For most of 2006 I was submerged eyeball deep in academia. I took hard classes, lots of them, and didn’t have the time or energy to focus on much else. With a full to bursting load of literature classes and a daunting requirement to learn another language, it turned out I had a lot of reading to do. I mean like 12-14 hours a day in school and reading. For a guy that had been mostly a lay about to that point, this was serious stuff. I essentially lived in a 24-hour café during the week, subsisting only on caffeine. And I completely shut down my brain on the weekends, taking in nothing but booze. It was, in some ways, the quintessential college experience. It didn’t leave much time to watch movies and it certainly left no time or inclination to follow the film industry. But the student union at my college did show a free movie every weekend. Most of what I saw in 2006 came from taking advantage of that program. It was the first time I ever walked into a theater not knowing what I was going to see. It was a year where a lot of movies came out from filmmakers that I wasn’t familiar with. And I was reading very few bits of criticism or film news online. Never in my adult life have I had as many surprises as I did in 2006. Usually by the time a movie comes out I’ve almost already formed my opinion of it, almost already written my review. Sometimes it can be hard to push all preconceived notions aside and make sure you’re looking at a movie fresh. I’ll remember 2006 as the year no effort had to be made, and the year where unexpected treasures got to be unearthed.
10-Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest ***
The (what is about to be known as original) Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy operated under a law of diminishing returns. The first film was a huge surprise and a fun discovery, the third was an unwatchable mess of over indulgent nonsense; and this one, this one fell somewhere in between. It improved on the original in a couple of respects. A few reoccurring characters became more nuanced, better developed, and more interesting. The action sequences were taken up a notch. The visual effects were more impressive. But it also was a step down from the original in others. Jack Sparrow went from an original and insane character to a gimmick who relied on references to things he did in the first film to illicit a response. Orlando Bloom remained a black hole of charisma, and his character failed to develop past white meat baby face. The simple, focused storytelling of the first film started to degenerate and a little bit of the confusion of the third film started to creep into the story. Overall, Dead Man’s Chest did enough for me to find it enjoyable, but it also confirmed my suspicions that Curse of the Black Pearl wasn’t a film that was begging for a sequel.
9-Little Miss Sunshine ****
This one was the indie darling of the year that achieved a decent amount of financial success due a tidal wave of press. Subsequently it is also the victim of a huge backlash. To hear people talk about it now you would think that this film is awful, but that’s simply not the case. Yes it wears its quirky heart on its sleeve. Yes it introduces us to character archetypes that have already been pretty well worn in the realm of indie filmmaking. But it’s also strongly written and contains a bunch of great performances. Paul Dano and Steve Carell are both impressive as a depressed teenager and a depressed English professor. Alan Arkin is almost too much fun as a drug addicted grandpa. And Greg Kinnear takes his lumps playing a downtrodden version of Greg Kinnear. I think a lot of the criticism of this one stems from an idea that it is cynically crafted to appeal to some sort of hipster movie archetype and that it lacks sincerity, but I don’t buy that. If you were going to pointedly write a film as product to appeal to a certain audience, why wouldn’t you choose an audience with more money to spend than indie film nerds? Little Miss Sunshine isn’t the greatest film, like some of the press that surrounded it might have purported, but it is a success. And it certainly isn’t Transformers.
8-Stranger than Fiction ****
After sitting through the trailers for Stranger than Fiction I didn’t even want to see it. The narration gimmick seemed like it would grate pretty quickly. It looked like it was too trapped in its own structure to go anywhere interesting. I thought it was a too on the nose attempt at making something like Being John Malkovich. I was surprised to find that none of these things were true. Everything that happened in the trailers happens in about the first fifteen minutes of the film, and then it goes in other, more interesting directions. That’s some bad advertising if you ask me. The other big issue hanging over this one was how well Will Ferrell would be able to perform in a dramatic role. Well, of course he does great you idiots, what did you expect? Will Ferrell is a genius. And Maggie Gyllenhaal matches him in the role of the love interest. She really crafts a character that is both complex and authentic. Especially when compared to the usual love interests in comedies. Plus she pulls some more of her, “that chick isn’t that hot, why is she so sexy?” stuff that she did in Secretary as well. Add in Emma Thompson and Queen Latifah performing well in a sub plot, Dustin Hoffman appearing in a fun cameo, some poignant life lesson stuff, and Stranger than Fiction ended up being more than just a pleasant surprise; it’s a movie I just plain like.
7-L’Enfant ****
Sometimes it gets a little tricky deciding which year you consider a film to be a release of. Some people count the first time it’s shown anywhere. Some people count the first time it’s released in the US. I’ve been going by the first time a movie gets a non-festival release and is shown to general audiences; no matter what country it’s released in. By that rational I should have counted this as a 2005 film, because it was released in plenty of countries before 2006. Basically I messed up and had it on my 2006 list for some reason. So, in the pursuit of fairness, I’m going to include it here on my 2006 list anyways. It’s good enough that it shouldn’t be denied recognition. I haven’t seen much of the Dardennes’ work, and based on this they are a blind spot I need to fill in soon. The pacing is slow and deliberate, but the story is well told and the characters well crafted. This is a dirty, street level look at what it is to be poor and young in Europe. What happens when you’re a naïve teenage girl and you get pregnant from sleeping around with a directionless conman and thief? Well maybe he tries to sell your baby on the black market. Yikes, what a jerk. Good camera work and good performances are the hallmark of this fine film. And I have a huge crush on the heroine, played by Déborah François, based on seeing her in just this one thing. I need to search out some of her stuff too. She’s adorable.
6-Battalla en el cielo ****
Battle in Heaven, as it was released here in the US, is a pretty complex film. It contains graphic sex, nudity both sexy and decidedly unsexy, kidnapping, guilt, lies, prostitution, questions of spirituality, pilgrimages in honor of The Lady of Guadalupe, murder, forgiveness, and probably a lot more I’m forgetting. It packs all of this in, but is decidedly leisurely in its presentation. It’s a bit of a mess, but endearingly so. It begins and ends with graphic oral sex. It has moments that are both tender and brutal in between. It has tons of beautiful photography. It tells the story of a rich girl, her driver, and her driver’s wife; but that doesn’t do any of what happens justice. To do it justice would be to give away this film’s secrets. And to do that would probably be a crime. A lot of people probably really hate this film, and I can certainly understand that. But I really liked it.
5-The Departed ****
I’m in a strange situation when it comes to Martin Scorcese’s work. I’m not really his biggest fan. It’s not that I don’t like the films he has made that are considered classic; it’s just that I find them to be overrated. Additionally, I find his modern stuff that gets put down as solid but disappointing to be underrated. Really, I see everything he has done as hovering around some sort of “pretty solid” middle ground. The Departed is definitely his most accessible, broadly entertaining film, however. Cops, robbers, drugs, guns, manly performances that chew scenery, Boston accents; this film has it all. It’s the sort of R rated cop movie that we don’t get to see very often these days, but which used to be a staple of blockbuster filmmaking. Some people see this as a problem, as it’s a step away from the guerilla filmmaking that he did as a young man in the 70s, but I see it as a welcome reminder of how fun big budget, R rated movies can be. And look at that cast. That’s a huge collection of big name actors. Nicholson chews scenery like nobody but he can. Mark Wahlberg and Alec Baldwin act like meathead dipshits like only they can. And Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon give nuanced, complex performances like few other actors of their generation can. There are too many great supporting performances here to name. This film isn’t the deepest thinker you’re ever going to come across, but it’s not trying to be (most of the time…rat). Any time you want to watch an awesome cop movie just throw in The Departed and you’re unlikely to be disappointed.
4-The Prestige ****
Christopher Nolan is a director who has doggedly and consistently put out good, to great, to spectacular films over the past decade. With every film he makes he improves, and he has put himself firmly into consideration for being the best director of his generation. After tickling my fancy by putting out the first live action adaptation of Batman that I have ever been pleased with, it was announced that he would be making a film about dueling magicians starring Batman and Wolverine. Well hell, sign me up. What’s that you say? Michael Caine and Scarlett Johansson are going to be in it too? Does anyone need to be told anything else to run out and see this one? And all of that awesome fanboy stuff aside, you know what the best part of this movie is? The editing. How often do you notice the editing of a film the first time that you watch it in the theater? Hardly ever, but in this one I was entranced with the way they were able to construct scenes through montage sort of instructional shots that looked like they might come out of a “how to perform magic” video and also how they were able to cut this film in a way that just kept it moving at a breakneck pace. Lee Smith and Christopher Nolan can edit the hell out of a film together. Wait…what? David Bowie shows up playing Nikola Tesla?? Awesome.
3-Half Nelson ****
I didn’t imagine that I ever needed to see another movie about another white person teaching inner city ethnic children, but boy was I wrong. Before this I had no idea that I had a man-crush on Ryan Gosling. Sue me; I hadn’t seen The Notebook yet. But by the time the end credits rolled on this one I knew that I had found a new actor to watch. Half Nelson isn’t a Disney story about a courageous teacher who goes into a poor neighborhood and inspires the little brown children to love themselves and be all that they can be. Thank God. Instead of being something completely condescending and shallow, it decides to be a story about people instead. Gosling doesn’t play a super teacher, he plays a guy fresh out of college who couldn’t find a job anywhere other than in a shitty school system. He’s not hard nosed and determined; he’s a drug addict. He doesn’t inspire his students to achieve, he relates to them as a human being the best he can, despite his flaws. This is a very small film, very stereotypically indie. Nothing much happens other than characters interacting. If you need big plot developments in order to be interested in a film, then this isn’t for you. But if you get down with the quieter types of stories, where people interact with other people, then you can’t do much better than Half Nelson. Gosling is great and his co-star Shareeka Epps is a really talented young actress. The visual style is handheld and intimate, but never annoying and shaky. The soundtrack is mostly made up of awesome Broken Social Scene songs. I walked into Half Nelson not knowing what to expect and walked out completely blown away. It was one of those sublime filmgoing experiences that only happens very rarely these days due to media saturation and astronomical advertising budgets. I went to see this film on a whim, only half knowing what it was, and came away from it delighted. There is so little discovery left in the world due to our technological connections, and that is sort of a shame.
2-Pan’s Labyrinth *****
Pan’s Labyrinth was a hard film to figure out from its advertisements. There is a little girl, some war stuff, weird looking creatures, and creepy little fairies. It’s visually very dark, but there is a strong fantasy element. Would this be for kids? Tweens? Is this going to be some sort of Labyrinth update? Does this have anything to do with The Dark Crystal? The answer to all these questions is no. This is a very adult film that just happens to have fantasy elements that are usually thought of as being exclusively for kid’s movies. But make no mistake; this is a very brutal, difficult story. The main character is a little girl whose life gets swept up by a bloody civil war, whose stepfather is a very dangerous and powerful man, and who gets her only escape from a reality too horrific for her young mind to handle by interacting with a bunch of mystical creatures inside of a magic labyrinth. Whether this shit is really going down or whether her mind has just broken under the stress is mostly up to you to decide. And while you’re pondering the question you will get to watch an interesting story play out that’s brought to life by both some great performances and also some amazing visuals supplied by the production design and the camera work. I didn’t like the things that Guillermo Del Toro did before this, from the few images I’d seen from the movie it seemed like subject matter I wouldn’t be into, and I walked into the theater completely expecting to hate what I was going to see. I haven’t been too thrilled with what Del Toro has done since this, but for this one moment he achieved real greatness in my eyes. I walked out of the theater completely blown away and eager to own a copy of the movie for myself. It’s something to revisit.
1-Children of Men *****
