The Best Film of 2006

1. The Queen
Directed by Stephen Frears
We are amused. Stephen Frears' deeply human and surprisingly funny biopic depicts the effect of the death of Princess Diana on England’s Queen (Helen Mirren) and new Prime Minister (Michael Sheen). This impeccably paced drama captures the event as the shockwaves travel all the way down the cultural ladder to affect blubbering well-wishers on the street who value the fallen Di, referred to as the People's Princess, more than their own Queen. Mirren's contemplative turn as the stubborn but dedicated monarch who clashes with the popular will of the people like a parent to her child is, of course, this year's biggest revelation. In a rare but revealing moment of introspection, the Queen's line "You don't think that what affection people once had for me... for this institution has been diminished?" reveals this film's vital message, that this character is both the embodiment of an institution and a person too. On the surface The Queen looks to be about a stuffy old British lady in sitting in her room and not reacting to or show emotion over a person she didn't like. All that can be said on this point is that no one was more surprised than myself to discover that this seemingly underwhelming subject matter made for the most thrilling experience at the movies this year. The most thoughtful and engaging as well. To put it another way, The Queen is about so much more than its plot. Frears and screenwriter Peter Morgan have crafted a remarkably nuanced portrait of a modern nation inextricably fused with tradition. Looking beyond images relating to public mourning processions and the Queen watching television in bed as caustic media blitzes are lobbed against the cagey Royal family, I found a film that playfully examines issues of nationality, modernization, family, loss, duty, identity as well as grand themes relating to a nation's past (represented by the Queen herself), its present (the immediacy Diana's death as captured by constant media coverage) and its ambiguous future (the rise and foreshadowed fall of Tony Blair). The Queen rules.

2. Children of Men
Directed by Alfonso Cuaron

The second film on my list is also about England. And somewhat similar to The Queen here is a film where the nation's leaders abandon their people and the people, in turn, have abandoned hope. Alfonso Cuaron's fearless epic represents cinema's first post-apocalyptic/post-9-11 statement. And it's the first masterpiece of its kind. In the most dynamic display of filmmaking this year, Cuaron throws his audience, full force, into a premise consisting of the only fertile woman in a world gone sterile, then mad. From the womb to the streets, the sense of emptiness is pervasive while a pinhole glimmer of hope is provided by Clive Owen in his struggle to believe that mankind is worth fighting for. The powerful emotional resonance and topical, we're-almost-here vibe give Children of Men the edge over most science fiction stories. The film is part Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange, part Paul Greengrass' vérité shooting style and, if you can believe it, part first person gaming in the sense that the viewer is thrown into the thick of events that are transpiring in 360°degrees. I defy you to find a more complete film released in 2006.

3. Lady Vengeance
Directed by Chan-wook Park

At the vanguard of sadistic-woman-getting-her-daughter-back-by-torturing-her-father-figure revenge films, Kill Bill was in a class of its own for a while there. However Lady Vengeance poses a direct threat to Bill's reign. By turning a woman's anger and loss into a blissfully orchestrated mosaic of poetic violence and surreal melodrama, this is not only the best film in Chan-wook Park’s Vengeance trilogy but one of the most artful and calculating (not to mention demented) revenge films ever made.

4. Inland Empire
Directed by David Lynch
In 2006 I saw approximately one hundred new films. None of them were similar in any way shape or form(alism) to David Lynch’s staggering achievement known as Inland Empire. None ever will be like Inland Empire, a film that follows its own rhythms and even creates its own language. Not only does David Lynch do his best Persona impression with a smile and a sense of sadism but the famously frustrating filmmaker loses himself in a world that explores the nature of realty and film only to mash the two entities into one indistinguishable globule of abstract weirdness. Despite its seeming incoherence, this is Lynch's most self aware, humorous and possibly even personal work to date. It's also his most indulgent. Here is a film made by a director that only seems half cognizant of the ideas and non-ideas he's projecting; Lynch's famously coy quote "I don't know what a lot of things mean" remains ever the determining factor in approaching his work this time around. As a product of impressionistic art, then, either Inland Empire will either draw you in or it will keep you at a maddening distance. Those who do not respond favorably will have a aggravating, dislocating and virtually impenetrable experience. Those who do will essentially experience the same thing.  

5. United 93
Directed by Paul Greengrass

I never want to see United 93 again. The reason for this is because I never need to. The film, like the historical event it’s based on, is burned into the memory.  Here is one of those rare works of modern art that indelibly captures a moment in time. Not through filmic devices such as exposition, facts, polemics, lugubrious dramatizations or, for that matter, Spielbergizations but through a visceral realist mainline that has a way of traveling directly from the screen images to the nervous system--I didn’t watch United 93 as much as I felt it. This film affected me like no other "realist" work I've ever seen and I never, not once, felt manipulated by Greengrass' instinctive approach. Unlike its historical counterpart World Trade Center, United 93 allowed American audiences to work through their feelings without having their hands held. If you watch this film, you're on your own.  

6. The Prestige
Directed by Christopher Nolan
The Prestige can't be that good. I keep telling myself that. Even as I write this, I'm shaking my head and mouthing these words to myself. So why can't I stop thinking about this magic thriller about dueling magicians?! Here's the thing, this is some of the most fun I've had at the movies all year. That other magic film, The Illusionist, is but a cheap parlor trick compared to Christopher Nolan's cinematic hat trick (note: that bad pun only makes sense if you've seen the film). Along with myself, a number of viewers and critics have commented that Nolan has turned The Prestige, a film about tricks, into trick itself though a cleverly designed script and ingenious editing work by Lee Smith. But nobody that I've known or read has been vocal about how impressive this accomplishment is. Nolan goes one step further by using this dazzling structure to comment on the illusory nature of film, with its viewers reduced to gawking spectators in the magic hall known as a movie theater. What's more, through an admittedly silly ending Nolan seems to be reminding his audience that it's the act of watching the trick performed (or movie played) that is far more important than any fleeting payoff. The reward, in other words, is in the process. This suggests --to me at least-- that The Prestige's real value should not be contingent upon clone-confusing ending or logic gaps but, rather, the film's mesmerizing depiction of obsessed artists who live and (pretend to) die for their craft.  

7. A Cock and Bull Story
Directed by Michael Winterbottom
A modern, postmodern adaptation about the making and unmaking of a literary adaptation based on a postmodern novel written "before there was any post to be modern about.” The film stars Steve Coogan in the role of the eponymous literary character, Tristram Shandy... only, uh, Coogan must play Tristram's dad because, as it happens, the Tristram in question isn't really in the movie. And for that matter, the film in question doesn't really get around to adapting the novel its "based" on because director Michael Winterbottom is more interested in making a film about Coogan, the actor, as he fearlessly plays a Fellini-esq version of himself attempting to play --or not play, as it were-- Tristram Shandy. While the cause célèbre Borat was doing his reality-comedy shtick in the spotlight during the latter part of 2006, this film has been twisting reality all year.

8. Pan's Labyrinth
Directed by Guillermo del Toro
Blood. Check. Magic seals activated by blood. Check. An odd fetish for clockwork. Check. An odder fetish for insects. Check. Children in danger. Check. A Cronenberg-like fixation with flesh, gore and lacerated body parts. Check. No doubt about it: Pan's Labyrinth is Guillermo del Toro film. There can also be no doubt at this point that the writer/director del Toro is an auteur through and through--a fan since listening to his Blade II commentary, it's hard not to say I TOLD YOU SO to the majority of critics in America who have just seemed to discover him. Better late than never. On Pan’s Labyrinth there’s an added component imbedded within del Toro’s baroque vision. I would say heart but the filmmaker’s horror and fantasy works have always been driven by as much passion as style. It might also be tempting to guess a more sophisticated use of symbolism and metaphors but the underrated Hellboy, Cronos and The Devil’s Backbone accomplished all that before Pan came along. What I must be responding to this time around is del Toro’s newfound maturity and restraint as evident in the filmmaker’s ability to blend historical realism with lush fantasy in his surreal Alice in Horrorland narrative. About a child's need for escape in the midst of unspeakable horrors (Franco fascism but the horror is universal) this film is, in the director's own words, a fairy tale for adults. I prefer to think of it as Spirited Away for the R-rated art house/historical/war/horror film crowd and with the "fairy" in question providing a guiding light that takes the viewer through the darkness, beyond the stark realism and straight into a place of the imagination. It’s up to you if you want to read the heroine’s final transcendence into that place as a blissful affair or tragic one. Or both. Either way, Guillermo del Toro has turned one child's despair into an evocative celebration of the imagination. Dream on.

9. The Death of Mister Lazarescu
Directed by Cristi Puiu

The year's second best real time drama! This is a film about a man besieged by pain, stumbling headfirst into his demise. That would qualify The Death of Mister Lazarescu for this year’s Last Days award for the most meaningful film about nothing. Unlike Days (a Michael Bay action film comparatively), Mr. Lazarescu is an unblinking “testimony” that follows a Romanian man (Ion Fiscuteanu, looking like Borat’s sidekick) as he talks to his cats, experiences stomach pain, calls a doctor, drinks booze, takes medicine, gets looked over by a tired paramedic, gets screamed at by a doctor for drinking his life away, and in a dehumanizing twist gets transported back and forth between hospitals without treatment. All the while the pain persists… until it does not. That there, my friends, is the film. But what can be summed up easily can never be captured in words. When Mr. Lazarescu tells a paramedic “we’re all miserable people” his thoughts are infused with the great universal truth of Neo-neorealism at its most pure and unpretentious. This man is in pain therefore the film is about pain. It’s that simple but so much more: a stark allegory of man as he enters into the last phase of life. As we all must, Mister Lazarescu takes this journey alone and naked but through this sober depiction mortal decay, a magical transcendence takes place. The man's last name doesn't sound like Lazarus for nothing.

10. The Proposition
Directed by John Hillcoat
Revisionist, revolting, remarkable. The Proposition represents the new Western much like Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima stands in for the new war film. The trick is to take a genre we all know and make it new. In both cases this is successfully accomplished by way of an elegant cultural transplant in which the brain and memory of a popular American genre is crammed and coded into the body of a different geographical location. The Proposition is an ultraviolent Western. Set in Australia. And it stars Ray Winstone, an Englishman. The chances of this film working were as slim as Quigley Down Under getting a sequel it but, as it stands, the film captures and recreates a vivid outback mythos. One that is of its period and yet remarkably new. As impressive as Hillcoat's dusty creation is, Nick Cave's work as a screenwriter is equally impressive. The fire and brimstone crooner has created the kind of story that cuts to the bone with archetypal characters and an age old biblical/Western storytellin' aesthetic on par with Eastwood's early directed western classics such as High Plains Drifter and Pale Rider. No character in the film feels false. No plotline forced or ironic. In the best male performances of the year, Ray Winstone begins his journey as a heartless lawman on par with Gene Hackman in Unforgiven, with outlaw brothers coming after him for killing their youngest brother. Sounds like any other post-Ford Western but in an interesting turn of events the Winstone character subtly shifts to become the heart of a movie that is not longer about violence and revenge as much as it is a man trying to bring order and honor to his life as well as the untamed Aussie wilderness.

11. Army of Shadows (Jean Pierre Melville)
Released in America for the first time this year, Melville's deadpan Army of Shadows takes the concept of French resistance away from the realm of adventure and glorification and turns it to a point where events surrounding le résistance of Nazis in German occupied France becomes almost prosaic. And through that, a disturbing portrait of urban beauty is reached. This nimble yet cautioned drama mythologizes without aggrandizing. Melville takes a certain pleasure in consuming the viewer with details surrounding the everyday struggle of desperate people who are surrounded by German malevolence. As a slice of life instead of a slice of action, Army of Shadows is able to imbue its subject matter with both an immediate sense of urgency and the timeless quality that all classic films posses. In watching Army of Shadows, a mordant thriller that celebrates those who resisted, I almost forgot that France and the majority of its citizen’s during the war were, shall we say, not as bothered by the presence of Nazis as the noir heroes of Mellville's design. If the genre of French resistance films have traditionally been products of wishful thinking then Army of Shadows is a wish come true.

12. Letters from Iwo Jima (Clint Eastwood)
In keeping with Clint Eastwood’s marvelously classical filmmaking sensibilities, the cinematography in Letters is so bleached out that the film is virtually rendered a black and white film (the picture to your right has not been altered!). The color red, however, stands out strong at crucial moments. The red of the Japanese flag, the red of the sun, the red of the flames, and most important (but sadly) the red of spilled blood. As told from the Japanese perspective, Letters is far superior to Eastwood’s fumbled FOOF (Flags of Our Fathers) because it avoids war clichés by concentrating on the soldiers on the ground and telling their fatalistic stories with great conviction, candor and simplicity. This American made/Japanese language film is compelling not only because it tells a WWII story from a unique point of view (one I’ve never seen told by an actual Japanese filmmaker), but because Eastwood takes his time drawing a forlorn portrait that consists of vividly sketched Japanese soldiers waiting for the daunting American forces to arrive and annihilate. In this respect, Letters is down right apocalyptic in its bleak outlook. Having seen so many WWII films, the effect of identifying with “enemy” soldiers (friends of Hitler no less) and fearing the ruthless Americans onslaught is extraordinary and, if you think about it, a little subversive coming from the old school Republican Eastwood. Far from a gimmick, though, Eastwood displaces war tropes by concentrating on a Japanese army that consists of human beings for once (these are not the aliens that inhabited Michael Bay ’s Pearl Harbor). The cast, headed primarily by a Western educated General played by Ken Watanabe and a low level soldier played brilliantly by Kazunari Ninomiya, are able to generate great tension and humanity as the fog of war closes in on this doomed Japanese island. Most soldiers choose to die for their country but these two central characters stand apart in their attempt to live for their country.

13. The Devil Wears Prada (David Frankel)
The best mainstream comedy of the year is the only comedy of the year with a pulse. When I saw –and loved— Prada on the first weekend of its release, in the back of my mind I feared the backlash that would come with (A) enjoying a film about fashion and (B) enjoying a film about fashion. But the backlash didn’t come so I allowed myself to come out of the fashion closet and declare my appreciation of this winning ensemble.

14. Casino Royale (Martin Campbell)
The most pure Bond film since Bond film's were Bond Films. Put on the list to offset my Prada pick. Also put on the list because it's the best "action" film of the year; a rousing adventure bold enough to slow the action down to a mere simmer as the focus turns to rich character development. Bond was an orphan! Bond is a romantic! And a government hired thug!!! Instead of windsurfing, invisible car car chases and Christmas Jones this film trusts its audience to enjoy a few rounds of high stakes poker played by one of the coolest Bonds ever. Daniel Craig, I can't wait to see you put on the tux again.

15. Slither (James Gunn)

Snakes on a Plane, at the very least, did one thing right last year. It provided us with a perfect example of how not to be a deliberately bad B-movie because beneath the bad B-movie is an actual bad movie. Slither on the other hand hits a home run in the camp game because underneath the thin layer of sci-fi trash is a frothy genre film that can be enjoyed for what it is. Slither is a proud gross out flick that gets rolling when slugs from space invade a Middle American town, turning its dull witted denizens into duller witted zombies. It’s hard to tell the difference at times (which is t he point!) but when the awesomely deadpan Nathan Fillion is the only man who can find the source of the brain washing blob and save the world, count me in for some lovin'. As for his assessment of the situation, "Well, now, that is some fucked up shit," I couldn't have described the film better myself. One of many bonuses is that the film can also be read as a rather tart indictment of the infectious “disease” that represents -get this- fundamentalist Christian fanaticism spreading throughout the rural parts of the nation and liquefying our corn fed brains. Allegorical Alien Zombies Meet Middle America gags such as a zombie priest, a fallen cross, and a plethora of Jesus name droppings that are followed by retorts like "Praise Jesus? That's fucking pushing it! This shit is about as far from God as shit can get!" (courtesy the great character actor Gregg Henry), take the critique to its absurdist heights. But even if I'm reading too much into this film, Slither is still a frivolous genre throwback well worth anyone's (read: mine) praise. As directed by Troma disciple James Gunn, Slither, above all, gets credit for reviving a certain drive-in tendency in science fiction. Not counting underrated rarities such as Serenity, Tremors, Starship Troopers and Mars Attacks (yack! yack!) the cinema has been lacking a good dose of humor in its sci-fi. The genre has fallen into far too serious, self important, and CGI-dependent modes these days (just try to find an intentional laugh in Riddick!). So much so that it’s easy to forget a time when science fiction was free to treat absurd situations... absurdly!

16. Full Metal Alchemist: The Movie (Seiaji Mizushima)
Full Metal Alchemist indulges in a free-floating exhibition of anime pastiche in which alternate realities, alchemy, magic, science, time travel, the Weimer republic, inter-dimensional wars spilling over into World Wars, Hitler, gypsies, dragons, robots, zombie robots, ZOMBIE ROBOT NAZIS and --f'r the hell of it—a wily anime version of German director Fritz Lang all coexist in a tightly coiled hodgepodge of confounding animated splendor. Now, I've only watched a couple episodes of the series but that didn’t stop me from getting involved in a deep mystery surrounding two alchemist brothers and their parallel universe counterparts; one of whom has a soul that resides inside a robot. How cool is that? And how confusing, too? By not concerning myself with the details (or logic for that matter) I was sufficiently rewarded with a story that pulled me in with an epic fantasy hook only to let loose with a wild and entirely unexpected revisionist anime appropriation of European history. The insular mythology of the show takes a step back to allow for a grand allegory involving a pre-war Germany that rejects dreams and places value on science. Unlike history however this film dares to imagine a past where dreams are able to fight back. By taking characters from a very specific fantasy world and introducing them to our world and our past, director Seiaji Mizushima has not only boldly redefined the boundaries and genre of his show, but he has created one hell of a kick ass anime version of Inland Empire.

17. The Good Shepard (Bobby D)
How's the weather? It's warm enough to go fishing. –shifty eyes– One man puts his hat on the table. The two men then walk away, all stiff like. Three hours of this! From code talk being spoken by characters we can’t identify with to blurry flashbacks (is it the late 40s now or the early sixties?), this should not have made for a exciting time in theaters this winter. And, yet, the tension absolutely kills. Robert De Niro connects the dots of cold war dealings, domestic drama, action, intrigue and the historical birth of a sketchy institution we know as the CIA (which the film claims has become the hollow soul of this nation) through the eyes of a detached agent (Mad Damon) with all the aplomb of an established filmmaker. The Good Shepard is dense to be sure but it's a sturdy product that benefits from its director's ambitious. De Niro actually seems passionate about something! His epic period piece demystifies the origins of the agency while at the same time evoking great mystery through dense plots, provocative theories, and convoluted character motivations. Handling this historical epic of shadows with confidence, De Niro turns out to be much better director than I gave him credit for after seeing the sophomoric A Bronx Tale. Nothing sophomoric here, except the fact that it’s his sophomoric (as in second) effort. And what a difference a second film makes. De Niro "the filmmaker" has now officially become a viable title--Bobby's directing work is certainly better than any performance he's slept through in at least a decade. Well, the dude's wide awake on The Good Shepard. With this film De Niro has even outpaced his counterpart, Martin Scorsese's The Departed by displaying more restraint and clarity when faced with the similarly daunting task of orchestrating a complex script with a multitude of unlikable characters. There are of course flaws: the production's inability to trim excess scenes and give Angelina Jolie something to do beyond puffing up her lips and blubbering can and should be viewed as detrimental to De Niro and screenwriter Joe Roth's overall vision. However, such general indulgences that include length problems and uneven family melodrama subplots (just wait till you see how the Bay of Pig's really went down) end up helping to further the film's point; that family life, for the lead character, is excruciating, drawn out, and unbearable compared to the seductive darkness that waits just outside the front door. I’ve saved the last bit of praise for Matt Damon. It's got to be hard to depict the decay of American values in one character's journey but Damon pulls this off with a steely, baby faced seductiveness that I haven't seen since Pacino stepped onto the set of The Godfather. Without Damon subtle turn we'd have to settle for calling De Niro's film The Okay Shepard.

18. Russian Dolls (Cedric Klapisch)
How rare is it to see a character driven, intrinsically European sequel to a film not involving superheroes or Chainsaw massacres? The adventures of Xander (Romain Duras) continue in the delightfully disjointed sex comedy Russian Dolls. When we last heard from Xander --the Benjamin Braddock of France-- he abandoned his dreary goals of becoming a business major to concentrate on doing what he loves most, writing. This film picks up with with Xander at his laptop. Just as creativity strikes the battery goes out. It's out of power. “Mert!” It’s as if time is draining Xander’s expressiveness and the character spends the whole film trying to get the power back, metaphorically of course. When not writing, the pressures of relationships are just as daunting. Never resting, always on the hunt, this Pepé-Le-Pewian cad goes up an down, back and forth, and in and out of relationships, dropping lines like “if I were you I would call me” with a boyish grin indicating that not even Xander is buying into his own bullshit. In The Spanish Apartment, Xander’s social existentialism made for a charming --if a bit trite and sitcomy-- parable about identity, indecision the possibility of European unity. In this follow-up, Xander's slightly older but none the wiser personality is taken to the next level. Duras' character feels fuller this time around and the film, manic in the plot department, sure, benefits from from having a strong center. The message this time around is that the global community might not be the answer and that personal responsibility and autonomy is. In fact, Xander has become an embittered "victim" of the very lofty global ideals that scented his previous Euro trip. Perhaps, this film argues, he should have stuck to being a business major. Or not. Whatever. Forget all that because even more interesting is how the film gradually moves away from EU metaphors by offering in its place a bright buffet of romanticism. Indulgent, yes, but this is such an appealing truffle of euro comfort food that I couldn't turn it down. Above all Xander must confront the possibility that he needs settle down and "grow up." Does he? The fun does not belong to the answer but in watching the steps Xander takes towards getting to such a place where an answer is possible.

19. Three Times (Hsiao-hsien Hou)
Three stories told three different ways. All lifted by the great and moving force of love. But love in this film is treated as an objective/abstracted concept that has a way of slowing matter down and changing the very nature of time. In this experimental love story, director Hsiao-hsien Hou (Millennium Mambo) cautiously captures chapters from a string of precarious relationships played by the same two actors in all three instances, Qi Shu and Chen Chang. The two engage in a dance that is hopeful in one section, tangled in another and destructive in the final. Three Times makes this crowded list because it had such a calming effect on me. It's a tone poem, really. But this film doesn’t test the viewer as much as it sooths and saddens with passive images connected to, one can presume, passionate relationships. Unhurried pacing and ethereal rhythms allowed me to freely navigate this brilliantly designed concept and enjoy the contemplative nature of the images rather than the specificities of story—this is especially true in the languid first section which is set in a pool hall and in the bold middle section set in 1911 and told through discourse of silent films. Style wise, we’re talking the distance of Edward Yang's images with the modernist charms of a Wong Kar Wai film. You may also recall the concept as being similar to this year’s The Fountain. But make no mistake, there's nothing else like it.

20. Mutual Appreciation (Andrew Bujalski)
The indie American version of Russian Dolls. But without as much sex. And a lot more music. And a lot nerdier. "He's... really nervous." a character says of the aimless character Alan. I've heard "John Casseveties for the new..." whispers going around but I just as easily see a Woody Allen influence with a touch High Fidelity's comic soul searching though music metaphors. This is not to say that filmmaker Andrew Bujalski doesn't have his own voice. In fact, the writer/director/producer/actor's minimalism speaks louder than just about any indie filmmaker out there today. If I were to narrow things down into something resembling a compliment, I would say that uncomfortable social situations and rambling dialogue is played off casually instead of for laughs (compare this film to the shallow "independent" Little Miss Sunshine and you may, like me, resent that film for being so arch and false). The three main characters in this film sit around. That's the extent of the plot (here is the one film this year to challenge Mister Lazarescu in its celebration of non-events). During marathon sitting sessions, characters toss down as many lame insights as beers; how does the line “we started a club... it's called the cool-exclusive club” grab you? Dumb? Pretty much. While this style of self aware dialogue (almost) brings back painful 90s memories of bad Hal Hartley films, the catch is that the characters that inhabit the stripped down sets of Mutual Appreciation don't sound indie-movie clever. In other words, it doesn't sound as if the screenwriter is using his characters to talk to himself. These characters are actually quite natural in their pseudo-profound babbling and their aimless chatter mirrors their lives. But... no pressure, this film says it's okay to be aimless as long as you have friends. I like that. It's hard to express why it's so refreshing to see a film about people of average intelligence sitting on couches and talking but, there you have it. I found it comforting easing myself into this unassuming milieu that consists of bored people connecting without really spilling their hearts open through lathered up Sundance histrionics. The main character Alan, a musician tugging silently through a 20-something mumble crisis, is likable even when he's being a complete idiot (this film has, perhaps, the best break up scene in recent memory). In my view, Alan's likeability is due to his relateability. Which brings me to my final point: Mutual Appreciation is the only film I saw all year that I could relate on some sort of personal level. The lead character is a hipster twenty something musician with girl problems, job problems, ambition problems, and communication problems—last year I was all that minus the hipster and musician part so... count me in for some appreciation.  

Wild Card Pick: Cache
This masterpiece was released at the end of 2005 and I regrettably missed what was sure to be a top ten placing film. Damn! List or not, I haven’t stopped thinking about this creepy mood piece from Michael Haneke. The film is about sins from a man’s (and nation's) past haunting his present but to describe it is folly. Lynch’s Lost Highway meets Hitchcock’s paranoia is the closest one to get to approximating the surreal and still mood of this film. This is one of the most adroit and precise stalker films I’ve ever seen. This is also one of the only films from last year that I'm still trying to figure out this year.

Alternate Wild Card Pick (a.k.a. guilty pleasure pick):
Crank
Last but not least there was Crank. Actually, listing Crank, for most, is a case of last but least. About a hit man that has learned he's been infected with a drug that will kill him if his adrenaline dies down, this is one of those action/comedy hybrid concept films that goes for broke, and then breaks what's broke into a fine dist, and then snorts the dust off the ground to get a buzz. Jason Statham (who is practically a genre of film at this point) runs, bangs, bombs, snorts, injects, drinks Red Bull and kills for, like, 90 straight minutes of hyper manic screen time. Dumb action? Of course, but the film may also be saying something about the pressures placed upon the modern male--a figure whose workhorse constitution is tested to its limits. The film is like Speed but featuring a human body instead of a bus.

Four films listed this year deal with the interplay of fantasy with reality. Inland Empire, The Prestige, Pan's Labyrinth and Fullmetal Alchemist. An additional three (Children of Men, Slither and Lady Vengeance) explored similarly fertile ground by creating strange new worlds and then imploding them before my very eyes; worlds full of scathing political allegories and a warped sense of realism (which apocalypse would rather live in, the one where there are no children and everyone is trying to kill you or the one where everyone in Middle America has been “converted” into zombies… that are trying to kill you?)

Even The Queen and Flags of Our Fathers got in on the action by articulating a wordless tension that exists between the reality of a situation and public perception it. This sense of tension and deconstruction of reality defined the films of 2006 and there can be no doubt that the dark tones and questioning mood we witnessed in the movies this year are reflections of, quite simply, what’s out there. Of being abandoned by our leaders. Be it an exploration of existentialism and a socially inscribed liminality (as evident in The Death of Mister Lazarescu, Russian Dolls, and Mutual Appreciation) or horror existentialism venturing on nihilistic horror (Army of Shadows, Pan’s Laybrenth, Letters From Iwo Jima, United 93), the films of 2006 kicked my ass and had me questioning everything. In fact, no great film this year let me off easy except perhaps for The Devil Wears Prada. And that’s a film about a New York working girl getting ritualistically abused by her boss! Not even James Bond seemed to know who he was this year. And finally, there was the United 93. A film that managed to feel more shocking and visceral than the event it was based on. No longer was there the feelings of dislocation and distance but, now, true horror and fright. This film (and most others listed here) made me face a harsh reality and a harsher unreality.

Speaking of depressing. I made it a point to see every film that opened number one (or close to) at the box office. This was painful. But totally illuminating and, truth be told, something I plan to continue next year. Yes, I can be snobby but after seeing so many “popular” films and connecting to commercial filmmaking I now feel I have a right to be a dick about how bad people’s taste are—that’s probably because my taste is getting worse. How else to explain my love for Crank! A cursory exploration of the popular films of this year indicate that formula, genre, sequels, kids films, football films and horror films dominate the industry at this point in time. Especially horror. If you don't believe me, just try watching these horror films Hostel, Ultraviolet, Stay Alive, Slither, Silent Hill, An American Haunting, See No Evil, Monster House, Lady In The Water, The Descent, The Covenant, The Return, 8 FILMS TO DIE FOR – HORRORFEST, Turistas, Pan’s Labyrinth… horror sequels: Underworld 2, Final Destination 3, Scary Movie 4, The Grudge 2, Saw III… horror remakes: When A Stranger Calls, The Hills Have Eyes, The Omen, Pulse, The Wicker Man, Black Christmas… and this horror prequel: Texas Chainsaw Massacre The Beginning. I caught most of these films and the scariest thing of all is that only Pan’s Labyrinth had some value.

Finally, this year I found myself wildly disappointed with popular films that critic groups and the Academy seemed to buy into. The Departed, Little Miss Sunshine, Little Children, Volver, Flags of Our Fathers, The Illusionist, Venus, Marie Antoinette, Apocalypto, Cars, Babel, The Lives of Others, The Last King of Scotland, and of course Dreamgirls. All contain varying degrees of suck in my opinion and all getting, um, sucked by critic groups. Here’s how out of touch with the Academy I am: The most disappointing film of the year, The Departed, is tied with what is easily the shallowest film of the year, Little Miss Sunshine in its chances of winning the Oscar for Best Picture this year. The only film that might spoil their chances is the deeply flawed Babel while The Queen and Iwo Jima (my favorites) were lucky just to be nominated.