Day #37 - January 18

SAM COMMENTING ON THE MOVIES OF 2005

Looking over the movies I liked this year, I noticed a common theme—a lot of them are really, really depressing.  I'm serious. Assess-every-aspect-of-your-life depressing. The-sun-isn't-coming-out-tomorrow depressing. Turn-out-the-light-and-whimper-softly depressing.

See, I'm normally such a sunny guy [LOL!!!].  Is this a reflection on me or the movies getting made?  Am I stuck in a post-9/11 world?  Is the world stuck in a post-9/11 world? When will it stop being post-9/11? I've heard some say post-Katrina.  Will some say post-Bush in 2008? Please let me know what I should look out for so that I can be "post-" it.

And his number two choice for this particular year:

CACHE – Something in French.

Finally, a movie that lived up to the "Hitchcockian" moniker.  What I really loved about this movie was that you sit down thinking you're going to watch a self-satisfied French thriller that is going to piss you off because it's a self-satisfied French thriller.  Then you realize that the main character is a Charlie Rose-like character, the epitome of self-satisfied high-minded literati, and that he's a putz.
So you end up enjoying the self-satisfaction of watching a self-satisfied snob squirm.  And then there's some stuff about French/Algerian relations, which I know is on everyone's mind.

SCENE TO REMEMBER: The final shot.
MORAL TO THE STORY: When in doubt, blame everything on the Algerian orphan who briefly stayed with your family during your childhood.

Mom's note: I saw this with my friend Nancy before Sam wrote this review, and we were riveted by that last shot.  What a surprise that, especially during this year, he loved so many of the movies that I loved - I was actually kind of blown away.  I still am. 

PS - He was totally obsessed with Juliette Binoche after The English Patient; maybe that's another reason why he liked this movie...