Brokeback Mountain

Marc Savlov

1) Murderball – Simply one of the most revivifying documentaries ever made – a full-contact, life-affirming scrum-and-a-half.

2) Oldboy – Grim, grimmer, grimmest: Chan-wook Park’s lushly demented ode to misplaced vendettas is as gorgeous as it is disturbing.

Keane

3) Brokeback Mountain – Love and nothing but.

4) The Devil’s Rejects – Rob Zombie erases the bad memory of his previous cinematic outings with this (very) sick and (extremely) twisted portrait of an American family. “Free Bird,” dude!

5) King Kong – Merian C. Cooper and Willis O’Brien would have loved it.

Good Night, and Good Luck

6) The New World – Epic visual poetry and splendor as only Terrence Malick can do it.

7) Sin City – Native son Robert Rodriguez trumped pretty much everyone by creating a whole new world of cinematic possibilities. Astounding!

8) The Aristocrats – As cathartic a comic masterpiece as any yet made.

9) Hustle & Flow – Butterscotch-smooth Terrence Howard steals the show as the big pimpin’ rhymer with big-time dreams.

10) War of the Worlds – Apocalyptically entertaining in all the right ways.

This article appears in 2005.

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Marjorie Baumgarten is a film critic and contributing writer at The Austin Chronicle, where she has worked in many capacities since the paper's founding in 1981. She served as the Chronicle's Film Reviews editor for 25 years.

Steve Davis has written film reviews for The Austin Chronicle off and on since the early years of its publication. He holds a B.S. degree in Radio-Television-Film from the University of Texas, and a J.D. degree from the University of Texas School of Law.

A graduate of the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas, Kimberley has written about film, books, and pop culture for The Austin Chronicle since 2000. She was named Editor of the Chronicle in 2016; she previously served as the paper’s Managing Editor, Screens Editor, Books Editor, and proofreader. Her work has been awarded by the Association of Alternative Newsmedia for excellence in arts criticism, team reporting, and special section (Best of Austin). The Austin Alliance for Women...