Favorite Movies 2005 Part 1

Ralph Fiennes pulled off an acting hat trick this year by being in 3 of my favorite movies of 2005.

Fiennes was some of the vocal talent in "Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Wererabbits". I have been a W&G fan since their first short, "A Grand Day Out" and was so pleased they were finally making the jump to feature film. As always, Wallace is sweet but feckless while Gromit continually demonstrates he is the brains of their operation. A.O. Scott of the New York Times compared Gromit to Garbo and other great faces of the screen and I'm not about to disagree-it's pretty impressive for a clay dog with no eyebrows. But the W&G pictures, short or long, should give dog lovers everywhere hope because they prove though they are way too good for us, our dogs will continue to love us and save us from ourselves.

Fiennes also his debut into the Harry Potter movie world with his terrifying performance as Lord Voldemort in "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire". It was one of the scariest scenes I've seen in a movie bar none and really makes you question marketing it as children's movie. Lord V is the personification of evil (though he doesn't look very much like a person) and Fiennes plays him perfectly. "Goblet of Fire" is my favorite book of the Harrys (so far) and I was pleased by the movie, though it is essentially all plot, barreling ahead to get as much in as possible.

For goal #3 Fiennes was the diplomat husband in "The Constant Gardener". To be honest I was not really that interested in this movie but wound up liking it a lot. Fiennes' character is seduced by a younger woman who he then marries and brings to Africa. She is an idealist who is appalled by big drug companies who use poor Africans as guinea pigs. When she is killed because she knows too much, Fiennes' whole character changes-from a henpecked husband whose wife wore the pants to a grieving widower who will do anything, and I do mean anything, to find out what happened to his wife. The ending is beautiful and envitable and the filmmakers, to their credit, did not shy away from at all.