2006 films ranked
Submitted by ephender on Thu, 01/19/2006 - 09:00
Gael García Bernal, The Science of Sleep
Laura Dern, Inland Empire
Luminita Gheorghiu, The Death of Mr. Lazarescu
Amy Sedaris, Strangers with Candy
John Waters, This Filthy World
Erykah Badu, Dave Chappelle's Block Party
Alec Baldwin, The Departed
Sam Elliot, Thank You for Smoking
Catherine O'Hara, For Your Consideration
Fiona Shaw, The Black Dahlia
Tags:
- ****
- Inland Empire (David Lynch)
- ***½
- Children of Men (Alfonso Cuarón)
- Chats perchés (Chris Marker) [* review.]
- Miami Vice (Michael Mann)
- Dave Chappelle's Block Party (Michel Gondry)
- Jackass: Number Two (Jeff Tremaine)
- ***
- The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (Cristi Puiu)
- Old Joy (Kelly Reichardt) [* I can't think of a more appropriate film to break my year-long sitout from the Oak Street.]
- Borat (Larry Charles)
- **½
- The Black Dahlia (Brian De Palma)
- The Ister (David Barison & Daniel Ross)
- For Your Consideration (Christopher Guest) [* its vision of the endless hell that has become awards season is a lot less Guffman and a lot more Requiem for a Dream, which is exactly how I'd have it.]
- The Departed (Martin Scorsese)
- Army of Shadows (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1969) [* a resurrected B-movie -- which, don't get me wrong, is plenty fine.]
- **
- A Scanner Darkly (Richard Linklater)
- Volver (Pedro Almodóvar) [* a pretty sizable disappointment, though, as far as films in which gay men ogle the sex appeal of women instead of, y'know, rippling pectoral muscles, preferable to Devil Wears Prada.]
- Fast Food Nation (Richard Linklater)
- Flags of Our Fathers (Clint Eastwood)
- Shortbus (John Cameron Mitchell)
- Babel (Alejandro González Iñárritu) [* apparently the key to not wanting to murder this film is to, on the one hand, never have seen anything to date by Iñárritu and, on the other, have already gotten the bloodlust out of the way murdering Crash, whose every hoary contrivance and idiotic take on politics and racism made even the lamest, most forced coincidence in Babel feel completely restrained ... not a great movie by any conceivable stretch and hardly one I feel like playing devil's advocate on its behalf, but it is made with, if not intelligence, at least some blind sort of commitment. I might almost go so far as to say it's not only better than Crash but also Traffic and Syriana, but I should probably check myself before I start sounding like some sort of fan.]
- John Waters: This Filthy World (Jeff Garlin) [* would've made a better .mp3 than a film, but the fact that Waters is able to spin comedy gold from Michael Jackson, of all tired things, is testament to his gift for the colloquial.]
- Happy Feet (George Miller) [* If only Miller was as adept at making animation seem as lightly fantastical as he is at doing the same for mundane old live action. The best 30 seconds of the film are that nutsy montage in which the world agrees to leave Antarctica alone.]
- *½
- The Science of Sleep (Michel Gondry) [* creativity as passive-agressiveness, ugly-beautiful leading femme so as not to distract from directorial preciousness ... my companion noted this was essentially Amelie With a Dick, but since that dick is attached to Gael García Bernal, who I've never before thought was charismatic like this, I allowed myself to hit the snooze alarm a couple times, at least early on.]
- The Descent (Neil Marshall) [* I rate this movie about a 5.8+ on the YDS grading system.]
- Marie Antoinette (Sofia Coppola) [* sure made me feel empathy for how Marie was feeling -- bored.]
- Hostel (Eli Roth)
- Masters of Horror: "Pick Me Up" (Larry Cohen)
- Notes on a Scandal (Richard Eyre) [* Oscar bait dressed up like trash. Better than if it were the other way around. The even yet fading memory of Far From Heaven, however, begs to differ.]
- Strangers with Candy (Paul Dinello)
- The Queen (Stephen Frears) [* solidly and almost rivetingly middlebrow, even though I can't help but agree with Matthew Wilder's contention that it's troubling that this movie basically boils down to "gosh, Lilybut and Tony are just a decent pair when you get right down to it, eh wot?"]
- A Prairie Home Companion (Robert Altman)
- The Devil Wears Prada (David Frankel) [* not particularly sure what everyone's on about with anyone's performances here, as they're all stranded by the ruthless business of hollow epiphanies; if anything, it's the slick direction and catty script that are stealing scenes back from the stars.]
- Stryker (Noam Gonick)
- V for Vendetta (James McTeigue)
- Half Nelson (Ryan Fleck)
- *
- L'Enfant (Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne)
- The Last King of Scotland (Kevin MacDonald) [* so dull even afrobeat interludes (not to mention the best scene involving a brutal despot breaking wind ever filmed) can't save it ... until it inappropriately becomes a politically self-important remake of Cannibal Ferox for about 10 minutes. I can see why John Waters took the bait on this one.]
- Pan's Labyrinth (Guillermo Del Toro) [* I must've not picked up on the political subtext. This all seemed a bunch of convoluted crypto-Catholic bull to me.]
- Dreamgirls (Bill Condon) [* I like sparkle and mo'hogany as much as the next man who fantasizes about being a big, black woman, but when the only decent song in the entire enterprise is the only one that's not trying to sound like a Motown hit, then call me Barry Manilow ... and did no one else notice that Jennifer Hudson can't act when she's not singing?]
- Sherrybaby (Laurie Collyer) [* don't call me baby, you got some nerve, and baby that'll never do, you know I don't belong to you, it's time you knew I'm not your baby.]
- That Man: Peter Berlin (Jim Tushinski)
- ½
- Thank You for Smoking (Jason Reitman)
- Little Miss Sunshine (Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris) [* amazingly enough, I was vaguely digging it until right about the time the road trip started, at which point it refused to stop following one terrible incident with an even worse incident ... low point involved a strong reaction to an eye test.]
- A Good Woman (Mike Barker)
- •
- Little Children (Todd Field)
- Hated so much I think I looped back to liking them again.
Author Comments:
Highlighting is easier than bolding titles, now that the terse asides are cluttering up this page.
My favorite performances of the year:
Lead Performance
Supporting Performance
Cloned From:
Is there a "L'Enfant" writeup forthcoming?
Yeah, I probably will put up a paragraph on my blog, even though I can't really offer much to say other than "this movie, which everyone else thinks is a masterpiece and I can't shrug off their devotion, is really really not for me."
Stephen Fry was about the only thing worth liking about V for Vendetta.
Also, Little Children really is That Bad, huh? I've been on the fence about seeing it... guess I'll wait on it now.
Actually, Little Children failed to be "that bad," as per my new category. If I thought it had worth, I might've given it the honor of a lower ranking. Such that it is, this is sort of definitively of the hollow stylization that passes for mise-en-scene but is actually a big nothing -- the essence of boutique cinema. Of course, I thought pretty much the same about Field's last movie, so mileage obviously varies.
I was condescendingly told by a rabid film fan that I didn't like "Eternal Sunshine..." because I've never "been in love." I corrected this wayward person with: "No, I couldn't stand it because I can only handle Gondry in small, innocuous, five minute spurts."
I haven't seen "Little Miss Sunshine," but every summary I've read of it makes me think I'll like it about as much as you. So I'm in no hurry....
Yes, I would agree with that. Gondry's best asset is his rhythm, not his whimsy (I believe he is a drummer, but I could be mistaken) ... which is another reason I thought the Dave Chappelle one-off worked so damned well. (That said, I did like Eternal Sunshine quite a bit.)
Good fucking call on that there Children of Men. Holy crap in my opinion, etc.
No kidding. I admit I desperately needed a masterpiece at this low point in my cinephilia, but I sincerely doubt I'm overrating this film because of it. I have had no qualms about registering my non-love of just about every other heralded flick this year.
This all seemed a bunch of convoluted crypto-Catholic bull to me.
See, this was the first Del Taco film I can recall which, far as I can tell, wasn't awash in Christian symbolism. What'd I miss? (Whole bunches of obvious stuff, I'll bet.)
Probably didn't help me that this was my first Guillermo of the Bulls film. The entire ending, though, really got on my nerves. "Oh, the magical world turns out to be heaven! And all that pointless suffering we've been put through hoping to get a glimpse of that magical world was pretty much a gruesome Sunday school lesson."
Then again, I could be wrong and this could be a radical anti-Christian text, if it indeed is calling the concept of heaven a fantasy.
Regarding John Waters, have you ever read any of his books? "Shock Value" and "Crackpot" are both, in a word, awesome. He's a better storyteller than most "acclaimed" essayists.
I've paged through "Shock Value" in the half-price bookstore with my hands already full of other books. But, yeah, he's a natural, even if I am a card-carrying member of the church of Didion.
Absolutely with you on "Babel" ... and I would go so far as to say it's better than those films you mentioned.
Still desperate to see the Marker ...
Yeah, but I'd hate to go too far over Babel. It's ... got some problems.
Still desperate to see the Marker ...
Do you torrent?
... oh my god how did I miss this!??!
Thanks for the link! I'm dumb...
(Oh, and BTW, someone's posting some of Marker's rarer features on YouTube, including "Level 5" and "Sans Soleil" and "Statues Also Die.")
Awesome! I'll have to commit to one before they get removed. (My Chris Marker cat video was snatched by First Run quicker than anything else I ever posted illegally ... that is, before my account was suspended.)