good year

I just realized that I'm already developing a bad habit of actually writing reviews of some of these films and I don't want this to become all reviews b/c first of all, I don't have the chops to write a full-on competent review and secondly, this is mainly to be random musings on all things film-related. It's not like anyone sees this anyway, but I'm writing to my pretend audience. The one that needs to exist in real life so I can make a living watching movies all day and then share what I thought about them. Who doesn't want to get paid to say what they think not to mention validated financially that your opinion actually "matters"?

• Mr. and Mrs. Smith is way smarter and wittier than it has any right to be. The only drawback is that as a result of the aforementioned wittiness, the action comes across as mundane and tedious, until the final sequences (mainly the minivan chase scene). Part of what I love about the interaction between the two main characters is that **spoilers follow** once they find out they're both assassins, they immediately think the other is only casing the other person as a job, albeit a very long 6 year job, but nonetheless, a job. In reality, they actually connected on some level outside of their respective careers, but due to this newfound wrinkle of finding out what they REALLY do, they are suspicious of each other and neither wants to budge. The lack of communication and overt expression of their emotions over this is what makes their relationship so compelling b/c it's something we've all experienced. We've all been in a situation where we felt we knew what was really going on and that we were on to the other person, but were too busy focusing on ourselves to actually realize that the other person thought the same thing about us. The biggest key to communication is the willingness to open up and try to see the other person's side. I think the metaphor that the film uses for this concept works pretty effectively. That's not the only thing, the film has plenty to say about marriage and relationships in general. Flawless it ain't, but it worked for me.
• Also watched Three...Extremes and while I was disappointed given the pedigree involved, I will give Takashi Miike credit for taking seemingly boring ideas as scripted on a sheet of paper and making them suitably creepy and effective. His segment in Three...Extremes uses a plethora of horror movie cliches (girl walking into an eerily empty room, dead relative appearing in unexpected places), but manages to make them work because he uses surprising restraint and his lack of music is especially disturbing.
• Still have a little ways to go (maybe 15-20 films left) 'til I'm done with the 2005 crop of films, but I think I can already say that it was the best year for film since 1999. My only complaint is that there are very few masterpieces, but those are few and far between, otherwise they wouldn't be masterpieces I guess. Even then, my top three are secure, but with everything else, we'll have to see how everything shakes down when it's time to make the "best of" list.