Top 10 Films of 2005

 

from The Advocate

Brokeback Mountain
The rare film that exceeded its, well, mountain of hype with its heartbreaking and beautifully rendered tale of thwarted love on the range.

Capote
A devastating portrayal of gay genius Truman Capote, willing to sell his soul and betray his friends to create his nonfiction masterpiece, In Cold Blood.

Mysterious Skin
Did we say devastating? Gregg Araki’s awesome rendering of Scott Heim’s novel got at the ruination of child abuse like no film before it.

Saving Face
New lesbian love meets old Chinese-American familial duty in this sophisticated romantic comedy from writer-director Alice Wu.

Little Man
Filmmaker Nicole Conn devastated audiences with her unflinching documentary on her family’s struggle to save her son who’s 31⁄2 months premature.

Unveiled
Nail-biting suspense and spot-on acting marked this harrowing journey of an Iranian lesbian posing as a man in order to gain asylum in Germany.

Loggerheads
An unexpectedly potent little film that wove themes of parenting, coming out, budding gay love, loss, and HIV into one compelling narrative.

My Summer of Love
Fans were hot for this spare story of a plucky local girl bewitched by a pampered miss on holiday in the British countryside.

Rent
Everything ’90s was new again as most of the stage cast returned and reignited the only great AIDS musical, as vivid and vivacious as we always hoped.

Transamerica
Felicity Huffman’s transcendent performance held together this offbeat road movie about a trans woman’s reunion with her teen hustler son.

In a category all its own:

Rize
Fashion photographer David LaChapelle got the most exciting pictures of his life when he fell in with the South Central L.A. dance movement known as krumping.

 

From The Advocate, January 17, 2006.