FILMS WORTH SEEING IN EARLY 2006 IN CASE YOU MISSED THEM IN 2005

Here are some films that don't deserve a rip job:

Brokeback Mountain
Ang Lee's simple gay cowboy love story is just that. The screenplay stays unflinchingly true to Annie Proulx's short story and the ballad of Jack and Ennis is destined to sound a sad melody both because the stars are crossed and because our lovers have chosen so. Lee's only misstep (and it's a minor one) is to ring the bell harder on the suffering of living a lie than the pain of Jack and Ennis living without each other. And Heath Ledger's stellar performance almost renders Lee's languid direction suspenseful.

Walk the Line
Even though this man in dark sunglasses is white and calls himself the Man in Black, it's not a stretch to say that we've seen this biopic before and recently. But Ray lacks the overarching love story that provides a pitch-perfect frame for Johnny Cash's life. When the wounded dog gets famous, starts hitting the sauce, the pills and the powder and it all starts ringing too familiar, it's Johnny and June Carter's love that bring this film back into focus and the Tennessee Three's two-step on the Folsom Prison stage that sounds the refrain.


Junebug
There wasn't a film in 2005 that hit more authentic notes than Junebug. Alessandro Nivola plays George, who returns home to his rural North Carolina town from life in the big city (Chicago) with his lover sophisticate Madeleine (Embeth Davidtz). Nivola, who maybe best known for playing Nicolas Cage's brother Castor Troy in Face/Off, is more than up to the challenge, playing a prodigal son-done-good whose dispassion hides a weariness of being the Bible Belt choir boy. But it's Amy Adams who steals the show as George's guileless, idiot-loquacious sister, Ashley, who ultimately faces the hardest knocks with the most understanding.