Best Pictures of 2006

Casino Royale
Awesome. Not a word professors or academics like in this context, but it fits this movie like a tailored tux. A stellar big-budget, modern action-adventure and a suave old-school Bond film, “Casino Royale” only fails in that it cannot speed up and slow down at the same time. Sure, there are too many action sequences and a “Return of the King” style pseudo-ending, but too much awesome is the kind of problem that don’t need fixin’. Thumbs up as well for introducing the world to Daniel Craig and solidifying Eva Green as the reason we just can’t hate France. And thanks to everyone involved for reminding the world that audiences don’t have to settle for half-hearted Michael Bay explosion fests and that Hollywood can put out a good product that makes money.

The Prestige
Maybe this is my intense crush on Christopher Nolan talking, but leave it to my boy C-Note ( I just coined that just so y’all know) to come up with a twist film that surprises with technique on top of story, and to put together a quiet, unassuming masterpiece. This film is not “easy” and may take some time to develop a strong reputation, but be sure that it will someday be referenced with other underappreciated works like “Citizen Kane” and “Rules of the Game.” Also be sure to note that I am a pretentious gasbag when it comes to Chris Nolan’s work, so feel free to ridicule that last statement all you want, but rue the day when my prediction comes true. “The Prestige” is haunting and beautiful and gets better the more you accept that it really messed with your head.

Renaissance
This was a good year for gritty, sci-fi epics as well as revisionist noir. While the best of neither category, (“Children of Men” and “Brick” respectively) “Renaissance” manages to set itself apart from all other animated films of 2006 by being quite simply the most visually stunning movie of the year. Using motion capture, the director (Christian Volckman) creates black and white triangles that dynamically divide the screen and makes his characters move fluidly without any shades of gray to help. A tough cop investigating a missing beauty while falling for her older sister is a bit formulaic, but the vision of future Paris and the corporate-controlled government add enough of a twist to keep things moving from one beautiful shot to the next. Even more of a living comic book than “Sin City,” this film only serves to further blur the ever disappearing line between purely graphic and moving pictures.

Children of Men
Fabulously shot and gripping from the first moments, “Children of Men” only suffers from a terrible marketing campaign. This is one of those films that has it all: heart-pounding action, nail-biting suspense and intriguing social commentary. It resembles, in plot, this year’s earlier film “V for Vendetta” (which worked very well in its own way), exploring a future society where every country in the world has folded except jolly old England due to total human infertility. It surpasses other movies this year by identifying problems and solutions without simplifying, while also achieving major success in editing and photography. The performances are all very good and the production value is ridiculous (although it will probably never recoup the $70 million spent on it) but, being science fiction, it will probably be taken less seriously as an end-of-year contender. That’s really too bad because “Children of Men” is one of those select few sci-fi movies that are able to show us a more accurate depiction of ourselves than even documentaries are capable of.

The Proposition
Put this on your Netflix list if you missed it, because this Australian revisionist western deserves better than it has gotten from most end-of-the-year lists. “Apocalypto” was certainly more violent and “The Libertine” was definitely grimier, but no movie used mood and setting better this year. An often upsetting look at family and frontier violence, Nick Cave’s script proves the superiority of good characters over those that are easily identifiable. The audience may never quite pick a hero or even someone to root for, but the film still delivers in a very traditional way. Guy Pearce is powerful, but Ray Winstone and Danny Huston clear plenty of room for themselves without anyone getting the short end of the stick. Not perfect, but in this somewhat weak year deserves a look.

United 93
Much has been said about people “not being ready” and many think that this came out “too soon” after the 9/11 attacks. I don’t believe in forcing people to see movies against their will, but this movie comes very close to required viewing. Paul Greengrass succeeds in making a picture that is bold and unafraid of confronting reality and yet never once sinks into exploitation. The story of the attacked flight is presented in an incredibly original way that emphasizes humanity in a medium famous for making superheroes. Made without political messages or intentions, “United 93″ does not pull on our guilty, liberal heartstrings but taps into the part of ourselves that connects us with the country and the world. I can’t promise that everyone will like this movie, but its ability to root out a person’s true feelings about terrorism and global politics is undeniable.

Best Performances of 2006

Male:
Forest Whitaker – “The Last King of Scotland”
I do not usually like big performances that tend to overshadow movies and win awards. I find them to be broad and gimmicky, although I can appreciate the heavy lifting that the actors have to perform. However, Forest Whitaker (Last King of the Understated Performances) brings an unprecedented range to his portrait of a modern political figure. From the moment he takes the screen the movie is his, yet he doesn’t step over his costars. He charms and terrifies them and, through them, the audience. The greatest aspect of the performance is Whitaker’s ability to go from smiling man of the people to snarling dictator in the blink of an eye, naturally and without breaking character. He overpowers the movie at times, but never once steps into caricature and for that, he should be handsomely rewarded by the Academy.

Female:
Rinco Kikuchi – “Babel”
In a year filled with wonderful star performances by Britain’s best actresses (Helen Mirren, Kate Winslet, Cate Blanchett, Dame Judi Dench), I was most impressed and pleased with an unknown Japanese girl in an ensemble piece. In “Babel,” Rinco Kikuchi plays Chieko, a deaf teenager who struggles to assert her sexual frustrations and to accept her apparent suicide. Without the help of spoken dialogue, Kikuchi creates the most engrossing character in a large film filled with better-known actors. She uses her body and face, succeeding without the crutch of good writing to buoy bad delivery. I found myself fascinated with her story more than the others, which I actually found detrimental to the film itself, as her character felt tacked-on. But she succeeds in accomplishing a very naked and honest portrayal of femininity and youth, and that’s the kind of thing that should be rewarded.

Biggest disappointment
The entire summer movie season
Film critics are notorious for hating anything that large groups of people like, apparently because they tend to think that anything that appeals to everyone must be aiming too low. I try to avoid this kind of pretension whenever possible but found it difficult this summer. I just didn’t like any of the major releases in summer 2006, and I’m generally the type of guy who spends a lot of hot days in the multiplex. The season started out with a fizzle, with “Poseidon” and “The Da Vinci Code,” the latter of which was actually the larger shipwreck of the two. As a card-carrying comic book geek, I was looking forward to both “X-Men: The Last Stand” and “Superman Returns,” but after seeing both I wished that Bryan Singer had stuck with directing the “X” franchise. “Superman” was a well-constructed movie, but was not nearly good enough to match the quality of “Batman Begins” or the potential of a proper sequel to “X2.” “Snakes on a Plane” may have been more successful if released earlier in the summer when the Internet hype was still hot, but the cooling buzz led to a cold reception at the box office. “Talladega Nights” had its moments, but ultimately it ran out of gas and provided a lot of ammunition for all the Will Ferrell haters out there. The biggest flop, for me, was actually the biggest financial success of the year. I thought the original “Pirates of the Caribbean” was an incredible amount of fun, but “Dead Man’s Chest” limped like it had two peg legs. There was no cohesive story arc, and while I do realize that it was only half a movie, it had one-tenth of a normal movie’s material and still managed to feel more bloated than a beached Kraken.

Now that my bad feelings and similes are out of the way, we can look forward to being disappointed once again this year. I am wary of Michael Bay being allowed to direct “Transformers” but will probably be first in line at the theater and on the IMDb boards to flame the thing. Spiderman, Captain Jack Sparrow, Shrek and Jason Bourne all have their third film coming out this summer, while Homer Simpson is making his big screen debut. And of course the moment we have all been waiting for: the return of the greatest action hero in R-rated movie history, John McClane in “Live Free or Die Hard.” Now if that isn’t a summer to be disappointed by, I don’t know what is.

Worst movie
Ultraviolet
This is almost too obvious of a choice, but I was not as astounded with the badness of any movie this year as much as I was with “Ultraviolet.” Rumor has it that the studio forced a PG-13 cut after the film was wrapped and they claim that a lot of important footage was left on the cutting room floor. However the same was true for “King Arthur,” and that movie made some cohesive sense. This is just a mess that should have never been unleashed on the public. Crimes Against Humanity: wasting some cool special effects, juxtaposing those next to terrible special effects, revealing halfway through that all of the characters are vampires but then never mentioning it again and shoving Milla Jovavich into another garbled, sci-fi stinkpile just because “The 5th Element” was cool.

Most overrated movie
Little Miss Sunshine
I liked “Little Miss Sunshine.” It made me laugh and all of the acting was really top notch, especially from Alan Arkin and even from the young Abagail Breslin. I just didn’t think it belonged anywhere near the best picture of the year talk. Somehow the Producers Guild gave it their best picture award. It was a good first effort from married director team Jonathon Dayton and Valerie Faris, but the ideas weren’t new and the story never really went anywhere (although I do concede that was kind of the point). I’m not so much upset with people who honestly liked this movie, because I’m one of them, but I see the admiration of “Little Miss Sunshine” as a crutch for people who don’t want to see that many movies. It’s entertaining, sports a great cast and displays four out of five standard indie movie clich‚s, so people cling to it as if it were a triumph over studio filmmaking that should be applauded for even existing. It just resembles movies like “Sideways” and “Me and You and Everyone We Know” too much to be taken that seriously. I encourage Dayton and Faris to make more movies but I also implore them to keep the lauds from going to their heads, because they’ve got some work to do. Cruel but Hilarious Irony: the movie took five years to make, which could have put it out ahead of the movies it seems to emulate, and yet would have prevented them from having the superb Abagail Breslin and Paul Dano.

Movie I really wanted to like and ended up hating
Lady in the Water
I’m a big fan of the director M. Night Shyamalan. He takes a lot of chances with casting and paces his films very slowly, which is a risk in movies today but when used effectively can make the modern audience uncomfortable (in that good way). He has probably used fewer shots in all of his movies than Tony Scott uses in one, yet his movies keep me on the edge of my seat more than any other director working now. Now if we could just get rid of M. Night Shyamalan the writer. I really liked “The Sixth Sense,” loved “Unbreakable” and “Signs” scared the crap out of me. But even there, I saw the cracks in the paint with that ridiculous alien water-allergy ending. “The Village” was misguided at best but also misunderstood because everyone thought it hinged on the twist that came halfway through, when in fact they were just projecting their expectations. So here comes “Lady in the Water,” the first non-twist M. Night movie, and I just knew (despite everyone else’s predictions) that it was going to be great and all the nay-sayers would have to eat a big helping of crow. Well, I’m eating mine right now because this movie was just plain boring. And that wasn’t even the worst of its problems. Crimes Against Humanity: M. Night casting himself as an author whose work may save the world, creating an “adult” fairy tale that lacks a story, failing to realize that just because you are a great director does not mean that we want to watch anything you make up or that you can get away with crap like Madam narfs and tartutics, making a great cast (Jeffery Wright, Paul Giamatti) look bad and making the beautiful Bryce Dallas Howard unappealing.

Movie I really wanted to hate and ended up loving
Dreamgirls
I thought “Chicago” was ridiculously bad, and not just for an Oscar winner either. To me, “Dreamgirls” seemed to be the next installment in a series of failed attempts to modernize the musical and I wanted nothing to do with it. But I submitted to my reviewer code of ethics and went to see it anyway, and was surprised to find something that I had never seen in a musical before: subtlety. Any movie where characters literally vocalize their emotions is going to be somewhat heavy-handed, but “Dreamgirls” made its points about race and the music industry without actually spelling them out in song. Unfortunately for the movie, those songs are what keep “Dreamgirls” from soaring. Despite the unbelievable vocal talents of Jennifer Hudson and Eddie Murphy’s charisma, the weak songs stay on Broadway instead of getting back to the streets of Detroit where they belong.
Cruel but Hilarious Irony: Casting Beyonc‚ as the bland-voiced singer who only gets to be a superstar because white people think she is pretty, allowing Jennifer Hudson to upstage her in every scene they appear in together and yet still giving Beyonc‚ top billing, allowing Eddie Murphy to get past his terrible ’80s singing career attempt and yet reminding everyone that “Party All the Time” still exists.

Movie I should hate but have to love
Crank
Because I can’t honestly imagine a big screen adaptation of “Grand Theft Auto” coming out anytime soon, I have to cling like hell to “Crank.” It displays beauty in its ability to tiptoe the line between self-parody and lazy filmmaking, and gets to have all the fun of sleazy trash with none of the guilt. Note: must be seen with enormous amounts of caffeine/booze in your system to truly appreciate the artistic genius.

Most asinine
best of 2006 pick
Army of Shadow
I’m sure that everyone is right in calling this a masterpiece, and while this debuted in the United States in 2006, it originally screened in France in 1969. I’ll give movies a one or two year leeway on release year for festival reasons, but naming a movie that came out before “The Godfather” as the best of 2006 is just a cheap way to avoid making a choice for best picture (something I would never do).

My asinine
best of 2006 pick
The Prestige
While I didn’t pick any absolute “best” movie of the year, I put this on the list mostly due to my opinion that anyone who didn’t like this movie is too stupid to understand it and should be sterilized. I didn’t cite this as my reason for putting it on the list but I’m calling myself out. Feel free to voluntarily sacrifice your gonads if “The Prestige” didn’t rock your socks.

Most silent tragedy
Idiocracy
Mike Judge’s first movie since “Office Space” should have been a notable event, but the studio apparently lost interest once the budget was covered by product placement, and dumped this seemingly unfinished comedy with nary an advertisement. The plot, centering around a completely average man who travels to a future so dumbed-down he is easily the smartest man in the world, is an open door to a universe of sight-gags and sly social commentary that never really comes together. “If onlys” will forever plague “Idiocracy” through out time, but this one deserves a look, if only for the clip of 2506’s most popular show “Ow My Balls.”

Favorite movie-related event
Uwe Boll boxes his critics
Uwe Boll, who seems to only makes movies so that his German investors can make money through a tax loop for movies that fail, continues to insist that he is actually trying to be a respectable filmmaker. Despite no evidence that he actually tries when making one of his many video game adaptations, he is so upset by critics trashing his movies that he has challenged all of them to boxing matches. The fact that he is a former amateur boxer and they are all chubby net nerds does not seem to faze him when he gives them their beatdown. I want to officially say to Mr. Boll, you’re a hack who makes terrible movies just so that they will lose money and if you want some come and get it, because I’ve already reserved your seat on the pain train.

My Biggest Regret
‘Babel’ Review
I went to this movie not planning to review it and when I did, I unfortunately let my emotions get the better of me and didn’t fully explain my position. I thought “Babel” was a fantastic movie, just not nearly as good as it should have been, and I think critics are excusing the shoddy quality of the finished product because the parts are so good, and I refuse to let the extremely talented I¤árritu off the hook.

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