The awards season for 2005's best films has begun, and the film critis in L.A. and Boston both like Brokeback Mountain. It earned top honors from both sets of critics, as did its director, Ang Lee. Likewise, Capote's Philip Seymour Hoffman nabbed the Best Actor award from both groups and Dan Futterman earned the best screenplay prize from both groups for his work on Capote (though actually he shared the L.A. prize with Noah Baumbach who was honored for his work on The Squid and the Whale; I've been a big Baumbach fan for years because of Kicking and Screaming and The Life Aquatic). Futterman might be better known to many people for his work as an actor (in films like Urbania, and he played Vincent on the television drama Judging Amy). And just for Binky and Baltar I'll note which film won the Best Foreign Film prize from the Boston critics - Kung Fu Hustle (the L.A. critics liked Cache, and picked 2046 as their runner-up).
In other award news, Tom O'Neil notes the horrible inclusions and exclusions on the American Film Institute's lists of the Top 10 movie and TV shows of 2005 in this blog entry. Putting The 40 Year Old Virgin on that film list is horrible, but that TV list ... OMG!!!
Posted by armand at December 12, 2005 10:15 AM | TrackBack | Posted to MoviesBro,
To stick up for AFI, 4 of those TV shows are very well written (House, Battlestar Galactica, Lost, and 24). I can't say I agree with Veronica Mars, or that I've even seen the other 5. I agree it is a shame they left off D.H. (and Family Guy), but they got some of them right.
i can't speak for BG, but i've seen at least some of the other three. whether their particular turn at genre TV is sharp or not simply doesn't explain why Six Feet Under and Rome, both of which perform unerringly well without the net of cliffhangers and soap operatic set pieces, were omitted from the list.
seems to me, Lost (X-Files), and 24 (prior seasons of 24, and 1950's adolescent movie-reel cliffhangers), are as predictably unpredictable as anything. neither has created particularly compelling characters or cogent story arcs. thrill-a-minute, perhaps, but that's all. people enjoy those shows like the enjoy an illusionist: they want to be tricked.
house? i don't know. i'll never understand why people are so turned on by the archetypal pompous iconoclastic authority figure (even as i aspire to be one ;-). most of the truly brilliant people i've known, while occasionally impatient with stupidity or resistance to change, are actually rather kind and low-key. but that's just anecdata.
anyway, the omissions of Rome and SFU pretty much discredited the list for me.
Posted by: moon at December 13, 2005 09:53 AM | PERMALINKMy complaint was more with their omissions than what they put on the list. Desperate Housewives, Arrested Development, Rome, SFU - all would seem like absolute MUSTS for any TV Top 10 list.
Posted by: Armand at December 13, 2005 10:49 AM | PERMALINK