Author Topic: 2006: Year in Review  (Read 2128 times)

Moviebuff28

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2006: Year in Review
« on: December 31, 2006, 01:42:20 PM »
2006 was a great year for movies.  It offered tons of diverse options from Little Children to The Descent to Casino Royale.  Here is a look at the best films of the year.

Special Jury Awards:
American Dreamz
A funny and sharp satire featuring great performances from Mandy Moore, Hugh Grant, and Dennis Quaid.
ATL
A funny and moving story about four african american teens coming of age in Atlanta.  Features great performances from T.I. and Big Boi.
The Black Dahlia
A brilliant noir with great performance by Josh Hartnett, Aaron Eckhart, Rose McGowan, Mia Kirschner, and Hilary Swank.  Features the DePalma touch.
The Break-Up
The most realistic look at a relationship that i have ever seen on film.  The ads were totally misleading.  Funny and very moving with a great ensemble cast.
Brick
This is brilliant noir but updated.  It is totally realistic of what high school is like in terms of how teens take high school as every day is life and death.
Dave Chappelle's Block Party
Dave Chappelle is funny and uplifting in Michel Gondry's film.  Features amazing music.  Funny, quirky, and eccentric.
Find Me Guilty
Sidney Lumet returns in prime form with this legal dramedy.  Features Vin Diesel giving the performance of a lifetime.
Idiocracy
Unfairly got dumped by Fox Searchlight.  This is a comic gem from Office Space creator Mike Judge
Inside Man
One of the best Heist thrillers in years.  Spike Lee gives us a heist film like nobone has ever seen.  Denzel Washington, Clive Owen, Jodie Foster, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and William Dafoe give excellent performances.
The Last King of Scotland
This thriller about Uganda features a historic performance from Forest Whitaker.  James McAvoy and Kerry Washington also turn in great performances.
Lucky Number Slevin
A Clever, funny, and stylish crime flick.  Features great performances from a terrific ensemble.
Miami Vice
Michael Mann brings his TV show to the big screen and takes all the campyness out and delivers a dark and gritty thriller in the vein of Collateral.
Mission: Impossible III
J.J. Abrams gives us the best Mission: Impossible yet.  Philip Seymour Hoffman raises the bar for film vilains.  They take this from being a goofy action flick into a serious action thriller in the vein of the Bourne movies.
The Omen
A stylish shot-by-shot remake of the original classic.  It is also a little better.  It relies on psychological terror rather than going with blood and guts
Over the Hedge
The funniest animated film of the year.  Way better than Cars and Happy Feet.
The Prestige
A Stylish thriller from the master of mood and suspense, Chris Nolan.  Features great performances from Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, Piper Perabo, Michael Caine, and David Bowie
The Pursuit of Happyness
This very moving and uplifting true story features one of the years best performances from Will Smith.  More gritty than sappy.
A Scanner Darkly
The best animated film of the year.  Funny and very haunting.  It stuck with me weeks after i saw the film.
Snakes on a Plane
Lives up to all the hype.  Worth the price of admission to see Samuel L's great line.
Superman Returns
Supermans return was a triumph and might even be better than the original.  Brandon Routh steps right into Superman's shoes and doesn't miss a beat
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
One of Will Ferrell's funniest films.  Hilarious and outrageous.  Features an awards worthy performance from John C. Reilly.  Reilly and Ferrell are indeed shake and bake.
Trust the Man
One of the more realistic romantic comedies in a while.  The interaction between David Duchovny and Billy Crudip was very authentic.

11-20:
20. The Illusionist - The best magic film of the year.  Edward Norton is great, Jessica Biel is luminous, and Paul Giamatti gives one of his best performances as a person in power.  I sometimes had to remind myself that this was the schlub from Sideways.  An Elegant, old styled picture that swept me up and took me away.
19. Stranger than Fiction - Will Ferrell gives his best performance and proves to me that he will win an academy award one day in this eccentric and moving comedy.  Maggie Gyllenhaal is excellent and Dustin Hoffman is hilarious.  Emma Thompson and Queen Latifah are great despite being wasted in the film.
18. Idlewild - An entertaining musical romp.  The boys from OutKast prove that they are just as talented in movies as they are with their music.  Great Music.  Great Story.  Great Performances (especially Terrence Howard).  Great Fun.  Much better than Dreamgirls
17. Mozart and the Whale - Josh Hartnett gives the best male performance of the year as Donald Morton, a very smart guy with aspergers.  He is really good with numbers.  He runs an aspergers group in his free time where people with aspergers come and meet.  One day a woman played by Radha Mitchell joins the group.  She also has aspergers.  They end up falling in love.  The film is about their relationship.  This is actually based on a true story. The movie is very moving and funny.
16. Hard Candy - An amazing film.  I think Ellen Page deserves an Oscar nomination and maybe even a win.  She gives the best female performance of the year.  Patrick Wilson is also excellent.  Riveting, terrorfying, and very powerful.
15. Thank You for Smoking - A hilarious satire.  Sharp and funny.  It is a knife edge sharp and features the performance of a lifetime from Aaron Eckhart.  Maria Bello, Katie Holmes, Robert DuVall, William H. Macy, Rob Lowe, Adam Brody, Cameron Bright, and David Koechner give great supporting performances.
14. World Trade Center - A Powerful, moving, and uplifiting story of courage and strength.  A human story.  Michael Pena deserves best supporting actor consideration and Maria Bello and Maggie Gyllenhaal deserve best supporting actress consideration.  Oliver Stone's most straightforward film ever.
13. Casino Royale - Daniel Craig brought the bond series back from the dead.  The Best Bond movie since the 60's. I think Haggis brings a lot of weight to the script and really does a good job with the film. Daniel Craig is excellent and is the best bond with the exception of Brosnan. Not once did I roll my eyes at the action scenes. I loved the fact that they made Eva Green's character an actual complex character and not a sex object.  The action scenes don't seem that far fetched and they were able to transform this from goofy action flick to serious action thriller. I think they do exactly what J.J. Abrams was able to with Mission: Impossible III.
12. Pan's Labyrinth - A dark and wonderful fantasy film in the vein of Harry Potter.  Dark and truly exciting.  A fairy tale for adults and a great political parival.
11. The Descent - One of the scariest movies i have ever seen. honestly. there were times where i wanted to fast forward through some scenes because they were so scary. yes this is gory but the scariest scenes were the scenes that you were just waiting for a lot of gore and nothing happens. the performances are all great and this is one of the best directed films of the year. Marshall takes about 30 minutes to get you introduced to the characters and just let you spend time with them. In fact the gore doesn't really start until about an hour in.

THE TOP TEN:

10. Little Miss Sunshine
This is one of the funniest films of the year.  i am laughing now just thinking about the body snatching scene and the finale. i will never listen to Superfreak the same way again after that. Again i talk about comedies and the most important thing is how many laughs? this is a comedy and i laughed about 15-20 times.  The ensemble is great with top notch comedic performances from Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette, Alan Arkin, Abigail Breslin, the subdued Steve Carell, and Paul Dano.


9. Clerks II
This is better than Clerks. It is funnier. Honestly it doesn't get better than the LOTR vs Star Wars scene and the scene in which Randal and Dante debate racial slurs. Kevin Smith is a brilliant writer. Jeff Anderson deserves an academy awards. Every performance is hilarious and great. The movie is also very moving and really does have a great heart. Yes it does get a little preachy at the end of the film but the film deserved that moment.


8. Catch a Fire
One of the best political thrillers in recent years.  Derek Luke gives an oscar worthy performance as Patrick Chumaso.  He is a good guy who is not into politics.  He gets drawn in after he is wrongly imprisoned and tortured by Nic Voss (Tim Robbins).  Robbins gives a great performance as well.  Noyce gives us a powerful story about apartheid but he trusts the thriller genre and trusts the audience.  He doesn't shit on our face the way The Constant Gardener did.


7. Children of Men
This is an amazing movie.  I think the film is excellnt as both an action film and a provocative and powerful drama.  Clive Owen gives his best performance here as Theo.  Michael Caine is great comic relief as the pot smoking and farting Jasper. All the performance are great. The special effects are great and the cinematography is easily the best i have seen so far this year. I love the hand held camera work that really makes you feel like you are their. That was similar to what Cuaron did on Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Also there is an amazing action scene that is a 7 minute unbroken take. There were also a lot of unbroken takes used in action scenes in Prisoner of Azkaban. Plus there was just as much dark humor in Children of Men as in Azkaban. I loved how Cuaron managed to keep his sense of humor and wit despite this being a very bleek movie.


6. The Proposition
A masterpiece of the genre.  The best western i have seen since Unforgiven.  I loved the bleekness of the film and how the film didn't glorify the australian outback.  Ray Winstone gives the performance of his career as Captain Stanley.  i think the character is fascinating because at first you think Captain Stanley is just this sadistic and ruthless S.O.B. He is actually a good guy and a nice person who is trying to do right in place which is pretty much a living hell.  This is a grimey film.


5. Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
Sacha Baron Cohen is a comic tour de fource.  This is the funniest film of the year. the fight in the hotel is the funniest scene i have seen in five years. also the first half hour is funnier than Clerks II which until Borat was the funniest movie of the year.  It is also one of the most important films of the year and really does have something to say about us as a culture.  Me Like!


4. V for Vendetta
A poweful political thriller from the people who brought us The Matrix.  I think the film is excellnt as both an action film and a provocative and powerful drama.  Natalie Portman gives her best performance and even though her accent slips a couple times but that doesn't take anything away from her performance.  Hugo Weaving gives an incredible performance behind the mask.  Provocative and full of ideas.


3. United 93
Paul Greengrass uses the same documentary style techniques as he did in Bloody Sunday and The Bourne Supremacy to create a powerful docudrama about the flight United 93 on 9/11.  The film is shot in a documentary style and you feel like you are in the room with the people.  It doesn't make the terrorists into monsters and makes them out to be human.  We can almost understand what they are going through.  This isn't a political film and there are no mentions of Osama Bin Laden.


2. The Departed
Scorsese is back to take over the crime genre.  A remake of the masterpiece Infernal Affairs, The Departed is faithful to Infernal Affairs and adds something new.  Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon are great as 2 cops on the opposite sides of the law.  Mark Wahlberg gives the best performance as Dignam, a foul mouthed cop.  Jack Nicholson has fun chewing up the scenary as the sadistic and charming mob boss Frank Costello.  Vera Farmiga deserves an oscar nomination for her role as a police psychiatrist.  Anthony Anderson, Alec Baldwin, Ray Winstone, and Martin Sheen turn in great supporting performances.  Scorsese's best film since Goodfellas.


1. Babel/Little Children
I am tying these films together because they share a huge narrative ambition.  Babel is probably the most emotionally draining film of the year.  It works as an international thriller and as a powerful drama.  I teared up several times.  i think Babel is really supposed to be taken more as a fable than as 100% reality. Sure all of these events could happen as stand alone events in the real world but the fact that these events are all connected is very unlikely in the real world. Especially the scenes at the mexican border. I think the performances are terrific across the board and Brad Pitt deserves an oscar for best supporting actor.  I think Rinko Kikuchi deserves an academy award. i think her performance was right up there with Ellen Page and Kate Winslet. It is an extremely difficult performance and she actually had to learn a new way to communicate.  Little Chidren is a masterpiece.  I think it is easily one of the best films i have seen in a long time.  i saw the film for a second time over break and it is even better.  i think it really stays with you which is one of the reasons why it is so powerful.  Kate Winslet proves why she is the best actress we have today and deserves an oscar.  Patrick Wilson gives a great performance as Brad. Also Jackie Earle Haley and Phyllis Sommerville deserve awards consideration.  I thought Earle Haley was very heartbreaking as Ronnie.  A funny and very powerful film.  The narrative ambition is the way they use the voice of god narration.  It sticks with you a long time.

 

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