Post by RNL on Dec 26, 2005 20:13:09 GMT
Some of these I know have already been given releases in other countries, and I know I won't get to see some of the others until 2007 at the earliest, but drawing from all remaining 2005 productions still wanting UK releases, and all titles scheduled for release in 2006, this is my list of 101 films I want to see.
1001 Nights Mike Nichols
1001 Nights Mike Nichols
A modern update of the Scherezade story set in Los Angeles, where an unfaithful wife of a mobster must talk her way to safety after being captured by his henchmen.14.99 Euros Jan Kounen
Famous advertiser Octave Parango, going crazy about the consumer society, reveals what is behind the scenes and organizes his suicide.A Good Year Ridley Scott
An Englishman inherits a vineyard in Provence. Upon arriving at his new property, he meets an American woman who claims that the land is hers.A Prairie Home Companion Robert Altman
A look at what goes on backstage during the last broadcast of America's most celebrated radio show, where singing cowboys Dusty and Lefty, a country music siren, and a host of others hold court.A Scanner Darkly Richard Linklater
A Scanner Darkly is set in suburban Orange County, California in the future. It imagines a paranoid world in which it seems two of every 10 Americans has been hired by the government to spy on the other 8 -- in the name of national security and drug enforcement. When one reluctant government recruit is ordered to start spying on his friends, he is launched on a journey into the absurd, where outsourced government contractors largely define the social construct, where identities and loyalties are impossible to decode, and where not even his girlfriend can be trusted. The film highlights the inconsistencies and ironic consequences of the war on drugs.Alice Marcus Nispel
Years after her first experience in Wonderland, Alice, now a disturbed young woman mourning the death of her parents, returns to the land of talking animals and the wicked Queen of Hearts.Angel-A Luc Besson
NO SYNOPSIS. Luc Besson's first film in 7 years.Apocalypto Mel Gibson
An action/adventure film set 600 years ago, prior to the 16th-century Spanish conquest of Mexico and Central America, where a man goes on a perilous journey to save his idyllic world.Arthur and the Minimoys Luc Besson
Ten-year-old Arthur, in a bid to save his grandfather's house from being demolished, goes looking for some much-fabled hidden treasure in the land of the Minimoys, a tiny people living in harmony with nature.Astronaut Farmer, The Michael & Mark Polish
An astronaut is forced to retire from NASA so he can save his family farm. But he can't give up his dream of space travel and looks to build his own rocket in his barn, despite the government's attempts to stop him.Autumn Remembrance Zhang Yimou
The ill-fated romance between an imperial bodyguard and a prince takes the lovers on a dangerous journey where royal family secrets are revealed.Art School Confidential Terry Zwigoff
Convinced that art school will put him on the path to fame, Jerome must come to terms with his anemic talent, as he watches the girl of his dreams fall in love with another student. Then, strangely, he's arrested as a suspected murderer -- only to discover that crime might actually pay.Babel Alejandro González Iñárritu
Three stories set in Morocco, Tunisia, Mexico and Japan. The story begins with a tragedy striking a married couple on vacation.Barbe bleue Bluebeard Catherine Breillat
NO SYNOPSISBlack Dahlia, The Brian De Palma
The Black Dahlia is set in 1940s Los Angeles. Two cops, Bucky Bleichert and his partner, Lee Blanchard, investigate the death of Elizabeth Short, a young woman found brutally murdered. Bucky soon realizes that his girlfriend had ties to the deceased, and soon after that, he begins uncovering corruption and conspiracy within the police department.Brand Upon the Brain!, The Guy Maddin
NO SYNOPSISBreakfast on Pluto Neil Jordan
As foster kid Patrick "Kitten" Brady grows up, he leaves behind his small-town life in Ireland for London, where he's reborn as a transvestite cabaret singer in the 1960s and 70s.Brokeback Mountain Ang Lee
A raw, powerful story of two young men, a Wyoming ranch hand and a rodeo cowboy, who meet in the summer of 1963 sheepherding in the harsh, high grasslands of contemporary Wyoming and form an unorthodox yet life-long bond--by turns ecstatic, bitter and conflicted.Bubble Steven Soderbergh
Residents of a small town in Ohio puzzle out the details of a murder which took place at the local toy factory.Caché Hidden Michael Haneke
Georges, who hosts a TV literary review, receives packages containing videos of himself with his family -- shot secretly from the street -- and alarming drawings whose meaning is obscure. He has no idea who may be sending them. Gradually, the footage on the tapes becomes more personal, suggesting that the sender has known Georges for some time. Georges feels a sense of menace hanging over him and his family but, as no direct threat has been made, the police refuse to help...Caótica Ana Chaotic Ana Julio Medem
Ana, a young painter, has come from Ibiza, where she lived with her hippy father. Together with herCapote Bennett Miller
best friend Linda, she starts a new life in a hide-out for young artists in Madrid.
During his research for his book In Cold Blood, an account of the murder of a Kansas family, the writer Truman Capote develops a close relationship with Perry Smith, one of the killers.Cars John Lasseter
Cars is the saga of Lightning McQueen, a hot-shot animated stock-car voiced by actor Owen Wilson. En route to a big race, the cocky McQueen gets waylaid in Radiator Springs, where he finds the true meaning of friendship and family.Children of Men, The Alfonso Cuarón
In 2027, in a chaotic world in which man can no longer procreate, a former activist agrees to help transport a miraculously pregnant woman to a sanctuary at sea where her child's birth may help scientists save the future of mankind.Chinjulhan geomjasshi Sympathy for Lady Vengeance Chan-wook Park
Lee Geum-Ja, at the age of 19, goes to prison for the murder and abduction of a child on behalf of her accomplice Mr. Baek, only to find out that she is betrayed. While in prison, she carefully prepares for her revenge by winning the hearts of her fellow inmates with her kindness, thus earning herself the nickname 'kind Ms. Geum-Ja'. Upon her release from prison after 13 years, she finally sets out to seek revenge on Baek, with the help of her former prison mates.Clerks 2 Kevin Smith
The sequel picks up 10 years later. "It's about what happens when that lazy, 20-something malaise lasts into your 30s. Those dudes are kind of still mired, not in that same exact situation, but in a place where it's time to actually grow up and do something more than just sit around and dissect pop culture and talk about sex," Smith said during an interview at his Hollywood office. "It's: What happened to these dudes?"Cowboys for Christ Robin Hardy
Hardy and star Christopher Lee have been developing a follow-up to their 1973 cult classic The Wicker Man that will revisit the theme of paganism in modern Scotland. The story follows two young American evangelists, who discover the Border ridings are more than just a quaint tourist attraction.Da Vinci Code, The Ron Howard
A murder in the Louvre and clues in Da Vinci paintings lead to the discovery of a religious mystery protected by a secret society for two thousand years -- which could shake the foundations of Christianity.Departed, The Martin Scorsese
Two men from opposite sides of the law are undercover within the Boston State Police department and the Irish mafia, but violence and bloodshed boil when discoveries are made, and the moles are dispatched to find out their enemy's identities.Don't Come Knocking Wim Wenders
Howard Spence has seen better days. Once a big Western movie star, he now drowns his disgust for his selfish and failed life with alcohol, drugs and young women. If he were to die now, nobody would shed a tear over him, that's the sad truth. Until one day Howard learns that he might have a child somewhere out there. The very idea seems like a ray of hope that his life wasn't all in vain. So he sets out to find that young man or woman. He discovers an entire life that he has missed...Drawing Restraint 9 Matthew Barney
Shot in Nagasaki Bay on board a Japanese whaling ship, its core idea is the relationship between self-imposed resistance and creativity, a theme it symbolically tracks through the construction and transformation of a vast sculpture of liquid vaseline, called "The Field", which is molded, poured, bisected and reformed on the deck of the ship over the course of the film. Barriers hold form in place, and when they are removed, the film tracks the descent of form into states of sensual surrender and formal atrophy; this shift in the physical state of the sculpture is symbolically mirrored through the narrative of The Guests, two occidental visitors to the ship played in the film by Matthew Barney and Björk, who we first see taken on board, groomed, bathed and dressed in mammal fur costumes based upon traditional Shinto marriage costumes. They take part in a tea ceremony in which, in the film's only moment of spoken dialogue, they are informed about the history of the vessel, and then, as an increasingly powerful lightning storm breaks out overhead, the tatami mat room they occupy floods with liquid vaseline, a fluid which we sense has emanated from The Field sculpture itself. In a harrowing liebestod which is the climax and centerpiece of the film, the Guests, locked in an embrace and breathing through blowhole-like orifices on the back of their necks, take out flensing knives and cut away each other's feet and thighs. The remains of their lower body are revealed to contain traces of whale tails at an early stage of development, suggesting rebirth, physical transformation, and the possibility of new forms. Having reached a state of maximum disintegration, the sculpture of The Field is then reorganized and the ship emerges from the storm, sailing through a field of icebergs towards the open southern ocean. In the last shot, two whales can be seen swimming behind the ship, headed for Antarctica.Enfant, L' The Child Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne
Bruno and Sonia, a young couple living off her benefit and the thefts committed by his gang, have a new source of money: their newborn son.Fast Food Nation Richard Linklater
An ensemble piece examining the health risks involved in the fast food industry and its environmental and social consequences as well.Flags of Our Fathers Clint Eastwood
The life stories of the six men who raised the flag at The Battle of Iwo Jima, a turning point in WWII.Flandres Bruno Dumont
NO SYNOPSISFlight 93 Paul Greengrass
A real time account of the events on United Flight 93, one of the planes hijacked on 9/11 that crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania when passengers foiled the terrorist plot.Fountain, The Darren Aronofsky
Spanning over one thousand years, and three parallel stories, The Fountain is a story of love, death, spirituality, and the fragility of our existence in this world.Goat David Gordon Green
A young man struggles to recover from a brutal attack which occurred while he was pledging a fraternity.Gold Peter Greenaway
One of the Tulse Luper DVDs. There are three layers to the project, like transparent skins of an onion, lying one on top of the other, each one showing through the other. 1) Luper’s Story: The background and incidents and events of Luper’s imprisonment in the Bolzano cafe for eleven weeks, from May to August 1945, where he writes the Gold Bar stories, and invents a fictitious life for Harpsch. The day by day events of this Luper imprisonment can be related to an exact calendar of dates, days, weather reports - and maybe a day-by-day textual and visual account of the events of the post-war world. 2) Harpsch’s Story: The story of Harpsch’s life, invented by Luper, most pertinently an account of Harpsch’s robbery of the gold bars and subsequent journey to Bolzano. 3) The 92 Gold Stories: The 92 stories (plus 9 others) that tell of gold appropriated by supporters of European Fascism from the Third Reich’s victims, mainly Jews.Good German, The Steven Soderbergh
In post-war Berlin to find his former mistress, an American journalist is lured into a murder mystery.Good Night and Good Luck. George Clooney
In the early 1950's, the threat of Communism created an air of paranoia in the United States and exploiting those fears was Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin. However, CBS reporter Edward R. Murrow and his producer Fred Friendly decided to take a stand and challenge McCarthy and expose him for the fear monger he was. However, their actions took a great personal toll on both men, but they stood by their convictions and helped to bring down one of the most controversial senators in American history.Grindhouse Robert Rodriguez & Quentin Tarantino
Two 60 minute horror movies written by Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez put together as a "double-bill" feature. Fake movie trailers will play before each film.Grizzly Man Werner Herzog
A docudrama that centers on amateur grizzly bear expert Timothy Treadwell. He periodically journeyed to Alaska to study and live with the bears. He was killed, along with his his girlfriend, Amie Huguenard, by a rogue bear in October 2003. The films explores their compassionate lives as they found solace among these endangered animals.Hail Caesar Joel & Ethan Coen
A 1920s theatre troupe stages a production of Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar".Haze Shinya Tsukamoto
A man wakes up to find himself locked in a tiny, cramped concrete room, in which he can barely move. Why is he there and where did he come from? All we know is that he has a terrible stomach injury and is slowly bleeding to death. He begins to explore the narrow confines of his prison and crawls around the maze-like room, only to see a horrible vision of hell waiting for him at each end of the room. Finally he gives up on the struggle and collapses in exhaustion. Then he begins to remember images from his past. Clinging to these images he creeps forward with the last ounces of his strength and meets a woman in a place that stinks of rotting corpses. The man and the woman both try to recall where they came from, but their memories are so uncertain that they are not even sure they want to return. The man is ready to give up but the woman insists on going forward. Neither of them can imagine the incredible end to the journey.Head Games David O. Russell
A sarcastic radio call-in show host starts taking on the qualities of his neurotic patrons.High Rise Vincenzo Natali
An adaptation of J. G. Ballard's cult novel by the director of Cube. The story tracks the disintegration of a newly-built high rise apartment building from the pinnacle of modern convenience to a twisted and perverse enclosed world of primitive survival.Hills Have Eyes, The Alexandre Aja
A suburban American Family is being stalked by a group of psychotic people who lives in the desert, far away from the civilization. A remake of Wes Craven's 1977 film by the director of Switchblade Romance.Hostel Eli Roth
Three backpackers head to a Slovakian city that promises to meet their hedonistic expectations, with no idea of the hell that awaits them.Hwal The Bow Ki-duk Kim
On a fishing boat at sea, a 60-year old man has been raising a girl since she was a baby. It is agreed that they will get married on her 17th birthday, and she is 16 now. They live a quiet and secluded life, renting the boat to day fishermen and practicing strange divination rites. Their life changes when a teenage student comes aboard...Idiocracy Mike Judge
Private Joe Bowers, the definition of "average American", is selected by the Pentagon to be the guinea pig for a top-secret hibernation program, set 1,000 years in the future. He discovers a society so incredibly dumbed-down that he's easily the most intelligent person alive.Inland Empire David Lynch
Shot in digital video, Lynch's new project, shot without a script, concerns a woman in trouble and a film within a film, with the title referring to the bleak residential area on the edge of the desert near L.A. -- the antithesis of the tony locale of his last movie Mulholland Drive.Inside Man Spike Lee
A cop has to talk down a bank robber after the criminal's perfect heist spirals into a hostage situation.Jarhead Sam Mendes
Based on former Marine Anthony Swofford's best-selling 2003 book about his pre-Desert Storm experiences in Saudi Arabia and about his experiences fighting in Kuwait.Kilomètre zéro Zero Kilometres Hiner Saleem
Iraq, 1988. Young husband and father Ako is forced to join Saddam Hussein's army. The unwilling soldier dreams of fleeing the country, but his wife Selma refuses to leave while her old bedridden father is still alive. Ako is sent away to the frontline of the Iran-Iraq War, where he experiences not only the reality of war, but also abuse due to his Kurdish background. The desperate man considers drastic measures for a fast ticket home. Ako thinks it's his lucky day when he receives orders to escort the return of a fellow soldier's corpse to his family. But his driver turns out to be an anti-Kurd Arab. With flag-wrapped coffin in tow, the mismatched duo prepares for an unexpected voyage across the majestic Iraqi landscape. Ako won't miss his chance to trick the driver into heading north toward the Kurdistan region...Lady in the Water M. Night Shyamalan
Apartment building superintendent Cleveland Heep rescues what he thinks is a young woman from the pool he maintains. When he discovers that she is actually a character from a bedtime story who is trying to make the journey back to her home, he works with his tenants to protect his new friend from the creatures that are determined to keep her in our world.Manderlay Lars von Trier
The second installment in Lars von Trier's "USA -- Land of Opportunities" trilogy. Dafoe will play the father of Grace, the central character played by Nicole Kidman in the series' first film, Dogville, and played by Bryce Dallas Howard in Manderlay. The film, shot entirely on a stage, is set in the American South during the 1930s and explores the repression of blacks.Marie-Antoinette Sofia Coppola
Based on Antonia Fraser's biography of Marie Antoinette, a naïve 14-year-old Austrian and queen of France. At a young age, she was arranged to marry Louis XVI and was very unprepared for the woes of politics. She continued to be ridiculed by France and was decapitated during the French Revolution.