Best of 2005

This is a movie that you've just got to see in the cinema. The scenes of the streets of Berlin during the last days of World War 2 seem so real, it immerses you in the movie, and the story of the paranoia of Hitler during the fall of the Third Reich is totally engrossing. Unmissable.

A Christmas like any other but this is 1914, and it's the first of the Great War for the soldiers serving in the trenches of the Western front. This an amusing, touching, true story of the spontaneous cease-fire on Christmas Eve where the French, Scottish and German sides put the war behind them to celebrate Christmas, even playing a game of football. A great cross-cultural tale that focuses on the characters setting aside their national differences rather than being a typical war movie.

Great cinematic landscapes, touching soundtrack and Ralph Fiennes. It's The English Patient all over again, another epic, moving story. The next time I give a public talk I really must make the effort to piss off a cute hippy chick in the audience, it's apparently the best way to find a wife!

Spectacular historical epic. Perhaps the best thing about this movie is that it portrays the crusades from both sides, and is a great example of how war can be unavoidable, no side is wrong, no side is evil, and nobody wants to go to war. One of those movies which everyone's talking about for days afterward, where you end up spending hours on Wikipedia reading about everything that intrigued you about the movie from Lepers to Saladin. Just ignore Orlando Bloom's weak acting.

I was really disappointed to hear that Tom Cruise had the rights to do a War of the Worlds movie. Clearly he wasn't going to take the opportunity to make the definitive version of HG Well's original story set in Victorian London with a Jeff Wayne's perfect score. So I came into this movie fearing the worst, but and was really pleasantly surprised. For a version set in contemporary America, they have pulled it off perfectly, it has all of that same original fear, and suspense that I felt listening to Jeff Wayne's LP alone at night. All of the important story elements are there too, just in a slightly mixed up way. Finally I think the soundtrack and the visual impact of the movie were both perfect too. A worthy version of the story, a million times better than the original American movie!

I knew nothing at all about this movie when I entered Cameo's Screen 1 (apart from the fact it was David Cronenberg's latest movie), so had no idea where the plot was going. I suggest you do the same, just watch the movie, and let it tell it's story. Very enjoyable! Not your usual Cronenberg movie! ;-)

He he. This movie was so fun, with all of the original humour from the novel that led to every paragraph making me laugh! So it's not a faithful adaption of the book, but every rendition of the story so far has been subtely different to suit it's particular medium, and a movie is no different! The only flaw is that it's another one of those movies that feels like a long introduction, and then ends just as you get the feeling the story is about to go somewhere.

Even though it clearly just took ideas from a whole bunch of other great sci-fi movies, this one is actually really good. It's got a great cast, a nice stylish look and an engrossing action-thriller story. Best seen without preconceptions, when you don't know anything about the story.

The most enjoyable non-serious sci-fi action movie I've seen since Star Wars! Really good fun escapism. :-) The plot may be ridiculously obvious, but the visuals keep you enticed.

Fabulous portrait of an obsessed scientist, spanning the career of real-life Professor Kinsey, the pioneering "sex doctor".

Two middle-age men, a divorcee devoid of self-confidence and his polar opposite ex-roommate, on a road trip through California's wine country provide an intriguing study into human relationships.