Top Tens - Films 2006

An assortment of easy-to-read, pithy year-end declarations, in list format

Almost as powerful as the inclination to produce lists is the inclination, by list-producers, to hem and haw and wring their hands apologetically about the whole act. Guilty, selflacerating comments often accompany lists: “sorry, but I couldn't resist” is common, as is “I hate lists as much as anyone, but . . . . ” The fact is, they're easy to read, even easier to write, and they provide a quick and relatively painless out for a lazy editor who can't seem to muster any legitimate content. Don't want to do any actual work, editors? Tired of verbs and prepositions and complete sentences? Just list some stuff. Everybody likes lists of stuff: stuff sells better when it's in list form! (Note: lists are substantially more work for copy editors. Not my problem!)

And the math is easy, too. Which brings me to thing No. 1 I don't like about top 10 lists: it affirms the hegemony of the decimal system. Sure, that's fine for the greedy fat-cats at Texas Instruments, no doubt sleeping in the piles of money they earned by subjugating and eliminating lesser numeral systems: binary, duodecimal, unoquinguagesimal. Top 10. Phhh. The FBI, the Old Testament, The Late Show with David Letterman: top 10 lists aren't doing anything for the Revolution.

But I had no other content this week. So enjoy!

Top 10 films of 2006
EVAN JOHNSON ARTS EDITOR

1. INLAND EMPIRE (David Lynch)
2. Army of Shadows (1969 rerelease, Jean-Pierre Melville)
3. The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (Cristi Puiu)
4. Brand Upon the Brain! (Guy Maddin)
5. Volver (Pedro Almodovar)
6. The Queen (Stephen Frears)
7. Children of Men (Alfonso Cuaron)
8. Piano Tuner of Earthquakes (the Brothers Quay)
9. Idiocracy (Mike Judge)
10. The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema (Sophie Fiennes, starring Slavoj Zizek!)

Notes: I haven’t actually seen INLAND EMPIRE; I don’t see that as a valid reason for excluding it from my list. That would be unfair. Eight of these didn’t open in Winnipeg in 2006, but if one is both industrious and obsessive, one can find a way. Plus, I don’t let geographical determinism dictate the parameters of my lists.

Top 5 films of 2006 –
GUY MADDIN FILMMAKER

1. Nacho Libre
2. INLAND EMPIRE
3. Dreamgirls
4. The Queen
5. Notes on a Scandal

Top 10 films of 2006
AS CHOSEN BY NOTED ECONOMISTS ADAM
SMITH, JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES AND MILTON
FRIEDMAN.

1. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest ($423,315,812 grossed)
2. Cars ($244,082,982)
3. X-Men: The Last Stand ($234,362,462)
4. Superman Returns ($200,081,192)
5. The Polar Express ($176,125,732)
6. Happy Feet ($165,616,333)
7. Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby ($148,213,377)
8. Casino Royale ($147,649,817)
9. Click ($137,340,146)
10. Borat ($124,859,706)

Top 2 films of 2006
GEORGE TOLES FILM PROFESSOR, U OF M

1. Snakes on a Plane
2. Apocalypto — Mel Gibson is the only authentically crazy movie-maker out there, I fear. Mel, alchemist that he is, manages to separate craziness from pretentiousness. No small achievement. New Year’s resolution: learn Mayan..

Notes: I don’t know what the pairing means, even to me, but it just seems right somehow. I’m tempted to include the trailer for Little Children. Stranger Than Fiction made me decide to give up teaching literature, and to give up reading. It changed my life! I hate lists. Are there ever enough endurable, much less swell, movies [screened in Winnipeg] to make up a top 10 list? What a ludicrously optimistic phrase “top 10” is, suggesting that there are loads of fine things that were mighty contenders for this enviable honour, but we have to limit ourselves to the truly extraordinary .

Top 10 films of 2006
TIMOTHY BROWN ARTS REPORTER

1. The Departed — Amazing dialogue, excellent story and astounding acting all help to create one fantastic, entertaining flick.
2. Superman Returns — I’m a sucker for comic book movies, especially when done right.
3. The Prestige — Best movie about magicians this year.
4. Casino Royale — Bond is actually a bad-ass in this movie.
5. Borat — Probably the best comedy I’ve seen in years.
6. The Fountain — It’s weird, kind of incoherent at times and pretentious. My favourite sort of movie.
7. Pan’s Labyrinth — Visually breathtaking. Who knew the director of Hellboy was capable of something this good.
8. Snakes on a Plane — The most fun I’ve ever had at a Samuel L. Jackson movie.
9. Children of Men — A very moving film from a very wonderful director.
10. The Good Shepherd — While it is a little long, it makes up for it with a strong performance by Matt Damon.

Top 10 films of 2006
DYLAN FERGUSON FEATURES EDITOR

1. Mutual Appreciation — In a year in which American cinema was generally stale and unremarkable, the second feature from indie wunderkind Andrew Bujalski (Funny Ha Ha) came like a blast of fresh air, immediately becoming one of my favourite modern films. Starkly realistic and brutally honest, this black-and-white love triangle story is an intelligent, understated and heartbreakingly accurate ode to our generation.
2. The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada— First-time director Tommy Lee Jones brings the dark humour out of screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga’s brilliant work, something Arriaga’s erstwhile compadre Alejandro González Iñárritu never really did. This is a brutal, philosophical neo-Western odyssey reminiscent of Sam Peckinpah’s masterpiece Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia. Whether you consider it extreme tragedy or ebony comedy, this film will stick with you.
3. The Departed — Martin Scorcese’s best work since Goodfellas explodes on screen with fervent testosterone-fuelled energy. The film’s wildly entertaining rat-on-rat storyline would be absolute pulp if it were not grounded by three brilliant performances from Leonardo Dicaprio, Matt Damon, and Jack Nicholson, and the smart comparisons Scorcese draws between the characters.
4. l’Enfant — Bruno sells his own son and seems to feel no guilt. Must we hate this guy or can we love him? This Palm d’Or-winning minimalist masterpiece from the Belgian Dardenne brothers refuses to take sides. It’s beautiful, human filmmaking on a basic level.
5. Lady Vengeance — If you don’t know who Chan-wook Park is yet, it’s time to wake up and smell the dumplings. The final installment of Park’s “revenge trilogy,” after Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Oldboy, Lady Vengeance has all the creativity, style, narrative surprises and bloodshed we’ve come to expect from the Korean new wave auteur.
6. Marie Antoinette — Lavish locations, glorious gowns, cakes, champagne, and Bow Wow Wow. Sofia Coppola proves to be every bit as decadent and self-indulgent as her subject in this revisionist historical bio. It works smashingly because of the loving care with which the director crafts the mindset of her disaffected-valley-girl-slashill- fated-French-monarch heroine.
7. Down in the Valley — This movie came out of left field. From an unknown writer-director (David Jacobson), and almost relegated to straight-to-video hell, this small drama became one of my surprise favourites with its thoughtful and occasionally frightening dissection of American life, as well as a brilliant performance by Edward Norton.
8. Babel — The image of Rinko Kikuchi standing naked against the skyline of nighttime Tokyo is about as powerful a message of human disconnect as this whole sprawling project put together. Though the Japanese storyline was definitely my favourite, there’s lots to love in this heavy-as-lead rollercoaster of tragedy from the Iñárritu/Arriaga powerhouse.
9. United 93 — Despite the plethora of splatter pics that hit theatres last year, this was the best horror film. Stripped down to the bare bones, it avoided politics to tell one simple, terrifying tale from 9-11. Infinitely better than Oliver Stone’s predictable, gutless and overly-dramatized World Trade Centre.
10. The Proposition — Yee-haw! The Western’s back! Apparently, it just needed to be relocated to the Australian outback. The Proposition is as searing and unflinching as a desert sun. It’s almost like Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian on film.