The highly entertaining Kung Fu Hustle is movie of the year. The runner-up, the surreal The Triplets of Belleville, portrays rich human emotion (boredom and pain in this case), perhaps reaching levels impossible with live action.
performance of the year
Morgan Freeman's performance (his best so far) of a loser and old-time boxer in Million Dollar Baby is unbeatable. A lesser, but favorite, performance of mine is that of Laurence Fishburne in Mystic River, proving that he shouldn't be in bad money vehicles like the two sequels of The Matrix.
spectacle of the year - King Kong
Nobody has captured them ritualistic humans so perfectly as Peter Jackson did here nor did anyone ever commit such superb visual effects to screen. That's some explosive shit, and I only wish the plausibility of the story was given some thought. An honorable mention under this category is The House of Flying Daggers for, even if didn't like the love triangle non-sense, I haven't seen film battles quite captured like this before. Harks back to a greater Hero which shared the same director, Zhang Yimou. Another honorable mention goes to The Incredibles which happened to be the most impressive of all 3D animated films so far, and also blessed with a wonderful and fresh script.