The Best Movies of 2006
Dec. 30th, 2006 01:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fancycwabsI'm kidding. I only saw 19 movies in all of 2006, so I can go through them all here.
Brokeback Mountain was a pretty good movie, but it suffered from what I considered to be the same problem that occurs with much of what's considered "gay" cinema. A story that would be barely considered as material for Lifetime suddenly becomes momentous just because the forbidden love is gay forbidden love. Compare with Angels in America, which, though ostensibly a gay love story, has emotional resonance and depth.
Divine Manipulation of The Threads was a local independent production, and for a movie made with no money and no name actors on weekends and evenings, it was actually pretty good.
I probably would have enjoyed V for Vendetta more had I not read the graphic novel--but then I guess that's true of Lord of the Rings, as well. Even so, I thought the Wachowskis did a bang-up job of translating what I thought would be too dense a story onto film, and I had a blast watching it.
Inside Man didn't really feel like a Spike Lee joint. It was a pleasant enough diversion, of course, but the best parts of the film were the post-crime interviews with the victims. The overarching story of Captain Von Trapp and his diamonds didn't resonate with me.
Thank You for Smoking was, I imagine, funnier as a book. It still made an entertaining film, but I'd forgotten I watched it until going through the list of films released in 2006.
Mission Impossible III kicked off the summer movie season in style. For the record, I hated the first movie (when did Brian DePalma start sucking as a director?), and fell asleep during the second, but this one was certainly firing on all cylinders. Unfortunately, Tom Cruise's personal life seemed to consistently interfere with the box office.
I despised The Da Vinci Code. The book, anyway. Fortunately, what ended up being too stupid to read on paper ended up being just stupid enough on celluloid, and the movie was okay. Now if the theater could have worked out their technical problems...
I want to forget that they made X-Men: The Last Stand at all. Not that it didn't have its moments, but between those moments there was one seriously crappy movie.
Cars is probably my least-favorite Pixar movie, probably because John Lasseter let his love of nostalgia and his love of automobiles get in the way of his love of storytelling. Because I'm not a racing fan, most of the cameos were completely lost on me, and even if I'd been familiar with the people/cars, it would have been a distraction from the meat of the story. That said, being the worst Pixar movie ever made is hardly something to be ashamed of.
Superman Returns was little more than a remake of the original Superman, The Movie, hitting all the same beats and having approximately the same plot. Still, it's nice to see some consistency in Superman's abilities, and a certain amount of emotional complexity in his character.
Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest ended up being everything I was afraid Pirates of the Carribean: Curse of The Black Pearl would be. Overblown, noisy, hokey, contrived, unimaginative, and occasionally plodding. As I'm pretty sure I'm required to see the final one next year, I hope Gore Vidal can improve without the time pressure he seemed to have on this one.
A Scanner Darkly was visually impressive and a pretty good movie to boot, but it left me wondering if it might have been better to have done the film as straight-up sci-fi with minor special effects when needed instead of rotoscoping the whole film.
Clerks II proved that Kevin Smith does his best work when he has nothing to prove.
Snakes on a Plane was the best movie about snakes on a plane ever.
The Black Dahlia was another shining example of Brian DePalma sucking as a director. "Ooh! Look at this camera shot of a body falling! Isn't this great?" It also made me appreciate the contribution that Danny DeVito's character made to L.A. Confidential, allowing Ellroy's witty noir poetry to be read aloud without becoming the primary mode of exposition.
The Departed was head and shoulders above anything else I've seen this year, marking Scorcese's return to the form that had people consistently wondering why he hadn't won a best director Oscar yet. As good as his last couple of outings with DiCaprio might have been, The Departed really had a pulse and a feeling that there was no experimentation going on, just pure storytelling.
The Prestige was a lot more fun than the other magicians-doing-their-thing-for-love film released in 2006, The Illusionist (which I saw about 3/4's of on the plane from Beijing to Tokyo).
Borat was both wildly funny and mildly offensive, but in its Kaufmanesque way is much more entertaining as a series of lawsuits and press releases of the "victims" of the joke.
Casino Royale made me realize just how much Bond movies have stunk during my lifetime. Until now, anyway. I do miss hot naked chicks in the opening credits, however.
Brokeback Mountain was a pretty good movie, but it suffered from what I considered to be the same problem that occurs with much of what's considered "gay" cinema. A story that would be barely considered as material for Lifetime suddenly becomes momentous just because the forbidden love is gay forbidden love. Compare with Angels in America, which, though ostensibly a gay love story, has emotional resonance and depth.
Divine Manipulation of The Threads was a local independent production, and for a movie made with no money and no name actors on weekends and evenings, it was actually pretty good.
I probably would have enjoyed V for Vendetta more had I not read the graphic novel--but then I guess that's true of Lord of the Rings, as well. Even so, I thought the Wachowskis did a bang-up job of translating what I thought would be too dense a story onto film, and I had a blast watching it.
Inside Man didn't really feel like a Spike Lee joint. It was a pleasant enough diversion, of course, but the best parts of the film were the post-crime interviews with the victims. The overarching story of Captain Von Trapp and his diamonds didn't resonate with me.
Thank You for Smoking was, I imagine, funnier as a book. It still made an entertaining film, but I'd forgotten I watched it until going through the list of films released in 2006.
Mission Impossible III kicked off the summer movie season in style. For the record, I hated the first movie (when did Brian DePalma start sucking as a director?), and fell asleep during the second, but this one was certainly firing on all cylinders. Unfortunately, Tom Cruise's personal life seemed to consistently interfere with the box office.
I despised The Da Vinci Code. The book, anyway. Fortunately, what ended up being too stupid to read on paper ended up being just stupid enough on celluloid, and the movie was okay. Now if the theater could have worked out their technical problems...
I want to forget that they made X-Men: The Last Stand at all. Not that it didn't have its moments, but between those moments there was one seriously crappy movie.
Cars is probably my least-favorite Pixar movie, probably because John Lasseter let his love of nostalgia and his love of automobiles get in the way of his love of storytelling. Because I'm not a racing fan, most of the cameos were completely lost on me, and even if I'd been familiar with the people/cars, it would have been a distraction from the meat of the story. That said, being the worst Pixar movie ever made is hardly something to be ashamed of.
Superman Returns was little more than a remake of the original Superman, The Movie, hitting all the same beats and having approximately the same plot. Still, it's nice to see some consistency in Superman's abilities, and a certain amount of emotional complexity in his character.
Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest ended up being everything I was afraid Pirates of the Carribean: Curse of The Black Pearl would be. Overblown, noisy, hokey, contrived, unimaginative, and occasionally plodding. As I'm pretty sure I'm required to see the final one next year, I hope Gore Vidal can improve without the time pressure he seemed to have on this one.
A Scanner Darkly was visually impressive and a pretty good movie to boot, but it left me wondering if it might have been better to have done the film as straight-up sci-fi with minor special effects when needed instead of rotoscoping the whole film.
Clerks II proved that Kevin Smith does his best work when he has nothing to prove.
Snakes on a Plane was the best movie about snakes on a plane ever.
The Black Dahlia was another shining example of Brian DePalma sucking as a director. "Ooh! Look at this camera shot of a body falling! Isn't this great?" It also made me appreciate the contribution that Danny DeVito's character made to L.A. Confidential, allowing Ellroy's witty noir poetry to be read aloud without becoming the primary mode of exposition.
The Departed was head and shoulders above anything else I've seen this year, marking Scorcese's return to the form that had people consistently wondering why he hadn't won a best director Oscar yet. As good as his last couple of outings with DiCaprio might have been, The Departed really had a pulse and a feeling that there was no experimentation going on, just pure storytelling.
The Prestige was a lot more fun than the other magicians-doing-their-thing-for-love film released in 2006, The Illusionist (which I saw about 3/4's of on the plane from Beijing to Tokyo).
Borat was both wildly funny and mildly offensive, but in its Kaufmanesque way is much more entertaining as a series of lawsuits and press releases of the "victims" of the joke.
Casino Royale made me realize just how much Bond movies have stunk during my lifetime. Until now, anyway. I do miss hot naked chicks in the opening credits, however.
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