Our 2006 Movie List

All these are blogged in the archives:

10 Items or Less
Adam's Apples
An Inconvenient Truth (Top 10)
The Architect
Army of Shadows
Babel (Top 10)
Beowulf & Grendel
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Bene...
Brick
Brothers of the Head (Top 10)
Bubble - Another Steven Soderbergh Experience (Top 10)
Caché
Children of Men
The Davinci Code
The Death of Mr. Lazarescu
The Devil and Daniel Johnston
Don't Come Knocking (Top 10)
Expiration Date
Factotum
Fast Food Nation
House of Sand
Iraq in Fragments
Jesus Camp
Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man
Little Miss Sunshine
loudQUIETloud: A Film About Pixies (Top 10)
Manderlay (Top 10)
Marie Antoinette
Match Point (or Woody does Crime and Punishment)
My Country My Country
Oscar-Nominated Short Films
Our Brand is Crisis
The Painted Veil
A Prairie Home Companion
The Proposition (Top 10)
Quinceañera
Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles
Running with Scissors
A Scanner Darkly
The Science of Sleep (Top 10)
Stranger Than Fiction
The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
This Film is Not Yet Rated
Tideland (Top 10)
Tristam Shandy - A Cock and Bull Story
Tsotsi
The U.S. vs. John Lennon
V for Vendetta
Volver
The Weeping Meadow
Who Killed the Electric Car?
Why We Fight

Children of Men

What a great movie for the last one of the year!

We had read some good things about this but didn't know much about the plot etc. It's set in the future and pretty bleak. There are some really cheesy things, but it never takes itself too seriously and the plot and story are well told. Michael Caine is fabulous.

Really enjoyable.

The Painted Veil

I would call this a character portrait of a relationship, but also of two very intriguing characters. Both Watts and Norton do their parts justice. I just learned that Garbo played Kitty in a 30's version. I would be curious to see it.

It was elegant and carefully crafted. A languorous, intimate look at this deeply disturbed relationship set in gorgeous, otherworldly early 20th century China.

Not great, but recommended.

The Architect

There is very little redeemable in this film. Cliche explorations of sexuality, marriage, growing up, parenting -- it takes on way too much. The final straw for me was the teenaged daughter crying in the back of the older guy's truck saying: "Hold me....don't you want me?" through pathetic tears. She might even have her shirt off...I blocked it all out. This scene was simply too much and it came about half-way through the movie and it did get worse from there.

Isabella Rossellini is mysteriously in this film.

10 Items or Less

Short and sweet. The actors seemed like they really had a great time with these roles. I loved Morgan Freeman. We all play roles in our lives every day. It's a basic metaphor, but well told and really, really enjoyable.

Interesting fact: Brad Silberling also directed 2004's Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events