Keith Phipps
Top 10
1. Children Of Men
2. The Departed
3. Pan's Labyrinth
4. Brick
5. United 93
6. Letters From Iwo Jima
7. Half Nelson
8. Volver
9. A Prairie Home Companion
10. L'Enfant
The Next Five
A cerebral delight about an attempt to adapt Laurence Sterne's self-destructing 18th century novel, the Michael Winterbottom-directed Tristram Shandy: A Cock And Bull Story stays true the spirit of the original, reveling in how storytelling keeps us human while sending the process up—and the film industry that feeds stories to the masses—in the process. Stephen Frears' The Queen used the death of Princess Diana to chronicle a recent turning point in the psychic history of Britain, as registered on star Helen Mirren's expressive face. Focusing on much smaller-scaled turning points, the Fernando Eimbcke-directed Duck Season focuses on a Mexican afternoon in which a power outage forces some young characters to consider what they plan to do with the rest of their lives while Shortbus found some grown-up New Yorkers doing the same, only with considerably more hardcore sex scenes. Meanwhile, in Korea, Chan-wook Park's Lady Vengeance finds unexpected poignancy in the life of a woman who decided long ago that revenge was all she wanted to do with her life.
Performance
Leonardo DiCaprio, The Departed
Tortured doesn't begin to describe DiCaprio's performance as a cop gone so deep undercover that his insides seem to twist against him every second of the day. With each barely concealed twitch of his face, he's the living embodiment of the surrounding film's moral confusion.
Overrated
Little Miss Sunshine
Despite some fun performances, the only thing that truly united the family at the center of Little Miss Sunshine were the one-note indie film quirks that defined them. Yeah, yeah, we should all eat the ice cream because we'll be dead someday. But do we need films like this to ram it down our throats?
Underrated
The Fountain
Beneath all the old-school special effects and time-jumping whiz-bangery, Darren Aronofsky made a film about dreams of immortality and how failing to achieve it gives us all a peculiar human grace. That it proved a commercial and critical failure should allow it to find redemption in a cult audience that should start embracing it… now.
Most Pleasant Surprise
The Lake House
Who knew that reuniting the stars of Speed for a love story with a corny gimmick—the only thing keeping the lovers apart is the fact that one lives in the near future—could prove so romantic? And yet it's hard not to get swept up in this story of second chances. Maybe it's the likeable performances from Sandra Bullock and, yes, Keanu Reeves. Maybe it's the screenplay by playwright David Auburn (Proof). Maybe it's just the rare film that's not afraid to emphasize sadness and disappointment over cuteness on its way to a happy ending.
Guilty Pleasure
Hostel
The Saw-inspired trend that found so many horror films emphasizing lovingly detailed torture over suspense has yielded a lot of crap, but the grim wit of Eli Roth's Hostel almost makes it all worthwhile. The shocks don't come until fairly late in this subtly of-the-moment tale of ill-informed, pleasure-seeking Americans abroad who get in over their heads abroad and find themselves facing the kind of torment they'd previously only seen on CNN or read about in Senate hearings.
Best Non-2006 Film Seen This Year
Army Of Shadows
Never released in the United States, Jean-Pierre Melville's 1969 film of sacrifice and compromise among the French Resistance in World War II was probably best film to play American theaters in 2006. It hauntingly examines the psychological toll of taking a principled stand, no matter how righteous. Think of it as the underground, existential companion to any of this past decade's tributes to the Greatest Generation, and the only one that bridges the decades to make the pain feel present tense.
Future Film That Time Forgot
She's The Man
Once there was a time when somebody decided that releasing a loose adaptation of Twelfth Night with lots of soccer scenes and starring an unmistakably feminine Amanda Bynes was a good idea. We now call that hazily remembered time as mid-March, 2006.
Worst Of The Year
Man Of The Year
A political satire about as in-touch-with-the-times as an old Dick Cavett monologue, this Barry Levinson written-and-directed film stars Robin Williams as the host of a Daily Show-like program who unexpectedly wins a presidential election. What spark the dull political commentary doesn't snuff out the poorly executed thriller elements of the second half extinguish without hesitation.
- Comments