This look back at movies in 2006 is a personal favorite among the pieces I've actually had published somewhere.
I had a good deal of freedom with this but it's a general, not really a personal, look back. I had to acknowledge a few movies I haven't even seen, but the opinions are about 90% mine. And I'm happy with how it turned out.
I'll post a personal top 10 movies of 2006 later in the week.
And also, a quick mention of a worthwhile section of Entertainment Weekly's year end issue. Their "Great Performances" are well chosen, as usual. Already having covered Helen Mirren (The Queen, Elizabeth I, Prime Suspect), Sacha Baron Cohen (Borat, Talladega Nights), Kiefer Sutherland (24, no mention of The Sentinel—heh), Beyoncé (Dreamgirls but really more for B'Day and its single Irreplaceable and music video Ring the Alarm), Daniel Craig (Casino Royale), Stephen Colbert (The Colbert Report, White House Correspondents' Dinner), Justin Timberlake (FutureSex/LoveSounds) and Spike Lee (Inside Man, When the Levees Broke) in their "Entertainers of the Year" section, the Great Performances include:
Jennifer Hudson and Eddie Murphy in Dreamgirls
Penélope Cruz in Volver
Kate Winslet in Little Children
Forest Whitaker and James McAvoy in The Last King of Scotland
Rufus Wainwright's Live At Carnegie Hall concert
James Callis on Battlestar Galactica
Alec Baldwin on 30 Rock
Martin Scorsese for The Departed
Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
Ryan Gosling in Half Nelson
Rinko Kikuchi in Babel
The Women of Big Love (Jeanne Tripplehorn, Chloe Sëvigny, Ginnifer Goodwin)
And also Bill Nighy for the play The Vertical Hour, the guys from the Mac ads and OK Go at the MTV Video Music Awards.
And their "Breakouts" section finds room for America Ferrera (Ugly Betty), Abigail Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine), Emily Blunt (The Devil Wears Prada, who has better stuff ahead of her I'm sure), Masi Oka (Heroes) and kicks off with the cast of High School Musical.
It's a big miss to not mention the dual achievement of Leonardo DiCaprio (The Departed and Blood Diamond). Michael Sheen's standout support in The Queen and 24's hypeworthy couple Gregory Itzin and Jean Smart are also notable absences. But you have to draw the line somewhere, and EW did a fine job.
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Latest reviews
I'll have end of the year stuff coming soon but for now my latest reviews...
Dreamgirls
The History Boys
We Are Marshall
Charlotte's Web
Sometimes editing hurts.
Dreamgirls
The History Boys
We Are Marshall
Charlotte's Web
Sometimes editing hurts.
Saturday, December 16, 2006
Globe reactions
Late, as usual, but here we go.
Nominees are here if you want to follow along.
It's a fairly blah list overall, despite some very deserving (but mostly expected) nominees. Babel leading the field in the film categories pretty much sums it up. I wasn't excited by that movie and I'm not excited by these nominations.
Bobby's semi-surprising nomination as best drama film stands out as particularly bad. The Globes often make lousy choices but as I noted in my previous post I give them credit for skipping over Crash last year (although it's likely they would've nominated it if the voters knew it was headed for its Oscar victory, Globe voters always want to beat Oscar and Emmy to the punch). But Bobby, a sloppy drama that merits zero award consideration, is a far worse film than Crash.
Another poor choice worth singling out: Evangeline Lilly's lead actress nomination for Lost. Yeah, that's right, Kate is the only acting nominee from Lost. It would be hard to justify in any year, but it's especially moronic when Sally Field in Brothers and Sisters (how'd she miss out?), Jeanne Tripplehorn in Big Love and Mary McDonnell in Battlestar Galactica go unnominated.
And yet they nominated Ellen Pompeo for Grey's Anatomy. Lame.
TV was pretty much as expected, but it was a respectable surprise to see Masi Oka actually get a nom as Heroes' favorite Hiro.
It's par for the course these days to undervalue The Sopranos (Edie Falco got a nom but not Gandolfini or the series) and skip over Battlestar Galactica, Deadwood and The Shield. The Globes had a chance to right Emmy's wrong and recognize Forest Whitaker's work in The Shield, but they didn't. It's even weirder since one of the year's biggest Globe trends was double nominations and Whitaker is unsurprisingly nominated for his work in The Last King of Scotland.
Among the actual double nominees: Toni Collette, Emily Blunt, Chiwetel Ejiofor (a real surprise nominee in film's lead actor comedy category for Kinky Boots) and Annette Bening.
Clint Eastwood and Leonardo DiCaprio scored two nominations in the same category (directing and lead actor drama respectively). Clint can be a double nominee come Oscar time but, due to category rules, Leo can't. That causes concern that his two great performances this year may divide his support and he could wind up without an Oscar nomination. That would be a shame, since he truly is the year's Best Actor thanks to his career-best work in The Departed.
Helen Mirren also competes with herself in the telefilm lead actress category (for PBS' Prime Suspect and HBO's Elizabeth I, neither of which I've seen) and she trumps all multiple Globe nominees with a third mention for The Queen. Unless her TV work splits votes it's hard to imagine her not winning two awards. (If she does split votes maybe Annette Bening will make up for her Emmy loss, or Bleak House's very deserving Gillian Anderson.)
One of the biggest Globe surprises (besides Chiwetel Ejiofor): Maggie Gyllenhaal's best actress nomination for Sherrybaby, a movie which hasn't even made $300,000 in the U.S. Love Maggie, haven't seen the movie yet.
However, World Trade Center, another, much more successful, film featuring Maggie Gyllenhaal was shut out. Ditto fellow 9/11 drama United 93.
On the other hand arty suburban nightmare Little Children fared a little better than expected (a good thing). Nominations for best drama film, best actress and best screenplay might finally convince New Line to open the movie in more than a handful of cities.
The inaugural Animated film category was just as expected with Cars, Happy Feet and Monster House getting nominations. Go penguins!
Foreign language film also was predictable but satisfying with U.S. productions Apocalypto and Letters From Iwo Jima nominated with Germany's The Lives of Others and Spanish language Pan's Labyrinth and Volver. I haven't seen the American ones yet but the other three are easily among the year's best films.
Is it a good thing or a bad thing when foreign film is a much more exciting race than the main best picture categories?
Nominees are here if you want to follow along.
It's a fairly blah list overall, despite some very deserving (but mostly expected) nominees. Babel leading the field in the film categories pretty much sums it up. I wasn't excited by that movie and I'm not excited by these nominations.
Bobby's semi-surprising nomination as best drama film stands out as particularly bad. The Globes often make lousy choices but as I noted in my previous post I give them credit for skipping over Crash last year (although it's likely they would've nominated it if the voters knew it was headed for its Oscar victory, Globe voters always want to beat Oscar and Emmy to the punch). But Bobby, a sloppy drama that merits zero award consideration, is a far worse film than Crash.
Another poor choice worth singling out: Evangeline Lilly's lead actress nomination for Lost. Yeah, that's right, Kate is the only acting nominee from Lost. It would be hard to justify in any year, but it's especially moronic when Sally Field in Brothers and Sisters (how'd she miss out?), Jeanne Tripplehorn in Big Love and Mary McDonnell in Battlestar Galactica go unnominated.
And yet they nominated Ellen Pompeo for Grey's Anatomy. Lame.
TV was pretty much as expected, but it was a respectable surprise to see Masi Oka actually get a nom as Heroes' favorite Hiro.
It's par for the course these days to undervalue The Sopranos (Edie Falco got a nom but not Gandolfini or the series) and skip over Battlestar Galactica, Deadwood and The Shield. The Globes had a chance to right Emmy's wrong and recognize Forest Whitaker's work in The Shield, but they didn't. It's even weirder since one of the year's biggest Globe trends was double nominations and Whitaker is unsurprisingly nominated for his work in The Last King of Scotland.
Among the actual double nominees: Toni Collette, Emily Blunt, Chiwetel Ejiofor (a real surprise nominee in film's lead actor comedy category for Kinky Boots) and Annette Bening.
Clint Eastwood and Leonardo DiCaprio scored two nominations in the same category (directing and lead actor drama respectively). Clint can be a double nominee come Oscar time but, due to category rules, Leo can't. That causes concern that his two great performances this year may divide his support and he could wind up without an Oscar nomination. That would be a shame, since he truly is the year's Best Actor thanks to his career-best work in The Departed.
Helen Mirren also competes with herself in the telefilm lead actress category (for PBS' Prime Suspect and HBO's Elizabeth I, neither of which I've seen) and she trumps all multiple Globe nominees with a third mention for The Queen. Unless her TV work splits votes it's hard to imagine her not winning two awards. (If she does split votes maybe Annette Bening will make up for her Emmy loss, or Bleak House's very deserving Gillian Anderson.)
One of the biggest Globe surprises (besides Chiwetel Ejiofor): Maggie Gyllenhaal's best actress nomination for Sherrybaby, a movie which hasn't even made $300,000 in the U.S. Love Maggie, haven't seen the movie yet.
However, World Trade Center, another, much more successful, film featuring Maggie Gyllenhaal was shut out. Ditto fellow 9/11 drama United 93.
On the other hand arty suburban nightmare Little Children fared a little better than expected (a good thing). Nominations for best drama film, best actress and best screenplay might finally convince New Line to open the movie in more than a handful of cities.
The inaugural Animated film category was just as expected with Cars, Happy Feet and Monster House getting nominations. Go penguins!
Foreign language film also was predictable but satisfying with U.S. productions Apocalypto and Letters From Iwo Jima nominated with Germany's The Lives of Others and Spanish language Pan's Labyrinth and Volver. I haven't seen the American ones yet but the other three are easily among the year's best films.
Is it a good thing or a bad thing when foreign film is a much more exciting race than the main best picture categories?
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Critics awards and Globes preview
The Golden Globe nominations will be announced in just a few hours but before the film award focus shifts to those I should acknowledge several critics groups that have announced awards in the past week or so.
The Los Angeles film critics and the National Board of Review both selected Clint Eastwood's Letters From Iwo Jima as the best film of 2006. I haven't seen the film yet but I look forward to it, especially since I immensely enjoyed Eastwood's WWII companion piece Flags of our Fathers.
The New York film critics went with United 93, a critical favorite earlier this year.
All three of these groups selected The Last King of Scotland's Forest Whitaker and The Queen's Helen Mirren as the year's best actor and actress (although Whitaker tied with Borat's Sacha Baron Cohen in Los Angeles).
Other key critics groups to announce awards include Boston film critics (who selected The Departed as the year's best film), Washington D.C. critics (United 93), New York online critics (The Queen) and San Francisco critics (Little Children). (And if you're dying to see their choices in other categories check out Movie City News.)
The Broadcast Film Critics also announced their nominations in a number of categories (they seem to pride themselves on trying to predict Oscar nominations, which makes their selections less interesting than other organizations) and AFI announced its annual top ten list of American films (and also TV shows).
2006 has developed into a pretty respectable year for films and the diversity in these awards demonstrates that to at least some degree. But the Globes will be the first awards of the year to really catch the general public's interest (and the only until Oscar nominations come out).
This year's presumed Oscar frontrunners will be scattered across three categories at the Globes making for a very broad race. Expect to see The Departed and The Queen nominated for best drama film, Dreamgirls and Little Miss Sunshine competing in best comedy/musical and Letters From Iwo Jima regulated to the foreign film category (per Globe rules). (And yes those five films are the top Oscar contenders for Best Picture.)
Babel has deservedly seen its Oscar hopes fade (due mostly to poor box office) but it should be up for drama film here along with some combination of Flags of our Fathers, United 93, World Trade Center, Notes on a Scandal, The Pursuit of Happyness and The Painted Veil. While Borat, The Devil Wears Prada, For Your Consideration and Stranger Than Fiction will be angling to join in the comedy/musical fight. Happy Feet, one of the year's best films, would have a stronger shot at a comedy/musical nomination if the Globes hadn't recently introduced an animated film category.
Of course we could be in for a repeat of last year's unexpected Globe nominations, where smaller, more unlikely, films like Match Point and A History of Violence made the cut. Films as varied as Bobby, Children of Men, Half Nelson, Little Children, Miss Potter and A Prairie Home Companion would fit the bill this year.
It's worth noting that last year's "Best" Picture come Oscar time wasn't even nominated by the Globes. They'll always have that working in their favor.
On the TV side I'm most interested in how several new series will fare. I expect noms for Heroes (drama series), Ugly Betty (comedy series, lead actress and maybe supporting actress for Vanessa Williams), 30 Rock (lead actor and possibly comedy series), Brothers and Sisters (lead actress for Sally Field, longer shot Calista Flockhart, even longer shot Rachel Griffiths and fairly long shot for drama series) and probably Studio 60 (maybe drama series, maybe lead actor/actress, maybe Sarah Paulson in supporting). Showtime's Dexter also likely has a shot at drama series and lead actor nominations.
Other key comedy contenders include Entourage, The Office, My Name is Earl, Scrubs, Desperate Housewives, Weeds and presumably Arrested Development (which aired five episodes in 2006). There's also Two and a Half Men if they want to be boring, or It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia if they want to be adventurous. Curb Your Enthusiasm sits this year out.
Dramas eligible include 24, The Sopranos, Deadwood, Big Love, Lost, Grey's Anatomy, House, The Shield, Battlestar Galactica and Rescue Me. Nominating any series outside of this list or the new contenders mentioned above would be a real surprise (even the critically acclaimed Friday Night Lights, given the competition).
By the time anyone reads this nominations will probably have been announced and you'll know how right or wrong I am.
The Los Angeles film critics and the National Board of Review both selected Clint Eastwood's Letters From Iwo Jima as the best film of 2006. I haven't seen the film yet but I look forward to it, especially since I immensely enjoyed Eastwood's WWII companion piece Flags of our Fathers.
The New York film critics went with United 93, a critical favorite earlier this year.
All three of these groups selected The Last King of Scotland's Forest Whitaker and The Queen's Helen Mirren as the year's best actor and actress (although Whitaker tied with Borat's Sacha Baron Cohen in Los Angeles).
Other key critics groups to announce awards include Boston film critics (who selected The Departed as the year's best film), Washington D.C. critics (United 93), New York online critics (The Queen) and San Francisco critics (Little Children). (And if you're dying to see their choices in other categories check out Movie City News.)
The Broadcast Film Critics also announced their nominations in a number of categories (they seem to pride themselves on trying to predict Oscar nominations, which makes their selections less interesting than other organizations) and AFI announced its annual top ten list of American films (and also TV shows).
2006 has developed into a pretty respectable year for films and the diversity in these awards demonstrates that to at least some degree. But the Globes will be the first awards of the year to really catch the general public's interest (and the only until Oscar nominations come out).
This year's presumed Oscar frontrunners will be scattered across three categories at the Globes making for a very broad race. Expect to see The Departed and The Queen nominated for best drama film, Dreamgirls and Little Miss Sunshine competing in best comedy/musical and Letters From Iwo Jima regulated to the foreign film category (per Globe rules). (And yes those five films are the top Oscar contenders for Best Picture.)
Babel has deservedly seen its Oscar hopes fade (due mostly to poor box office) but it should be up for drama film here along with some combination of Flags of our Fathers, United 93, World Trade Center, Notes on a Scandal, The Pursuit of Happyness and The Painted Veil. While Borat, The Devil Wears Prada, For Your Consideration and Stranger Than Fiction will be angling to join in the comedy/musical fight. Happy Feet, one of the year's best films, would have a stronger shot at a comedy/musical nomination if the Globes hadn't recently introduced an animated film category.
Of course we could be in for a repeat of last year's unexpected Globe nominations, where smaller, more unlikely, films like Match Point and A History of Violence made the cut. Films as varied as Bobby, Children of Men, Half Nelson, Little Children, Miss Potter and A Prairie Home Companion would fit the bill this year.
It's worth noting that last year's "Best" Picture come Oscar time wasn't even nominated by the Globes. They'll always have that working in their favor.
On the TV side I'm most interested in how several new series will fare. I expect noms for Heroes (drama series), Ugly Betty (comedy series, lead actress and maybe supporting actress for Vanessa Williams), 30 Rock (lead actor and possibly comedy series), Brothers and Sisters (lead actress for Sally Field, longer shot Calista Flockhart, even longer shot Rachel Griffiths and fairly long shot for drama series) and probably Studio 60 (maybe drama series, maybe lead actor/actress, maybe Sarah Paulson in supporting). Showtime's Dexter also likely has a shot at drama series and lead actor nominations.
Other key comedy contenders include Entourage, The Office, My Name is Earl, Scrubs, Desperate Housewives, Weeds and presumably Arrested Development (which aired five episodes in 2006). There's also Two and a Half Men if they want to be boring, or It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia if they want to be adventurous. Curb Your Enthusiasm sits this year out.
Dramas eligible include 24, The Sopranos, Deadwood, Big Love, Lost, Grey's Anatomy, House, The Shield, Battlestar Galactica and Rescue Me. Nominating any series outside of this list or the new contenders mentioned above would be a real surprise (even the critically acclaimed Friday Night Lights, given the competition).
By the time anyone reads this nominations will probably have been announced and you'll know how right or wrong I am.
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Catching up
Well if I'm not going to do real updates the least I can do is link to some of my outside reviews.
The latest, just in time to celebrate 5 well deserved Grammy nominations for the Dixie Chicks, is Shut Up and Sing. It's an entertaining and compelling documentary, especially enjoyable if you're a Dixie Chicks fan like myself. But you don't need to be to appreciate their story. It's a wild ride and really underlines how much the political winds have shifted in just a couple of years. (The review probably contains less analysis than any other I've written but I feel the point is really to celebrate and enjoy their story. However, it is definitely a high quality doc, entirely deserving of theatrical release.)
Last week brought The Nativity Story and Fur. Neither of them particularly good. Fur is slightly interesting in a quirky way but it's also one of the year's biggest disappointments, considering how good director Steven Shainberg's previous film, Secretary, was.
But there are a lot of good movies out. My recommended films sidebar hasn't been so large in quite some time, and there are several good movies still awaiting release. This year started off horribly and suffered through an unbearable summer, but things started rolling in late July/early August and 2006 is finishing with an exceptional fall season.
Happy Feet and Casino Royale have ruled the box office charts for the last three weeks and deservedly so. There's a wide mix in the marketplace right now of highly worthwhile mainstream and art films.
Stranger Than Fiction is a film that falls somewhere inbetween and is unfortunately getting a little lost in a crowded environment. Audiences are sure to find it in time (and appreciate what is easily Will Ferrell's best performance ever and work from Emma Thompson that equals her career-best) but I recommend seeing it sooner rather than later.
And finally, this weekend's The Holiday is one of the strongest romantic comedies in some time, with an excellent cast and intelligent quality storytelling from writer/director Nancy Meyers. It's unabashedly entertaining and perfect for the season. Hopefully it will join Happy Feet, Casino Royale and Borat as one of fall's big hits that also just happen to be good films.
The latest, just in time to celebrate 5 well deserved Grammy nominations for the Dixie Chicks, is Shut Up and Sing. It's an entertaining and compelling documentary, especially enjoyable if you're a Dixie Chicks fan like myself. But you don't need to be to appreciate their story. It's a wild ride and really underlines how much the political winds have shifted in just a couple of years. (The review probably contains less analysis than any other I've written but I feel the point is really to celebrate and enjoy their story. However, it is definitely a high quality doc, entirely deserving of theatrical release.)
Last week brought The Nativity Story and Fur. Neither of them particularly good. Fur is slightly interesting in a quirky way but it's also one of the year's biggest disappointments, considering how good director Steven Shainberg's previous film, Secretary, was.
But there are a lot of good movies out. My recommended films sidebar hasn't been so large in quite some time, and there are several good movies still awaiting release. This year started off horribly and suffered through an unbearable summer, but things started rolling in late July/early August and 2006 is finishing with an exceptional fall season.
Happy Feet and Casino Royale have ruled the box office charts for the last three weeks and deservedly so. There's a wide mix in the marketplace right now of highly worthwhile mainstream and art films.
Stranger Than Fiction is a film that falls somewhere inbetween and is unfortunately getting a little lost in a crowded environment. Audiences are sure to find it in time (and appreciate what is easily Will Ferrell's best performance ever and work from Emma Thompson that equals her career-best) but I recommend seeing it sooner rather than later.
And finally, this weekend's The Holiday is one of the strongest romantic comedies in some time, with an excellent cast and intelligent quality storytelling from writer/director Nancy Meyers. It's unabashedly entertaining and perfect for the season. Hopefully it will join Happy Feet, Casino Royale and Borat as one of fall's big hits that also just happen to be good films.
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