“Kings & Queen” and 9 More
Capsules by Eric Hynes, Lauren Kaminsky, Michael Koresky, Kristi Mitsuda, Adam Nayman, Nick Pinkerton, Jeff Reichert, Elbert Ventura, Chris Wisniewski (January 3, 2006)
[indieWIRE's weekly reviews are written by critics from Reverse Shot.]
A grab bag of 2004 festival faves just getting “wider” releases. Misunderstood studio experiments. Inventive indie charmers. It becomes increasingly ridiculous to try and separate one year’s best-of list from the next in any sort of edifying ideological, spiritual, or political manner, as the disparity of visions and points of view from around the globe just happen to be reflected in a handful of films lucky enough to see the light of a projector. So, at Reverse Shot, as always, our notion of a panoply of critical voices never seems more appropriate than when compiling a top ten. As with last year’s poll, each staff writer voted for ten films, with the first-place ranked film receiving ten points, the second-place getting nine points, and so on. Of the resulting films, each is assigned to a writer who has a special place in his or her heart for that particular title. We wish we had the space to herald more than just this arbitrary amount, for there was much passion for our very close runners-up (Lucrecia Martel’s “The Holy Girl,” Jia Zhangke’s “The World,” Steven Spielberg’s “Munich” and “War of the Worlds,” Hirokazu Kore-eda’s “Nobody Knows,” Rob Zombie’s “The Devil’s Rejects,” Gus Van Sant’s “Last Days”). Apologies to RS readers, but blame the slow distribution process for the umpteenth appearances of some of these titles, which have been in heavy rotation since Cannes ’04. And in ’06, keep an eye out for repeated appraisals of our festival picks from ’05… sure to be seen right here come January ’07. Stay tuned though, cause we’ll do everything we can to keep things fresh.
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