Update: I didn't realize it at the time, but this was my 100th post!
As I alluded to in a previous post, I've decided to do the retrospective differently this year. Instead of listing every single movie and writing a well-thought-out mini-review for each of them, I'm just going to address some standouts (you may call them awards, if you like) and then just throw out the complete list at the bottom for those who are interested. I'll probably add a comment to most of the movies on that list, but I'm not requiring myself to do so.
Mind you, as I did last year, I'm only including movies that I actually saw in a movie theater between 1/1/06 and 12/31/06.
Alrighty then, let's get the negative stuff out of the way first.
WORST MOVIE OF 2006
WINNER (or LOSER): Failure To Launch - Easy choice. So very easy. Romantic comedies are, for me, only mildly interesting, and the seemingly necessary need to put in some conflict, usually in the form of a misunderstanding or a bonehead move on the part of one of the parties, usually doesn't sit all that well with me. But I tolerate them and move on. Sometimes I even enjoy them (The Break Up springs to mind, but there are better ones too.)
Failure to Launch took it further, however, by having some of the most reprehensible characters ever to foul a movie screen. I'm talking, of course, of the parents and the soulless harpy that they hire to emotionally manipulate their son into leaving home because they completely lack the cajones to, oh I don't know, actually have a talk with him about their issues with his sponging off them.
Seriously, the mom does his laundry, cleans his room, cooks him his meals, and never says a word to him about it. But when mom and dad decide that enough's enough, do they go to their son and say "Son, maybe it's time you started pulling your own weight around here, or, even better, got your own place again"?
Why, as a matter of fact, they don't. They hire a woman who apparently has made an actual professional career of dating grown men who live with their parents (the syndrome is called "Failure to Launch", which would make for a snappy movie title, don't'cha think?), get them into a meaningful relationship that, for some reason, will, by itself, make them want to move out of their parents house, and then she dumps them and moves on once they've gotten their own place. Nice lady. I wonder if she strangles their dog on the way out the door too, just to put some punctuation on the abrupt end to their supposedly meaningful relationship.
Now, even if our hero (such as he is - he does use his living arrangement to scare off the ladies when they get too close, so he's not exactly a saint either) had been living with his parents non-stop for all of his 30-some years, that would be bad enough. But (I'm getting into spoilers now - I hope you forgive me) he has lived on his own before. He had a serious relationship with a woman before (he might have been married - I don't remember - but I don't think so.) And the girlfriend/wife died. So now he's being manipulated into finally loving someone again. Loving someone who's only with him because she's paid to do so and who has every intention of throwing him away as soon as her mission is done. You can't blame her for not knowing that part, since neither parent bothered to mention that little nugget of info. But the parents know his past, know why he moved back home, know why he's acting like a big teenager, and yet show no sensitivity to that whatsoever. Instead they passive-aggressively trick him into leaving home. And spend part of his inheritance on the project.
Of course, this time the mean lady falls in love with her clients' unwanted growth, and when our hero finds out the truth and sends her on her way, she's so sad. Boo-hoo-hoo. It's a relationship founded on a pretty gorram lowdown lie. It was doomed to fail anyway. Consider it a lesson learned and try to do better by the next guy that you go out with.
But that wouldn't work in a romantic comedy, especially not one with wacky friends who think that the best way to get people to fall back in love is to lock them in a room and force them to talk it out while the friends (and everyone else in the coffeehouse) watch it all happen on webcam. How wacky! Of course it works, making the ending not as good as the ideal ending wherein our hero would tell her that she is a truly horrible person and then take an axe to the door (after repressing the urge to use it on her first, of course) and leave the premises. Roll credits.
M has asked me to note that she liked the movie and thinks that I took it too seriously.
RUNNER-UP: C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America - Lots of potential, mediocre delivery. It came across too much like something you might see on The History Channel or PBS or whatever channel does those "what if there had been TV news in the 14th century?" shows. The writing and the acting seemed a little too forced.
Delivery aside, however, it did make me think about how different - and how similar - actual U.S. History has been. In some ways, it wasn't so much "what would have happened if the South won the Civil War" as it was "what if race attitudes hadn't changed since the early 20th century?" That's especially apparent in the "commericials" that are interspersed throughout the "documentary".
If only it had played more like an actual documentary. I mean, come on, have any of you seen a documentary that illustrates a historical battle with a scene from a movie based on that battle? It's like illustrating the World War I battle in Gallipoli with a scene from the Mel Gibson movie about that battle. That's what they do when they get to the part where the CSA invades South America. This movie could have been much more than it was.
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BEST MOVIE OF 2006
Happily, this was a close enough race to include two runners-up. These are the movies that, when I look back on them, I say to myself "Oh yeah, that was a good one!"
THIRD PLACE: Cars - I'm not much of a NASCAR fan in real life, but I love it when it has Pixar cars! A lot of people found it difficult to accept a world populated by cars acting like people and doing people things, and that took away from their enjoyment of the movie. I had no such problem. It had a great opening (with one of Sheryl Crow's best songs in recent years), great animation, it took the story in a better-than-expected (for me - your results may vary) direction, and had a great climax. Plus, NPR's Car Talk guys had a cameo!
RUNNER-UP (co-winner, really): Casino Royale - I'm not a huge follower of Bond movies. Until this one, the most recent one I'd seen was View To A Kill. That, For Your Eyes Only, and the first three Connery movies were the extent of my Bond experience. So saying that this was the best Bond movie I've seen (well, maybe second to From Russia With Love) probably doesn't hold the same weight it would if I had seen all 20 of its predecessors. It's true nonetheless.
Daniel Craig might not fit the Bond mold in the looks department, but man-o-man he's cool to watch. The action scenes are great without getting silly (I hear the Brosnan movies got pretty silly at times). The opening chase scene blew me away completely. How did that guy Bond was chasing move like that? That's worth a re-watch all by itself! Most of the action is just as good, but that opening (post-credits, though the pre-credits scene was no slouch either) was the best chase scene I've ever seen, bar none.
The movie does drag out a bit at the end, though I imagine it won't be as bad on a second viewing, now that I know how ahead of time how much more there is and where it's all going.
WINNER: Little Miss Sunshine - This gets the edge over Casino Royale because I was in the audience at its only showing (other than Sundance) before it hit general theaters a few months later. Thus, I feel like I'm part of its exclusive club. But it's a great movie even without that extra attachment. It's heartwarming without getting sappy. There are characters that are quirky but still realistic. Abigail Breslin does a great job without being anything more than the regular kid that she is (let's see Dakota Fanning pull that one off.) Steve Carrel gives such a great serious performance that I totally forgot that up until now I had only seen him being goofy on The Daily Show and in his supporting movie roles. Actually, he played it kinda straight in 40-Year-Old Virgin, so there's that.
And it's funny as hell at times. The thing with the VW bus is great. The beauty pageant at the end was hilarious. Alan Arkin goes off on some funny rants. Great fun for all! Except kids - they don't need to be hearing some of that stuff.
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And now, for the sake of completeness, here is the list of every movie I saw in 2006, ranked more or less from worst to best. I should mention that, with the exception of Failure to Launch, I liked every movie on this list to some degree. So it's really ranked from OK to OMG after that first one. Comments appear wherever I found a comment easy or necessary enough to come up with.
Failure to Launch
C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America
Hollywoodland - The George Reeves stuff was interesting, but I didn't get into the detective's story.
Stomp! Shout! Scream! - An independent movie making the festival rounds. I talked about it a little in my post about the Maryland Film Festival. The only thing I would add to the previous commentary is that the songs were catchy.
The Break Up - Amusing, and it didn't end formulaicly, which I appreciated.
The Eagle - The silent movie I saw at the Maryland Film Festival. It was fine, but I liked the silent movie they had had the previous year (the silent version of Hitchcock's Blackmail.)
Brokeback Mountain - Nice scenery, to be sure. Otherwise, the downtroddenness of their career paths depressed me, and I just couldn't relate to the love story. I don't doubt that it was due partly to the fact that it was about two guys, but I think it was also because I just can't relate to stories about not being allowed to love the person you love. Because I'm totally allowed to love the person I love, I don't know what it would be like to have a forbidden love, and thus, the inability to relate and get into the movie. The man-on-man stuff didn't really bother me, which, honestly, surprised me a little.
X3: Last Stand - It impressed me at first with all the flash, but afterwards the bad plot decisions sank in, and I soured on it a little.
Clerks II - A definite improvement over the first Clerks. The returning actors have learned how to actually, you know, act since then. The Star Wars vs. Lord of The Rings discussion was great, right up there with the first movie's "Contractors on The Death Star" discussion. It's probably Kevin Smith's best movie, in my book. Of course, Kevin Smith movies aren't exactly Casablanca.
My Super Ex-Girlfriend - It was a superhero movie, which I have a weakness for. Otherwise, I imagine this would have been ranked lower.
The Devil Wears Prada
Talladega Nights: The Legend of Ricky Bobby
The Illusionist
The DaVinci Code - Less adversarial than the book (in most ways - in some ways it was more so), and a bit less intricate too.
An Inconvenient Truth - This was one hell of an eye-opener. Were it not for the alternative, I'd almost say it was a good thing that Al Gore lost the 2000 election, because it freed him up to do a lot more good this way.
The Prestige
Pirates of The Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest - For some reason, I don't like this one as much as the first one, but it was still fun to watch.
Superman Returns - Back when I still had a Biggest Disappointment category in this post, this was the winner. But that was due almost entirely to the hype I had built up in my head for it beforehand. Any new Superman movie would have failed to meet my expectations, even one with an interesting threat and an actual Lois Lane.
The Mad Magician - Despite being a 1950's movie, it qualifies for this list by virtue of my seeing it for the first time this year in a theater.
Night At The Museum - Certainly not the most tightly plotted movie, but it was very fun.
The Sasquatch Dumpling Gang - I've said it before and I'll say it again: How is it that Napolean Dynamite got a chance but this movie can't get one?
Good Night And Good Luck - This was my favorite to win Best Picture. I got chills when Murrow made his big speech. It sounded like the sort of thing that a lot of people could stand to hear these days too.
V For Vendetta - I made a point not to read the graphic novel until I saw the movie, which is good because the two are different in many ways. I'm sure I would have liked the movie even if I had read the book first, but as it was, I had one fewer distraction (in that sense, I kinda dread a Watchmen movie, should one ever get made.) I was actually surprised that some shots that were framed in the movie to look like they were based on an image from a graphic novel were, in fact, nowhere to be found in the book. Anyway, I liked the movie a lot.
Cars
Casino Royale
Little Miss Sunshine
Full Metal Jacket - What's this, you ask? I seem to be ranking another movie ahead of Little Miss Sunshine, which I just named the Best Movie winner. Full Metal Jacket, while the better movie, doesn't count because I've seen it many times before. But until this year, I had never seen it in a theater, and so I'm giving it some attention here. Actually, it was almost like seeing it for the first time when I saw it on a huge screen.
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And that's that for my 2006 movie list. Sorry it took so long.
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