Huffmania Blog: Topic: A review of the Best Movies of 2006

December 31, 2006

Topic: A review of the Best Movies of 2006

2006 was a great year for movies; this blog post is dediceated to this year in movies...

Imagine if you will that you can hear the Olympics theme song in the back of your head as you are reading this...

The Top Ten

10th Superman Returns – It was many years between Superman V: The Quest For Peace, and Superman Returns. I was surprised that this movie pulls so well from events in previous Superman films. The biggest and best surprise in Returns was that this really fits well as a sequel to the previous films. It is certainly the best sequel since part 2.

9th – Word Play – This is a great documentary, that features lots of noteworthy people. You don't have to appreciate cross word puzzles to enjoy this movie.

8th place - Flags of Our Fathers-- this is a portrayal of the lives of the American soldiers involved in the battle of Iwo Jima focused mostly on the story of the three survivors of the infamous raising of flag over Imo Jima photo. I'm looking forward to the companion film, Letters From Iwo Jima, also directed byEastwood, coming out in 2007, which focuses on the same battle but from the Japanese perspective.

7th place--Pursuit of Happyness--This was a really touching true-story about a man's determination to be a good father and the difficulty of poverty. I blogged about this one here.

6ht place--The Departed--One of the best crime dramas in a while. The acting and direction was fantastic, escipially by Nicholson, which is interesting since I read he had to be persuaded by DeCaprio and Scorsesi to do it.

5th place--The Fountain--Visually the best movie of the year. The story was compelling. Hugh Jackman was in nearly ever scene in the movie. I dedicated a post about this film here.

4th place--Science of Sleep--When I was watching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, I knew it would be one of my favorite films ever, so I was really excited to hear that the director, Michelle Gondry was behind the lens and the script of this film. The unrequited love story was not quite as captivating as Eternal Sunshine, but the visual effects were amazing. Gondry uses only trick photography to accomplish his effects.

3rd place--The Prestige--Hugh Jackman, who plays Wolverine in X-Men was in several films this year and I think this was his best performance. Christian Bale also stares in this movie, about two dueling magicians. The Nolan brothers are such great story-tellers. I enjoyd this more that their excellent batman begins.

2nd place--Stranger Than Fiction--Little Miss Sunshine outshines Fiction in laughs, but Fiction had such a unique and touching story that reminded me so much of the writing of Charlie Kaufman, I actually thought it was by him until I saw the closing credits.

1st place--Little Miss Sunshine—Somehow I thought Little Miss would be the obvious hands-down choice for best picture this year, but it just narrowly defeats Stranger than fiction; they both have great stories filled with interesting characters and fascinating circumstances and some really hilarious moments. But Little Miss just edges past Fiction to take the Huffmania Best Picture of the Year Award 2006.

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Best movies NOT from 2006

here is a list of some great films I saw this year for the first time that were SO good but since they weren't released in '06 I won't consider them against the others: I [heart] Huckabees, Magnolia, Danny Deckchair, Primer, Human Nature, and Kinky Boots.

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Worst of 2006

The Holiday-If you read my previous blog post on The Holiday you'll understand my feelings for this film; but to make a long story short,I've come up with a theory as to why this movie was so terrible – I suspect that Hollywood commisioned a think tank to analyse what was good about Love Actually and this is the best they could come up with. They thought: the score in Love Actually is so good, lets make the American guy a score composer, and how about lets make it half American and half British to it has international appeal. ...

The biggest disappointment of '06 was 'X-men: The Last Stand' – I was looking forward to the third X-men movie ever since I walked out of the theater having seen X2 for the first time; and well I was very sadly disappointed with the direction they decided to take the story. The success of the original X-men opened the door to a lot of really good big-budget comic-book themed films such as: Spider-man, X2, Spiderman 2, Sin City, V for Vendetta, Batman Begins, etc...and some not so good ones: Daredevil, The Hulk, and so on... Considering I was really pleased with X2 (liking it a lot more than the original) it was a big let down the way X3 left the trilogy in a terrible state, and at this point there are no plans to have another sequel to fix at least some of the problems left unresolved (although two spin offs are planned, one focusing on the character Wolverine, and one on the character Magneto).

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Best movies NOT from 2006

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Worst of 2006

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Movies I unfortunately missed 2006:

Running with scissors, Marie Antoinette, Babel, A Prairie Home Companion, For Your Consideration, The Good Shepard

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Movies I fortunately missed in 2006:

Clerks II,

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Looking ahead: Movies in 2007...

Looking at some of the films slated to open in 2007, I'm excited for some them; most of them are going to fall into the category of action block-busters. Here is a preview...

Pan's Labyrinth. Knowing nothing about this film until I saw a preview recently before a movie, It looked gruesome and forbidding, with amazing visuals, it wasn't long until I was memorized and wondering why I hadn't heard about this before. I think maybe why is because that it's an adult-geared fairy-tale, because of the intense plot and the violent images; so it's the antithesis of Shrek from a money-making perspective, and from why I will probably love it perspective. From what Ive read it contains violence both realistic and fantastic, being that half of the movie is set in the real world, and half in a spectacular fantasy. Apparently it had it's release on December 29 2005, but for some reason it's only going to a handful of cities at a time. I really hope it swings by somewhere near Charlotte, because I feel like this is a movie I really NEED to see on the big screen.

300. In 2005 I was blown away by Sin City. It was a movie based on a graphic novel (comic book) that was beautifully transposed to film. I quickly became aware that Sin City would be a special case in the world of movies based on comics, because you simply cannot dumb-down the graphic violence of the source material, which is essentially the central character of the film, the same is true of the grown-up language, and much of the other mature content of the story. The film is an ideal translation of the graphic novel. This is a story that is intended for an adult viewing audience. In early 2007 we have another one of Frank Miller's graphic novel's being brought to the big screen; and from the look of it, 300 will be just as gruesome as Sin City was. Miller's The Dark Knight Returns batman series is considered one of the best in it's history. 300 is based on a real event in history, when 300 Spartans, on a suicide mission, were able to hold back the whole of the Persian empire.

Spider-Man 3 – I really hope Spider-Man 3 doesn't blow it the way X3: The Last Stand did for the X-men series. Spider-man 2 was my favorite so far in this series; but so was X2 in the X-men series, so I'm rightfully nervous; but unlike The Last Stand, Spidey 3 has the original director. The last trailer I watched looked promising, this may even be better than the second one.

Letters to Iwo Jima -- This is a companion film to Flags of our Fathers, also about the battle of Iwo Jima, but as told from the Japanese perspective.

Live Free of Die Hard -- Release date: June 22nd. First of all; the title sounds eerily super patriotic. But I have really enjoyed all the other films in this series. I have one big concern: Is this really going to be about terrorists? Thieves hiding behind terrorism has been a critical element of every Die Hard film so I hope that continues here. It's been years since Die Hard With A Vengeance (which was fantastic), Live Free has a legacy to live up to. Lets hope the director of the Underworld movies doesn't tarnish the franchise.

Grindhouse--Release date: April 6th - I recently found out about this. Basically it's two short retro-style action movies such as you would have seen in a 'grindhouse' in the 60s and 70s (this is a popular them for Tarantino since he draws a lot of his inspiration from the films he saw in his youth in such situations). The first of of the two films is directed by Robert Rodriguez, the second is directed by Quintin Tarantino. These guys have collaborated often in the past (From dusk til Dawn, Sin City).

28 Weeks Later--Release date: May 8th, 2007. This is a sequel to 28 Days Later, and while it doesn't involve that cast, and is directed by someone new, I'm still very much looking forward to this. In Days the setting is Britain, and the movie starts pretty much as the main character wakes up alone in a hospital with an IV in his arm after being in a coma for 28 days, during which time his country has been devastated by a blood and saliva borne pathogen that pretty much turned humans into zombies on crack. Weeks will presumably take place 28 weeks after the plot of Days; I can only hope that this film maintains the British setting because that was something I enjoyed about the original.

Sunshine--The director of 28 Days Later, Danny Boyle, has his own film coming out this year--a science fiction about a team goes to reignite the sun, part of which has died and is consequently causing havoc for Earth. They are also going to discover what happened to the first team sent to save the star that fuels life on Earth. This seems like a very original story so I'm really excited about it.

Bourne Ultimatum--Release date: August 3rd. I don't think action movies get any better than the Bourne series. They strike a perfect combination of extreme action (amazing fight scenes and car chases) with rapid story development. I enjoyed the first Bourne movie a little more than the second. My biggest complaint for the second film was the shakiness of the camera.

I am Legend--all I know about this is that it's a science fiction where Will Smith plays the last non-vampire human left on earth, which to me sounds like a very interesting premise for a movie; kinda Outer Limits-ish, or Twilight Zone-ish, and cool.

Strangly Two of my childhood obsessions are being brought back to life on the big screen this year...

TMNT – follows first two Ninja Turtles movies--I'm really not sure about this... It's not live action as the original trilogy were; instead Warner Bros., who bought the rights from New Line Cinema, to make this film have opted for Computer Generated Images. The Turtles were second only to the Transformers as childhood obsessions for me; which brings me to my next anticipated film...

Transformers- I'm very interested in seeing how this turns out. It's live action, so all of the action, and the machinery and the transformations will hopefully be very realistic--This could be an epic action film like Independence Day. It seems that many fans of the original are disappointed that this is directed by Micheal Bay; but he didn't do too bad with The Island (2004) which was a mediocre science fiction story, but it had pretty great special effects which will be critical for this live action Transformers. I'm not worried that this movie will be disappointing; if it does, it in no way taints the magic of the original series or the spectacular 1987 animated movie. But this movie does have the potential to be amazing! For some reason even though my parents knew I loved The Transformers cartoon growing up, I wasn't allowed to see the original Transformers (1987) animated film- and so one day in college I rented it and I think I know why my parents wouldn't let me see it. Spoiler Warning: pretty much all of the transformers get destroyed in the first 15 minutes of the film, including their beloved leader Optimus Prime; I'm pretty sure that would have devastated me as a child, so I thank my parents for having the foresight not to let me see it when it came out. The truth is, the 1987 movie is amazing; it even features Orson Wells in his last performance as the voice of the new super evil planet sized robot called Unicron. I'm not really worried about if the new Transformers movie will suck or not. This movie isn't a continuation of the 1987 animated film, but a retelling of the Transformers mythos from scratch. And if aplied right, this could be a huge blockbuster success.

Looking far ahead: Movies in 2008....

The Dark Knight – I really like that this movie dosen't have “Batman” in the title. I really liked what the Nolan brothers did with Begins. Bale is as good if not better than Keaton as Batman. This will be a movie that I'm very much anticipating. Cominisher Gordon was excellently portrayed by gary Oldman, who is an actor that deserves a lot of respect; he can convey so many nasty elements of human nature so well, but in Begins he also showed that he can play a humble good guy as well.

Labels: movies

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