2005 in Review (AKA Playing Catch-Up)

Life happens, and even though I spend a lot of my life watching movies, either at home thanks to Netflix or my own quietly growing collection, at the movies (hooray for the ArcLight), or via my beloved tv-on-dvd addiction, I don't always write up a little something about what I watched. Obviously that's the purpose of this little tangent blog. So I kind of stepped aside for a few months. Oops. Oh well. I added to the sidebar the names of all the movies I saw, or things I watched. Some, like Mary Poppins, are obviously re-watches. Some, like Match Point and Brokeback Mountain I just saw over the past couple of weeks in the theatre. Here's a quick lowdown on 2005.

Best movies I can't believe I never saw before, AKA "Hello, Barbra!": The Way We Were and Funny Girl.

Best movie with a young and scary (the hair!) looking Megan Mullally: About Last Night. You must know, I love Ms. Mullally to the moon and back. She cracks me up in this movie. Her hair is also scary in Risky Business, but if you blink you will miss her pass by on a staircase, cig dangling out her mouth.

Worst musical I paid money to see: Rent.

Best movie-with-music I paid money to see: Walk the Line.

Most laughs out loud in a theatre: 40 Year Old Virgin. Who knew?

Worst Netflix decision: Best Man in Grass Creek. Dear god, I couldn't get it out of the dvd player fast enough.

Best movie shot with a hand-held digital: Everything Put Together. (I liked this one more after listening to the commentary. Before then I didn't take it too seriously, but hearing about how it was made led me to respect the production a hell of a lot more.)

Best tv show I fell in love with the year before it ends: Will & Grace.

Best tv-on-dvd: This is a tough one. I love Will & Grace's Seasons 3 & 4 releases because of the bonus features. I also really think the I Love Lucy dvds do an amazing job of adding features, despite the fact that it's really hard to do that with a 50 year old show, but their quality blows me away. I was really excited for Cheers to get past the "Diane" years, but there are no bonus features and the packaging is ugly; I am happy to watch though, because those shows are terrific. Brady Bunch is also ugly packaging, but fun to watch (I forgot to list that in the sidebar). The O.C.'s second season was nowhere near as good as the first. ER is addictive, but not a high favorite, for some reason. I was really looking forward to Moonlighting, but I think I'll be happier with the later stuff, like season 3, which comes out next month. I'm still waiting for more Murphy Brown--now that I want badly! And good old Golden Girls...hard to pass them by, because that stuff is funny even after seeing an episode twenty times--I still laugh out loud! So, no easy winner here.

Big props to: Brokeback Mountain. Match Point. Me You and Everyone We Know. Happy Endings. Adaptation. The Last Picture Show. Swimming Pool. The Swimmer. The Aristocrats. The Family Stone. The Squid and the Whale. Shopgirl.