succeeded in writing about Michigan and, in 2005, Illinois. Melodic, orchestral, propulsive and cheery, reflective, political, and just about as uncynical and lovely as one could possibly imagine, Come On Feel The Illinoise is a keeper.
3. CocoRosie: Breaking onto the music scene with their award-winning 2004 debut, La Maison de Mon Reve, CocoRosie are just a little bit industrial, as well as narratively dreamy, hypnotically enchanting, and exquisitely redemptive. Please find below two CocoRosie songs, one from their début, La Maison de Mon Reve, and the other from their 2005 release, Noah’s Ark. Click on the song to hear it, or right click and choose “Save link / target as …”
(Due to unusually heavy traffic, VanRamblings has taken down the songs below; we’ll be looking into an offsite host for the mp3s.)
mp3-icon.jpg blank.gif CocoRosie - Good Friday (for Lori), from La Maison de Mon Reve.
mp3-icon.jpg blank.gif CocoRosie - Brazilian Sun, from Noah’s Ark.
4. Imogen Heap: VanRamblings first heard of Imogen Heap — she at the tender age of 17 — when we saw her in concert at a club in the basement of the Hotel Georgia, ‘the next big thing’. Well, not quite. But here it is eight years later and Ms. Heap is all growed up, and her promise fulfilled. Full of hope, Speak For Yourself is trip-hop par excellence; a must-have CD.
5. Kanye West: With Late Registration, Kanye West has followed up on the promise of his debut, College Dropout, and turned out a poignant, buoyantly melodic, and always accessible sonic masterpiece. Another ‘must-have’ CD.
6. Fiona Apple: We waited for six long years for the release of a new Fiona Apple album, managed to find a version of the album online for download (which we promptly set about to do) in the spring of 2005, and when Sony finally got around to releasing Extraordinary Angel, we bought it. And migosh was the wait worth it. Confessional, moody, bluesy and quietly intense, this is another must-have 2005 CD release. In concert, with Coldplay, at General Motors Place, on Thursday, January 26th at 8 p.m., we’ll be seein’ ya there.
7. Miranda Lambert: All of 21 years of age, Miranda Lambert brings new life to a somnambulant country music industry, just about the brightest new voice on the scene, and the best new pop, rock and country artist of 2005.
8. Bright Eyes: Songwriter and lead vocalist Conor Oberst has his champions and his detractors, but there’s no denying the hushed, rambling, bluesy and anecdotally progressive virtuosity of I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning.
9, 10 and … All Canadian artists, none of whom receive airplay on Canadian radio (although you’ll hear lots of these artists on both XM and Sirius satellite radio, where each of them broke big this past year), Broken Social Scene, The Arcade Fire and Stars are not just Canadian artists, they’re world artists. We’ll write about why we love each group later this month, so c’mon back.
During the month of January (once we get the latest round of technical glitches with our website, and server, resolved), VanRamblings will provide mp3 samples of each of the bands and artists. See ya back here often (and that means you, the divine Ms. L, as well as our other constant readers).