Well, before I release the top ten for 2006, I've decided to talk about the films that didn't make it on the list. Some of them were ok, and some of them were a little less than ok. And hopefully I've provided here good enough reasons behind each film explaining why I've designated it as such. Sorry for this one being about a week late- here's hoping that the next one comes around on Sunday.
Children of Men
Director: Alfonso Cuaron
Starring: Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, Michael Caine, Clare-Hope Ashitey
Release Date: December 25, 2006
Running Time: 109 minutes
Rating: 3.5/5
Sitting down in front of Children of Men, I somehow felt that I was preparing for one of the better movies of the year: Roger Ebert gave it a rave review, and many other critics seemed equally enthusiastic: after all, it's rare that a dystopian sci-fi film so easily scrapes up a 92% on Rotten Tomatoes. And it is not surprising why they should think so: within Children of Men, Alfonso Cuaron manages to craft a very cohesive, tangible universe- one of death, decay, and the absence of hope. It's not only the world the film creates, but it's how the camera navigates through this world. Your attention has to be drawn to the film's long shots: the most intense action sequences in this film are some of the best I've ever seen on camera, precisely because they rely on smooth simple handheld takes and the use of silence in place of music to provide us with pulsating tension. But in creating this world, Alfonso Cuaron puts a visible amount of effort into putting us down- that is, there's a certain atmosphere of constant depression that's present in the film. In this world, it's been eighteen years since the last child was born, and mankind has degenerated into xenophobic paranoid chaos- explosions and gunfights rattle street corners, people are herded into cages, the lives of the innocent perish quickly, etc, etc. An atmosphere like this is hard to navigate through, and if the film's thoughts were as far-reaching as its aesthetics, this overly dismal tone would be pardonable, but at its furthest, it only serves as a staging of simple political ideas needlessly exaggerated to play into the fears of aging misanthropes. It's hard to truly latch on to the characters- it's hard to have hope for the futures of characters who seem to have so very little hope themselves- and what's more is that half the time you only really feel you know half of what's going on. Children of Men is an interesting parable, certainly, and it's hard for me to say it hasn't earned some distinct and memorable place within the ever-growing canon of sci-fi visions of the future. But in a film where the goal is the preservation of the human race, it seems counterproductive to portray humans as a race that really doesn't deserved to be saved in the first place.
Director: Shawn Levy
Starring: Ben Stiller, Robin Williams, Dick van Dyke, Mickey Rooney
Release Date: December 22, 2006
Running Time: 108 minutes
Rating: 3.5/5
Despite a reception best described as lying halfway between mixed and negative, Night of the Museum seems to have built up something of a cult status among teens looking back with nostalgia towards the 2000's. And while I'm not one to be swayed by childhood bias, I can't take a look at Night at the Museum and see it as anything less than a film that's at least, you know, okay. The film's greatest flaw is probably the personal backstory that they try to attach to Ben Stiller's character: he enters into the story as a kind of everyman, and he does a pretty good job of holding up that quirky blank-slate kind of persona. But the emotional drama of divorce that they try to work into the character's past is really just a screenwriter's dispassionate attempt at course par which results in an audience disinterested in this character's real future: what is interesting in this movie is what happens within the walls of the museum, but to be fair, that's pretty much all that we expected. And it delivers. Security guard shows up for work at a natural history museum in NYC and discovers that the exhibits come to life at night due to... well, magic. Egyptian magic, to be precise. And fortunately, the film takes every advantage of that idea. Owen Wilson is a miniature cowboy, Robin Williams is Theodore Roosevelt, Dick van Dyke, Mickey Rooney, and Bill Cobbs are a trio of scheming old man trying to steal the powerful source of the youth-restoring magic. You really can't say no to such a wonderful slate of actors, and looking at them here, you can tell that they're really enjoying the roles that they're involved in. The film projects a lot of heart not because heart is necessarily present in the story, but rather because the film was made with so much heart and fun. And, well, it is a lot of fun. Indians, cavemen, Attila the Hun, a mischievous monkey- all within the confines of one cavernous building in New York. Night at the Museum is nothing dazzling, but it's a decent, solid family film with enough charm and appeal to guarantee it a good amount of playtime on cable television channels.
Director: James McTeigue
Starring: Natalie Portman, Hugo Weaving, Stephen Rea, John Hurt, Stephen Fry
Release Date: March 17, 2006
Running Time: 132 minutes
Rating: 3.5/5
Both adapted from critically acclaimed works of fiction by Alan Moore, it's strange how Zach Snyder's Watchmen turned out to be the masterpiece while V for Vendetta languished in the background. On the front, both seem to be pretty faithful adaptations. But while Watchmen was more attuned to the complex socio-political themes present within its literary source material, V for Vendetta tries to strip down its anarchic message into something more accessible for mainstream audiences. Whereas the graphic novel deals with serious fears of state control and racial prejudice, the film manages to take all of the same plot points over whilst somehow losing much of their emotional weight, resulting in merely a pop-culture condensation of anti-authoritarianism. Some of the more dramatic moments are sacrifice for the sake of what appears to be a clean, briskly moving plot when, on closer inspection, some plot holes are evident in the film that would not be plot holes had the script carried on more material from the book. And yet somehow, V for Vendetta's unique dystopia remains just as resonant: here, there's not only a Holocaust of sorts, but it's successful, and religion-supported right-wing Britain is responsible. People look back on the slaughter of minorities and LGBT groups as a necessary evil, ignoring the brutality and in many ways just keeping it under the carpet. The film's masked hero V isn't rebelling against a government because it is a government; he's rebelling against a government to unmask an unspeakable evil hidden beneath a society that has tried to make itself appear supposedly normal. Many explosions and murders follow. Tragic backstories are revealed, clever lines are spoken, chaos ensues. Though it may be rough around the edges and pretty half-hearted as an adaptation, it certainly stands solid as a worthy adaptation at the least. The whole film is good fun, even if it is one of the weaker dystopia films out there- and seeing Natalie Portman's character of Evey Hammond evolve is truly something- not to mention the tremendous task taken on and conquered by Hugo Weaving, in producing a memorable and laudable performance all while wearing the same mask.
Director: Marc Forster
Starring: Will Ferrell, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Emma Thompson, Dustin Hoffman, Queen Latifah
Release Date: November 10, 2006
Running Time: 113 minutes
Rating: 3.5/5
Stranger than Fiction, for me, is what Charlie Kaufman's Adaptation would look like if it was a mainstream Hollywood film- that is, if a good and interesting premise (that of a writer interacting with his/her own creation) was taken and reduced to a simple and dumbed-down story which doesn't challenge its audience. Stranger than Fiction is the film that would have us believe that it makes us think, but in truth what we're thinking about is not the existential themes of self and reality the movie tries to bring into the story, but rather about the story's unexplained logic and frustrating loopholes. The story has the opportunity to do so many imaginative things with its key idea, and it uses almost none of them. We find out that our main character, Harold Crick, can hear the narrator. Yeah, suddenly the narrator that's been talking about his everyday life thus far is interrupted by Harold, who's wondering why a disembodied feminine voice is talking about the number of times that he's brushing his teeth. Things become even more complicated when Harold realizes that the narrator is planning his imminent death- and yet, rather than spending the near two hours of film time on a madcap search for the author (yes, Emma Thompson is the morbid novelist obsessed with killing all her main characters- by far the most interesting character in the film), most of the time the relatively bland characters simply bumble about spurting quaint half-witty lines, getting involved in romantic subplots littered with cliches and just behaving in a manner easily classifiable as shmaltzy and unrealistic. And yet amidst all of the faltering attempts at genuine comedy, a few moments of genius do break through, resulting in a film that's a bit facepalmy, yet still charming in a kind of warm and innocent way. There isn't a single actor that looks disinterested in their role, and Will Ferrell, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Queen Latifah, and Emma Thompson are all true treasures in their own right. Stranger than Fiction should be satisfying for most people, provided you aren't looking for too much. Just remember, satisfaction is one thing: fulfillment is quite another.
Director: Catherine Hardwicke
Starring: Keisha Castle-Hughes, Oscar Isaac
Release Date: December 1, 2006
Running Time: 101 minutes
Rating: 3.5/5
I'll have to admit, The Nativity Story is undoubtedly one of the better modern Bible films I've seen, if one of the only modern Bible film's I've really cared to see. Rather than cover the whole life of Christ, The Nativity Story endeavors to focus solely on the events surrounding his birth. On one hand, the story stretches pretty thin- the film uses a lot of unnecessary scenes to cram in narrative empty spaces- and then on the other hand, you can't help but be surprised at how much material exists in the few Biblical chapters that we have that recount the story, and how easily that material can fill up screen time. Practically every angle that the Nativity story could be taken from is taken on in this movie- there's Mary's story, there's Joseph's story, there's Elizabeth's story, there's Zachariah's story, there's the story of the wise men, the story of the shepherds- for goodness' sakes, there's even a few key scenes delving into Herod's background. But in the end, it's the film's own desire to capture so many voices that drives it into a state of narrative disconnect. Fortunately, the two lead actors responsible for carrying the parts of Mary and Joseph carry their respective parts across fairly well- and in the conclusion, every path intersects in, well, a pretty expected payoff. Either way, The Nativity Story, even if it is mediocre at best, is a welcome blessing. It's about time that we had a decent Christmas film that brings us a successful retelling of the religious origins of the beloved holiday.
Director: Mike Judge
Starring: Luke Wilson, Maya Rudolph, Dax Shepard, Terry Alan Crews
Release Date: September 1, 2006
Running Time: 84 minutes
Rating: 3.5/5
Idiocracy, despite being a box office failure, has fared remarkably well as one of the cult classic comedies of the 2000's- and I can sort of see why. Mike Judge's sci-fi social satire presents a pretty memorable and extremely creative take on the future. Luke Wilson plays a perfect everyman who is placed into a cryogenic freezing experiment that accidentally goes on for 499 years longer than planned. 500 years in the future, our hero must navigate his way through a future that has evolved into a state of moronity- humans are immersed in a slum-world of landfills and a corporate-ruled life of entertainment and consumerism. Originally finding himself running from the law, our hero eventually becomes recognized as the smartest man in the world when he takes an IQ test, and is brought in to solve the country's problems. Idiocracy has a wide variety of humorous and entertaining moments, making it well worth the watch- but the film is also quite painful to watch in some other respects, with many cringe-inducing moments leading you to hold yourself and say "it's just a movie, it's just a movie". This is a future where crops won't grow because people are trying to water them with energy drinks, where prostitution is wide-spread, trash litters the inside and outside of houses, and where the #1 movie in the country is 90 minutes of staring at someone's ass. And yet in many ways, Idiocracy is hardly as satisfying or as clever as it would like to be. Its message is confusing and mean-spirited, openly advocating something not unlike eugenics to prevent poor uneducated hicks from reproducing and outnumbering the offspring of the upper-middle class smart people. Still, the film's level of humor is so hard to classify- at times, it openly panders to the very class of people the film insults. At other times, it's really much smarter than it seems. But all in all, Idiocracy is a surprisingly fun and entertaining satire with jokes that are sure to stay with you long after the film is over.
Director: Neil Burger
Starring: Edward Norton, Paul Giamatti, Jessica Biel
Release Date: August 18, 2006
Running Time: 110 minutes
Rating: 3.5/5
The Illusionist came out during the same year as The Prestige- 2006 was apparently a pretty big year for movies about magicians. And while The Prestige is by far the better film of the two, The Illusionist still retains a few fans. For where The Prestige sports a sleek, dark cerebral psychological thriller, The Illusionist drags its murky twists and turns through a more romance-focused story arc. There's more of a happy ending, and the story's cloudy atmosphere is balanced out by a tender love shared between the titular musician and the girl who is separated from him by a series of political events. While the film does manage to round everything off with one final twist- one impressive sleight of hand- the rest of it, for me, remained... well, largely forgettable. The melodrama was course par, but that's probably why I didn't remember it too well, because it was course par melodrama. Perhaps credit should be given to the film's good use of special effects and the almost unrecognizable bearded Edward Norton as seen here. If you're looking for a good night's entertainment, this probably won't disappoint. But it's hard to see this becoming the kind of film that one really grows to treasure.
Director: Michael O. Sajbel
Starring: Tiffany Dupont, Luke Goss, John Rhys-Davies, Peter O' Toole
Release Date: October 13, 2006
Running Time: 123 minutes
Rating: 3/5
Despite the poor quality of most "faith" movies- that is, Hollywood productions blatantly catering to solely Christian audience members- the ones based on Bible stories never really tend to be that bad. Well, not for me, at least. While certainly I've yet to see one that I can call pretty good, films like The Nativity Story and One Night with the King tend to be pretty decent. And with a high school education in several Christian private schools, this naturally wound up being one that I was forced to watch several times. And I can't really say that it's better or worse upon repeated viewings... it's just, you know, not bad. In case you weren't around when this film was generating a little bit of buzz (well, in church circles, at least), this is the story of Esther... or, Hadassah, if you want to go by her traditional Jewish name. Coping with life under a racially oppressive government, Esther is thrown into a chain of events which lands her in the luxury of the king Xerxes' palace. What I like about the film is that it tries to show both sides of the story: it shows some of the "romantic" embellishments to the story through some pretty visually beautiful reconstructions of ancient Persia, but it also shows more of a historical perspective on events, bringing Xerxes' war on Greece into the corner of the plot and illustrating as much as it can that Esther was essentially a slave/concubine and not technically a queen. So yeah, it is kind of laughable that her scenes with Xerxes are still played out with an attempt at something really romantic. And it does kind of tick me off how much they try to tie in Nazi symbolism to the anti-semitic movement that Xerxe's court advisor Haman is trying to start. But on the other hand, the film does a pretty good job of presenting a fairly gripping theory about Haman's ancestry. While the story as a whole is pretty shallow in some areas, and they may stretch it out too long, One Night with the King is the rare Biblical adaptation that could manage to be tolerable to audiences who aren't Christian- it places a strong focus on the importance of heritage in the classic story and leaves more of the spiritual elements in the film open to interpretation. If you're interested enough in the story to choose to watch a movie like this, chances are you probably won't be let down.
Director: Alex Kendrick
Starring: Alex Kendrick, Shannen Fields, Bailey Cave
Release Date: September 29, 2006
Running Time: 111 minutes
Rating: 2.5/5
Out of all of the "Chrisploitation" movies- that is, movies marketed specifically towards the Christian demographic to cash in on "faith-based" movies- Facing the Giants is probably the least stupid, offensive, and poorly made. Which isn't to say that it's not all of those things to some degree- it's just a very small degree. To summarize this movie: it's about a football team who wins their games through prayer. There. Bam. Just knocked out the whole movie right there, in one sentence. Yeah, sure there are a few subplots here and there, some comic relief scenes, some "emotional" scenes... but yeah, that's pretty much it. What makes this film particularly "not good" is really everything that you'd usually expect with this kind of movie- and by that, I basically mean that it has a pretty thin plot, thinly constructed characters, and practically no investment into any kind of visual aesthetic whatsoever. So, yes, it's immensely cheesy, preachy, etc, etc, etc. And yet, it doesn't seem really nearly as boring as Fireproof or Flywheel, mainly because that lazy though the people who wrote the film may be, the story is pretty solidly structured and the progression of the plot itself kind of works in a way that keeps everything together in a neat little package- I guess what I'm saying is, yes, this movie can't really be praised objectively because it targets towards a certain demographic, but it does pretty darn well at pleasing the demographic that it targets. I can't deny that. And looking at it, I suppose I can kind of sort of see why.
Director: Peter Hewitt
Starring: Tim Allen, Courteney Cox, Chevy Chase, Kate Mara, Spencer Breslin
Release Date: August 11, 2006
Running Time: 88 minutes
Rating: 2.5/5
Yeesh. Ummm... so yeah, this movie. I first saw this movie as a kid, when it came out in theaters. That would make me... what? Nine? Yeah, nine years old sounds about right. And, you know, strangely enough, I was for the most part pretty discerning as a kid about the movies that came my way. If I thought a movie was funny, usually I could come back as a teenager and say "oh, that was funny". If I thought a movie was boring, usually I could come back to it as a teenager and say "oh, yeah, I was right, this is a boring movie." And if there was a movie with a lot of huge plot inconsistencies and fridge logic- chances are, I probably noticed that as a kid. And yet even though Zoom is a terrible, terrible movie: somehow I actually wound up liking it as a kid. I left the theaters apparently satisfied enough with the movie to request it as a present, and when I got the DVD I watched it again and again, even some of my friends laughed at it. I figure that's excusable for a ten-year-old. Flipping channels, sometimes I'll see this playing on the TV. I won't watch it, of course, but from the thirty or forty seconds I somehow manage to catch of it, I don't find myself absolutely loathing it. I think a lot of people didn't like this movie because the camaraderie of teen superheroes in training was a rip off on The Incredibles, Sky High, Spy Kids, and the X-Men. And that's true. But to me, it really feels more like a rip-off of the Fantastic Four. Practically none of the actual movie features the superheroes actually fighting the opponent- it's really just all training and shenanigans. Hmm... maybe that's why when I watched Fantastic Four as a teenager, I wasn't as averse to it as I perhaps should have been. But looking back at it seriously, it actually has a pretty great cast- I mean, Tim Allen and Chevy Chase are veteran actors and disinterested as they are here, you can still tell that they have comedic talent, even if they're not always making direct use of it (my complaints here are really directed towards Allen, not Chase). And Kate Mara is in this...? I mean, wow. It's kind of a shame that a cast like this got so bogged down with awkward jokes about seriously every bodily function joke that one could make- poop, farts, snot, burping, vomit- yeah, I'm pretty sure they're all in there at some point. And yet I guess, looking at it as a kid, there were still some amusing things in there- a spaceship that looked like a UFO, Chevy Chase getting locked in a room and picked on by the kids, paintball training exercises. It's a myth that kids will find just about anything entertaining. They still deserve quality films and this is by no means something I would bring back into the house for my own kids. But does it achieve at entertaining those people who it seeks to entertain? Yeah, sure. I'll give it that.
-Julian Rhodes
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