Some good and very good stuff
Apr 20 '09 (Updated May 02 '09)
The Bottom Line See the ones you haven't seen? (and some that I haven't?)
2006 was not a terrible year for movies, nor was it a great one (except for animated movies and Mexican directors and, I guess, actors). It was the first year in which I did not see a first-run movie in a theater, so my judgments are all based on watching DVDs.
Before getting to the list of the best, I anticipate "What about...?" objections with three lists of no-shows:
First, the overrated (which is not to say that I disliked most of these and certainly not to disparage some phenomenally good acting in most of them!)
Das Leben der Anderen (Lives of Others)
Dreamgirls
Blood Diamond
The Good Shepherd
The Illusionist
The Last King of Scotland
Little Miss Sunshine
The New World (and Terrence Malik in general!)
Old Joy
The Science of Sleep
Thank You for Smoking
Tristam Shandy
Second, some films that appear on others' ten-best list I have not seen (yet? well, I haven't been in an hurry to see them, except for "Quando..." and "Go Master" neither of which is available on DVD):
Black Book
Cars
Little Children
Notes on a Scandal
The Proposition
Quando sei nato non puoi più nasconderti (Once You’re Born, You Can No Longer Hide)
Rang De Basanti (Paint It Yellow)
Ratoulli
A Scanner Darkly
V for Vendetta
Wu Qingyuan (The Go Master)
Third, other movies that I thought were good (or very good) and/or liked and that I don't consider to have been overrated by others... but that did not make the cut into my top ten:
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Babel
Children of Men
The Devil Wears Prada
Don't Come Knocking
Half Nelson
Happy Feet
The History Boys
Inside Man
Me and You and Everyone We Know
The Painted Veil
A Prairie Home Companion
The Prestige
Stranger than Fiction
Venus
Volver
At last, on to the Top-Ten List!
Bonus pick: Jean-Pierre Melville's 1969 film about the French Resistance to German occupation, "Army of Shadows" finally made it across the Atlantic.
(10) I thought that "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan" was hilarious. Sometimes ludicrous, too, and never in good taste. And polarizing! (If you hated it, substitute "Volver"?)
(9) Terry Zwigoff's "Art School Confidential" and (8) Rian Johnson's "Brick" were very stylish and sardonic neo-noirs featuring outstanding performances by young male de facto detectives: Max Minghella and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, respectively.
(7) Martin Scorsese's "The Departed" seemed to me both too long and rushed near the end. As outstanding as the cast was — and that would be very — I thought that Andy Lau and Tony Leung were more stylish (suave) in the original ("Infernal Affairs" trilogy) than Matt Damon and Leonardo di Caprio in the same roles in Boston. Jack Nicholson was, perhaps, too good in his role, shifting too much focus from the two police cadets turned moles hunting each other. Martin Sheen, Mark Wahlberg and (especially!) Vera Farmiga were excellent without unbalancing the movie.
(6) Paul Greengrass's "United 93" was superbly done, but the recreation of a traumatic event that was used as a cover to shred the constitution and reputation of the United States, to displace and kill vast numbers of Iraqis who had not the slightest connection to the 9/11 attacks is difficult to evaluate as a movie. Even knowing the outcome, the movie was very tension-inducing.
(5) It is easier to look back at the death of Princess Diana and the awkward response of the royal family. Helen Mirren had a great year playing queens named Elizabeth and Michael Sheen was uncanny as Tony Blair. (Probably neither real person is as interesting as the screen versions of them in Stephen Frears's "The Queen." And Prince Philip is definitely shorter than James Cromwell. As the Queen Mother, Sylvia Syms was quite entertaining
(4) I was underwhelmed by "Hedwig and the Angry Inch," and thus all the more astounded by John Cameron Mitchell's "Shortbus." It is a quasi-documentary, somewhere in tone between "Borat" and "United 93." (I guess that one could say "The Queen" was too, but despite its basis in recent history, that seemed much more a fictional drama.) The notoriety of unsimulated sex distracts from the panorama of love, sex, and art(istic aspirations/delusions) among young New Yorkers.
(3) Sergei Bodrov's "Mongol" is a genuine epic focusing on the humiliations and romance of the young Chingis (Genghis) Khan, then called Temudjin. I am fascinated by the culture and terrain and have to admit that as a friend of mine contended, the viewer does not see what was so special about the youth who united the Mongols and (beyond the end of the movie) set out on world conquest. The determination is there in Tadanobu Asano's performance, but not great charisma.
(2) Flag of Our Fathers/Letters from Iwo Jima, directed by Clint Eastwood. I am a major Adam Beach fan (and a minor Ryan Phillippe one), which may account for my liking "Flag" more than some others. To me, it brings to mind Preston Sturges's "Hail, the Conquering Hero" and Billy Wilder's "Ace in the Hole," without being comic as the first was or as cynical as the second was. That Eastwood could direct a film almost entirely in Japanese and showing the underdogs (entrenched—or encaved—though they were) also astounded me, though I thought the movie was outstanding as a drama about doomed soldiers. The whole (the two movies) seems greater than the sum of the two parts to me. Kazunari Ninomiya as Saigo, the baker draftee is particularly good. The films Eastwood has directed so far during this millennium are a substantial oeuvre.
(1) Guillermo del Toro's "El Laberinto del fauno" (Pan's Labyrinth) has great visuals, great imagination, and great performances, particularly that of the luminous young bookworm Ofelia played by Ivana Baquero and the sadistic fascist captain who is Ofelia's evil stepfather, played by Sergi Lopez. Del Toro surpassed his horror movie also set in Francoist Spain "The Devil's Backbone."
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I've also posted lists of the best movies of the 1940s, the 1980s,
1939, 1999, 2000, 20001, 2002 , 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2007.
And of my all-time favorites.
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