05. Bryan Singer's SUPERMAN RETURNS 
I don't know how Bryan Singer did it. Even if you disliked the film, you have to hand it to Singer. He took what is maybe the biggest project in film history, and, in my opinion, hit the ball out of the park. This is head and shoulders above the original SUPERMAN, which I believe is a good movie but no masterpiece. This is. Brandon Routh is great as the hero who comes back to a different Earth than the one he left five years ago. Though the people on Earth (most inconveniently Lois Lane) don't necessarily want Superman, they need him. SUPERMAN RETURNS is brilliant entertainment. It presents The Man in the Tights as a deeper, more emotionally hardened man than he has ever been on film, and as much as I hate the phrase, it really is a 'wonder to behold'.
04. Darren Aronofsky's THE FOUNTAIN
Look, you either loved THE FOUNTAIN, or you hated it. It was either miraculous or pretentious. I wrote in my review of THE FOUNTAIN that this was the closest I had to a religious experience in a theater this year. This is still true. While flawed in certain areas, most notably in its editing and middle ‘plot line’, Aronofsky has crafted a masterpiece. Dave White wrote “it brings the crazy”, and that’s for damn sure. As the three story lines come together in an orgasmic final twenty minutes, I realized how breathtaking it all was. The two stars, Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz, give powerfully emotional performances, especially Jackman, who has never been better, and the transcendent love story is beautifully told across 1,000 years. The score, set designs, and camera work are all topnotch, and when it hits you, THE FOUNTAIN hits you as hard as any movie this year.
03. Paul Greengrass's UNITED 93
The most soberingly affecting movie of the year doesn’t exploit the tragedy of 9/11 or try to artificially pull at our heartstrings. It is a masterpiece of cinema vérité, with talented director Paul Greengrass opting for the most natural, true-to-life feel possible. First-time actors and some of the people who actually lived through the Day of Hell are used to authentically re-create the ‘flight that fought back” and the FAA crew on the ground who witnessed it all in horror. Greengrass knows he doesn’t need any soap opera bullshit or contrived, cliché-driven characters to tell his story. All the emotion we need for the movie has been permanently burned into our memories. It takes rare skill to re-create the worst day of many people’s lives accurately, and it’s even rarer to get a movie as affecting as UNITED 93.
02. Alfonso Cuarón's CHILDREN OF MEN
A blistering masterpiece. I don't cry at movies, but this is about as close as I've ever come to crying. I'm not usually left with my mouth completely open, eyes wide, and hands sore from clutching the arms of my chair, but several sequences in CHILDREN OF MEN did it to me. It boasts the single best scene of the year, maybe the last decade, which features an astonishingly, almost impossibly long take spanning over seven minutes without a single edit. The movie was virtually shut out at the Oscars (other than Cinematography, which it will easily grab, and a pair of technical nods), but it deserved a lot more publicity (NORBIT topped it's entire American gross within three days) than it got. Director Alfonso Cuarón and D.P. Emmanuel Lubezki have created the most sweeping, haunting future world in the history of film, in my opinion, in which the world has gone to shit in the wake of women being infertile for eighteen years. England is the only country that has 'soldiered on', but Clive Owen's Theo says 'who cares?' His character is deep and turns out to have one of the most affecting character arcs in recent memory by the end of the film, as he goes from loser to savior as he transports the world's first pregnant women in nearly two decades (played beautifully by Claire-Hope Ashitey, who was completely shut out, awards-wise in my opinion) to safety. A godsend of a film.
01. Martin Scorsese's THE DEPARTED
Several adjectives could describe THE DEPARTED. Dark. Brooding. Hilarious. Heartfelt. Emotional. Powerful. Awesome. Genius. Artistic culmination. Intense. Extraordinarily-acted. Extra-ordinarily directed. Extraordinarily-written (it's pretty damn extraordinary). Maybe the best word is simple, 'perfect'.
Unquestionably the best film of 2006. I’ve seen it four times in theater, and I would just as soon see it four more times. It is also director Martin Scorsese’s best film in my opinion. A blistering, riveting, darkly hilarious masterwork, THE DEPARTED is a great tale of megalomanicality about cops and gangsters in Boston. Jack Nicholson is the loose cannon crime boss, with his fingers deep into everything that goes on in the town. Leo DiCaprio and Matt Damon play two sides of the same coin as a cop who infiltrates Nicholson’s crime syndicate and a gangster who infiltrates the cops. This is the best and most emotionally challenging work of DiCaprio and Damon’s careers, and Nicholson has a lot of fun in one of his deepest, most twisted performances in his illustrious career, as the crime boss who has everything but still wants more, no matter what the cost. Mark Wahlberg, Vera Farminga, Martin Sheen, and Alec Baldwin are all solid as well in the film that deserves to end Martin Scorsese’s thirty-five year quest for those elusive Best Director and Best Picture Oscars.
I don't know how Bryan Singer did it. Even if you disliked the film, you have to hand it to Singer. He took what is maybe the biggest project in film history, and, in my opinion, hit the ball out of the park. This is head and shoulders above the original SUPERMAN, which I believe is a good movie but no masterpiece. This is. Brandon Routh is great as the hero who comes back to a different Earth than the one he left five years ago. Though the people on Earth (most inconveniently Lois Lane) don't necessarily want Superman, they need him. SUPERMAN RETURNS is brilliant entertainment. It presents The Man in the Tights as a deeper, more emotionally hardened man than he has ever been on film, and as much as I hate the phrase, it really is a 'wonder to behold'.
04. Darren Aronofsky's THE FOUNTAIN
Look, you either loved THE FOUNTAIN, or you hated it. It was either miraculous or pretentious. I wrote in my review of THE FOUNTAIN that this was the closest I had to a religious experience in a theater this year. This is still true. While flawed in certain areas, most notably in its editing and middle ‘plot line’, Aronofsky has crafted a masterpiece. Dave White wrote “it brings the crazy”, and that’s for damn sure. As the three story lines come together in an orgasmic final twenty minutes, I realized how breathtaking it all was. The two stars, Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz, give powerfully emotional performances, especially Jackman, who has never been better, and the transcendent love story is beautifully told across 1,000 years. The score, set designs, and camera work are all topnotch, and when it hits you, THE FOUNTAIN hits you as hard as any movie this year.
03. Paul Greengrass's UNITED 93
The most soberingly affecting movie of the year doesn’t exploit the tragedy of 9/11 or try to artificially pull at our heartstrings. It is a masterpiece of cinema vérité, with talented director Paul Greengrass opting for the most natural, true-to-life feel possible. First-time actors and some of the people who actually lived through the Day of Hell are used to authentically re-create the ‘flight that fought back” and the FAA crew on the ground who witnessed it all in horror. Greengrass knows he doesn’t need any soap opera bullshit or contrived, cliché-driven characters to tell his story. All the emotion we need for the movie has been permanently burned into our memories. It takes rare skill to re-create the worst day of many people’s lives accurately, and it’s even rarer to get a movie as affecting as UNITED 93.
And the true-blue masterpieces that I believe are going to last the longest with me...
02. Alfonso Cuarón's CHILDREN OF MEN
A blistering masterpiece. I don't cry at movies, but this is about as close as I've ever come to crying. I'm not usually left with my mouth completely open, eyes wide, and hands sore from clutching the arms of my chair, but several sequences in CHILDREN OF MEN did it to me. It boasts the single best scene of the year, maybe the last decade, which features an astonishingly, almost impossibly long take spanning over seven minutes without a single edit. The movie was virtually shut out at the Oscars (other than Cinematography, which it will easily grab, and a pair of technical nods), but it deserved a lot more publicity (NORBIT topped it's entire American gross within three days) than it got. Director Alfonso Cuarón and D.P. Emmanuel Lubezki have created the most sweeping, haunting future world in the history of film, in my opinion, in which the world has gone to shit in the wake of women being infertile for eighteen years. England is the only country that has 'soldiered on', but Clive Owen's Theo says 'who cares?' His character is deep and turns out to have one of the most affecting character arcs in recent memory by the end of the film, as he goes from loser to savior as he transports the world's first pregnant women in nearly two decades (played beautifully by Claire-Hope Ashitey, who was completely shut out, awards-wise in my opinion) to safety. A godsend of a film.
01. Martin Scorsese's THE DEPARTED
Several adjectives could describe THE DEPARTED. Dark. Brooding. Hilarious. Heartfelt. Emotional. Powerful. Awesome. Genius. Artistic culmination. Intense. Extraordinarily-acted. Extra-ordinarily directed. Extraordinarily-written (it's pretty damn extraordinary). Maybe the best word is simple, 'perfect'.
Unquestionably the best film of 2006. I’ve seen it four times in theater, and I would just as soon see it four more times. It is also director Martin Scorsese’s best film in my opinion. A blistering, riveting, darkly hilarious masterwork, THE DEPARTED is a great tale of megalomanicality about cops and gangsters in Boston. Jack Nicholson is the loose cannon crime boss, with his fingers deep into everything that goes on in the town. Leo DiCaprio and Matt Damon play two sides of the same coin as a cop who infiltrates Nicholson’s crime syndicate and a gangster who infiltrates the cops. This is the best and most emotionally challenging work of DiCaprio and Damon’s careers, and Nicholson has a lot of fun in one of his deepest, most twisted performances in his illustrious career, as the crime boss who has everything but still wants more, no matter what the cost. Mark Wahlberg, Vera Farminga, Martin Sheen, and Alec Baldwin are all solid as well in the film that deserves to end Martin Scorsese’s thirty-five year quest for those elusive Best Director and Best Picture Oscars.
PS- I did all the pics for the list. Feel free to oggle/comment/praise.
1 comment:
i loved reading the list. Your Top 3 are all in my Top 5, and there isn't a film on your Top 15 that I thought shouldn't have been there (except maybe Little Miss Sunshine).
great job.
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