There are 3 remaining films from my most anticipated films of 2005 list. I'm doing these two at once and will officially begin the "Countdown to Brokeback Mountain" on November 19th. Hope you like the new banner. Can you name everyone on it? :-)
Also, on the sidebar, I'm putting my official ratings of the films I recently viewed, so you can keep up with that.
Why am I looking forward to Syriana and Walk the Line?
I've seen probably around 550 films released since the millenium began. A film that is in the top 10, if not the top 5, is Traffic. Soderbergh's brilliant exploration of the war on drugs was covered from all angles. It wasn't a morality film, nor a standard "shoot-em-up" drug film, rather a complete study of 3 varying sides of a subject you probably witness on the news every night. The film didn't judge and didn't try to cram a message down your throat. It explored. It entertained. It involved. Featuring a top notch ensemble with standout performances by Michael Douglas, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Erika Christensen and, in his Oscar winning performance, Benecio Delo Toro, the film was adapted from the British miniseries Traffik by Stephen Gaghan. 5 years after the drug war unraveled in a very intimate manner in this epig saga, Gaghan similarly explores oil with Syriana. The timely trailer, released just as sky high gas prices were slightly leveling off, talked about gas costing $20 a gallon, supplies running out and 90% of what's left being in the Middle East. This uneasy topic may not have cash registers in theatre box offices ca-chinging, but it will provide another in depth, but fully human account of a hot button issue. Gaghan, previously directing Katie Holmes in the very underrated Abandon, directs his screenplay, a loose adaptation of the memoirs of Robert Baer, a CIA agent who spent years in the trenches. His onscreen incarnate is played by George Clooney, who gained almost 30lbs for the role. Matt Damon, Jeffrey Wright, Chris Cooper, Christopher Plummer and Amanda Peet round out the cast. The film is from a new production company under Warner Bros. called Participant. They've released two other acclaimed movies over the past month with equally compelling subject matter: North Country and Good Night and Good Luck. 
Everyone loves Johnny Cash, right? He was a relatively late discovery for me. I bought my first Cash CD just over a year ago. I dug the hell out of the song "The Man Comes Around," but it was the cover of "Hurt" that really stuck with me. At my grandparents house one day, they had just been given a CD player. To go with it, they were given a Cash CD. It was a bunch of his classics rerecorded later in his career. I played "I Walk the Line" and "Ring of Fire" several times over. My grandfather asked if I liked Johnny Cash. Before I could reply, my grandmother said "Well, everyone likes Johnny Cash." She was right. I was first exposed to Joaquin Phoenix in the movie that features my favorite Nicole Kidman performance: To Die For. He was rail thin, with that classic early 90's daze that so many alterna-college set rocker wannabees had at the time. It wasn't until doing some research that I discovered he was River Phoenix's younger brother. Not more than 6 months after I saw To Die For, I saw Fear. Who could forget the scene where Marky Mark gropes that cute young blonde with the jutting chin on a roller coaster to The Sunday's cover of "Wild Horses"? Now, almost a decade later, these are two actors that I always enjoy seeing on screen. If it's Witherspoon talking about disturbing fashion trends in Legally Blonde or Phoenix drawing on fake sideburns in Inventing the Abbotts, they are the rarest of rare in Hollywood: movie stars who are great movie stars because they are great actors. Whenever actors I love are given roles that will make people stand up and take notice finally, it should be a film worth seeing. It just so happens that this film is a biopic about Johnny Cash and the love of his life, June Carter. Both actors were given the casting thumbs up by their real life characters before their deaths. What many didn't expect was that Reese and Joaquin would be performing the classic tunes by the Cash's using their own voices, as opposed to lip syncing to the classics - what Jamie Foxx did with last year's Ray. Johnny and June were the first two to see that they would make the perfect on-screen team. Now, after showings in Toronto and Telluride, critics and audiences have been equally impressed. It won't be too long before Oscar takes notice.Syriana hits major cities November 23rd and theatres everywhere December 9th.
Walk the Line opens everywhere November 18th.
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