Havoc (2005) ***

Hwal (2005) ***

Memorable South Korean movie set on a boat. Perverse and mesmerizing.

Transamerica (2005) ***

Felicity Huffman gives a performance of her career in this tremendously entertaining road movie about Bree, a trans woman who drives from New York to Los Angeles with her newfound son, Toby. Skilfully directed by Duncan Tucker, ''Transamerica'' is a witty and entertaining comedy, full of great dead-pan dialogues. As Roger Ebert has observed, ''there is a quiet strain of humour throughout "Transamerica," but this is not so much a comedy as an observation about human nature. The movie works because Felicity Huffman brings great empathy and tact to her performance. This is not a person who wants to make a big point about anything. She is persistently and patiently herself. If she had been wilder, more extroverted, the movie might fly off the rails. It is precisely because she is so conventionally sincere that the movie gathers power in deep places while maintaining a relative surface calm. And she manages to maintain her composure even when she finally meets her parents, and especially her unbelievably obnoxious mother (Fionnula Flanagan), who answers for herself the enigma of pre- or post-op by grabbing Bree's crotch. And she looks and acts as if she once courted her husband in exactly the same way. 

Mysterious Skin (2005) ***

King Kong (2005) ***

Crash (2005) ***

Romance And Cigarettes (2005) ***

Munich (2005) ***

Steven Spielberg's ''Munich'' provoked quite a storm of controversy when it was released. The film was accused of excessively humanizing the Palestinian terrorists who organized the massacre of Israeli athletes during the 1972 Olympics. A Mossad hit squad is ordered (by Golda Meir herself) to find those terrorists and to kill them in retaliation. As the film progresses, the team leader (played by Eric Bana) becomes progressively disillusioned with his mission and eventually leaves not only Mossad, but even Israel, and moves to the United States. The last, very controversial, shot of the film shows the World Trade Centre, clearly suggesting that all those killing have only lead to more terrorist attacks, including 9/11. The defeatist tone of the film is compounded by the fact that Spielberg doesn’t offer any alternative solutions. His point seems to be that while the retaliation was totally useless, there was nothing else that the Israelis could have done anyway. Quite a depressing message. Overall, this is one of Spielberg’s weakest films, but it's never boring. Just a minor work of a major filmmaker.

Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire (2005) ***

It has a few big-budget action scenes, some fearsome dragons and a flying stagecoach, but it is the weakest of all Harry Potter films. Directed by Mike Newell.

Brick (2005) ***

Imagine a Humphrey Bogart's private-eye film like "The Maltese Falcon" or "The Big Sleep", only set in a suburban high-school circa 2005. That's "Brick", an original and fascinating pastiche of the noir genre.

The Upside Of Anger (2005) ***

Three Times (2005) ***

The Sun (2005) ***

Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge Of The Sith (2005) ****

The best "Star Wars" movie since "The Empire Strikes Back".

Robots (2005) ***

Pour un seul de mes deux yeux (2005) ***

La Neuvaine (2005) ***

Match Point (2005) ***

Mary Shelley (2005) ***

La Marche de l'Empereur (2005) ***

Manners Of Dying (2005) ***

Main Hoon Na (2005) ***

It's All Gone Pete Tong (2005) ***

In Her Shoes (2005) ***

The Great Raid (2005) ***

Good Night And Good Luck (2005) ***

Familia (2005) ***

Les États nordiques (2005) ***

L'Enfant (2005) ***

The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit (2005) ***

Chicken Little (2005) ***

Corpse Bride (2005) ***

Charlie And The Chocolate Factory (2005) ***

Capote (2005) ***

The Brothers Grimm (2005) ***

Bride And Prejudice (2005) ***

Batman Begins (2005) ***

Seven Swords (2005) ***

8MM 2 (2005) ***

Nuit noire, 17 octobre 1961 (2005) ***

Shocking film about a massacre of Algerian immigrants in Paris in 1961.

The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005) ***

Shopgirl (2005) ***

Domino (2005) ***

The Constant Gardener (2005) ***

Brokeback Mountain (2005) ***