My Top 8 Films of 2006 (w/ 'An Encouraging Trend' & 'Escapism For The Masses? I Wish')
December 31st 2006 16:41
I caught 45 of the 494 films that were released in 2006 (going by US release dates) and found that while overall this was another disappointing year of cinematic output there were some notable exceptions...
~ Little Fish & A Scanner Darkly
Both of these independent films offer hypnotic, searing reflections on the struggles people who get involved with drugs have to face, and each offers an polished and intriguing visual style that brings out many facets to the characters and their environment. Little Fish takes place in Sydney's notoriously seedy suburb of Cabramatta, starring Cate Blanchett as a woman who is desperately trying to get her life back on track after a turbulent past. Tracy has the best of intentions, but her resolution falters in the face of her brother's escapism and her boyfriend's reluctance to give up his 'little fish' (fish-shaped tubes which hold illegal substances, resembling the soya sauce containers you get at Sushi World) and she is led into increasingly volatile situations. Despite some awkward casting (a lot of the 'Vietnamese' characters seem very Chinese in mannerism) this film is as poetic as it is disturbing and made this Eastern Suburbs girl* wonder how many Cabramatta residents will see this film as a reminder that even the bleakest of environments can be home to audaciously inspiring phenomena, even though we leave Tracy is a state of despair. (Hugo Weaving, Sam Neill and Martin Henderson also star.) Read my official review of the mesmerising A Scanner Darkly here.
* For those of you unfamiliar with Sydney's geography, Cabramatta is located in the far West, which covers a greater area than the East and tends to be more 'working class' in general. I live in the smaller, more affluent terrain east of the CBD and bordering the coast. Sydney is so big that I don't believe I've ever been to Cabramatta.
~ Thank You For Smoking & Fast Food Nation
Of the two satires I saw this year, American Dreamz and Thank You For Smoking, the latter managed to entertain me in enough places to deserve a mention (while AD isn't bad, gags of the 'George W. Bush sits down to read the newspapers' variety have already been tackled exhaustively by a number of comedians in sketch shows). We follow the adventures of Aaron Eckhart's morally repugnant, big-grinned spokesperson for the tobacco industry as he sweet-talks cancer patients on national TV, plans a Hollywood movie in which Brad Pitt and Catherine Zeta-Jones indulge in post-coital cigarettes, and is kidnapped by a guerilla activist who plants nicotine patches all over his body, amongst others. Perhaps the funniest part of the movie is his interactions with his buddies, a woman who represents the alcohol industry (Maria Bello) and a guy who speaks for the Rifle Association (they refer to themselves as the 'Merchants of Death' or 'The MOD Squad.')
While a fast food business mogul joins the MOD squad towards the end of the movie, Fast Food Nation devoted an entire feature film to a deconstruction of the social dynamics that shape and are informed by the formidably profitable franchises that abound in America (and around the world). Read my review here.
~ The Departed & Inside Man
The Departed is admittedly a fairly traditional action thriller, but it was one of the more absorbing cinematic foibles of the year. Check out my review here, and look out for what Cibbuano refers to as "punked up Irish tunes" to keep you contemplating the current climate of cross-genre musical experimentation.
Spike Lee's superbly directed Inside Man is another action film high on talented actors (Jodie Foster, Ian McKellen, Steve Carrell) but offers sly social commentary instead of the gratuitous homophobic and misogynistic references of its more profanity-laden cousin. It pokes fun of the mentality of the masses, post-9/11 NY discrimination against people of Middle Eastern appearance, and features a ruthless criminal mastermind who is visibly appalled by a super-violent game belonging to one of his hostages (who happens to be a young boy). A well-paced script keeps things fresh and creative camerawork makes it a classy production with some very fine moments.
~ A Good Woman
This adaptation of Oscar Wilde's excellent Lady Windermere's Fan, a play which relies on a multitude of social misunderstandings and offers many highly quotable reflections ("It is absurd to divide people into good and bad- people are either charming or tedious!"), is brought to life by a talented cast (Scarlett Johansson, Helen Hunt), makes great use of the original material and the gorgeous seaside setting of Positano, Italy.
~ An Inconvenient Truth
Read my review here, and find out how YOU can refrain from adding to the rising temperatures at Gore's very user-friendly and informative Climate Crisis.
Unfortunately I didn't get to see the sole film that was consistently referred to as 'postmodern' by the critics, a mock autobiography of a British nobleman called Tristam Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story, and I haven't seen Little Children or Notes on a Scandal, which were also released this year but haven't yet made it to Australian shores for my viewing pleasure.
And since none of these films are very pomo, check out Giant magazine's Top 10 Best Fake Trailers on Youtube.
An Encouraging Trend
Film-making seems to be becoming more and more international as developed countries increasingly look to the developing world for inspiration and vice versa, film industries flourish in more pockets of the world and people of different 'cultures' find that looking out complements looking in. American Edward Norton and Australian Naomi Watts brought to life a dysfunctional British couple in the Chinese countryside of The Painted Veil, Roberto Benigni's 'The Tiger and the Snow' moved from Rome to war-stricken Baghdad, 'Flags of Our Fathers' and 'Letters From Iwo Jima' utilise US and Japanese settings and actors, and the Golden Globe Best Picture nominee Babel was shot in Morocco, Mexico, California and Japan. Yahoo! News provides an interesting article on Morocco becoming a hot spot for Hollywood films here.
And you can get used to seeing more African films, with its citizens becoming more savvy in marketing its many attractions to the rest of the world. Following the success of last year's The Constant Gardener and early 2006's Tsotsi (the South African picture picked up the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film), major studios and international casts embarked upon such productions as Wah-Wah (set in Swaziland) and Catch A Fire (shot in South Africa and Zimbabwe), with both of these films attracting large audiences. It's nice to know that the continent, which received increased news coverage this year with the continuing efforts of the One campaign and the attention generated by celebrities Angelina Jolie, George Clooney (speaking out against the atrocities being committed in Sudan) and Madonna (who adopted a Malawian boy), is slowly but surely emerging as a unique international player.
Escapism for the masses? I wish!
2006 continued where the year before left off, delivering yet more feel-bad catharses with controversial political issues never long out of sight. Let's recap some of the more critically and commercially successful releases for fun...
Clint Eastwood unleashed not one but two WW2 epics exposing the myths of war (Flags of Our Fathers and it's better-received companion piece Letters From Iwo Jima); the uber-violent, dystopian nightmares of Children of Men, Pan's Labyrinth and V for Vendetta made a deep BO impact; Truman Capote's commitment to morbid detail was revisited in Infamous; The Queen offered an intricately complex political situation of an earlier decade; two productions based on 9/11 hit our screens (World Trade Center and United 93); terrorism continued to be placed under the microscope with Catch a Fire, Road to Guantanamo, V for Vendetta; Babel was a tri-continental emo medley on physical and emotional breakdown; Candy further explored drug addiction; Sherrybaby delved into the extraordinary trials of a woman recently released from prison; almost all of the female characters in Mehta's Indian film Water were subjected to rape, death or both, the streams of religious epicentre Varanasi representing a literal deathbed for its community of socially ostracised widows; Apocalypto was about the obliteration of an entire civilisation...
Do I need to go on? The rampant pessimism almost makes me long for some 1940s-style extravagant escapism. Okay, not really, but since when is being socially aware complemented by a bleak outlook?
If you'd like to see all the films that were released in 2006, check out the home of the Golden Raspberry Awards. And on that note, I'm going to have a lot of fun creating a 'Worst Of Year' list...
P.S. Happy New Year!!! *<BoD
~ Little Fish & A Scanner Darkly
* For those of you unfamiliar with Sydney's geography, Cabramatta is located in the far West, which covers a greater area than the East and tends to be more 'working class' in general. I live in the smaller, more affluent terrain east of the CBD and bordering the coast. Sydney is so big that I don't believe I've ever been to Cabramatta.
~ Thank You For Smoking & Fast Food Nation
Of the two satires I saw this year, American Dreamz and Thank You For Smoking, the latter managed to entertain me in enough places to deserve a mention (while AD isn't bad, gags of the 'George W. Bush sits down to read the newspapers' variety have already been tackled exhaustively by a number of comedians in sketch shows). We follow the adventures of Aaron Eckhart's morally repugnant, big-grinned spokesperson for the tobacco industry as he sweet-talks cancer patients on national TV, plans a Hollywood movie in which Brad Pitt and Catherine Zeta-Jones indulge in post-coital cigarettes, and is kidnapped by a guerilla activist who plants nicotine patches all over his body, amongst others. Perhaps the funniest part of the movie is his interactions with his buddies, a woman who represents the alcohol industry (Maria Bello) and a guy who speaks for the Rifle Association (they refer to themselves as the 'Merchants of Death' or 'The MOD Squad.')
While a fast food business mogul joins the MOD squad towards the end of the movie, Fast Food Nation devoted an entire feature film to a deconstruction of the social dynamics that shape and are informed by the formidably profitable franchises that abound in America (and around the world). Read my review here.
~ The Departed & Inside Man
The Departed is admittedly a fairly traditional action thriller, but it was one of the more absorbing cinematic foibles of the year. Check out my review here, and look out for what Cibbuano refers to as "punked up Irish tunes" to keep you contemplating the current climate of cross-genre musical experimentation.
Spike Lee's superbly directed Inside Man is another action film high on talented actors (Jodie Foster, Ian McKellen, Steve Carrell) but offers sly social commentary instead of the gratuitous homophobic and misogynistic references of its more profanity-laden cousin. It pokes fun of the mentality of the masses, post-9/11 NY discrimination against people of Middle Eastern appearance, and features a ruthless criminal mastermind who is visibly appalled by a super-violent game belonging to one of his hostages (who happens to be a young boy). A well-paced script keeps things fresh and creative camerawork makes it a classy production with some very fine moments.
~ A Good Woman
This adaptation of Oscar Wilde's excellent Lady Windermere's Fan, a play which relies on a multitude of social misunderstandings and offers many highly quotable reflections ("It is absurd to divide people into good and bad- people are either charming or tedious!"), is brought to life by a talented cast (Scarlett Johansson, Helen Hunt), makes great use of the original material and the gorgeous seaside setting of Positano, Italy.
~ An Inconvenient Truth
Read my review here, and find out how YOU can refrain from adding to the rising temperatures at Gore's very user-friendly and informative Climate Crisis.
Unfortunately I didn't get to see the sole film that was consistently referred to as 'postmodern' by the critics, a mock autobiography of a British nobleman called Tristam Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story, and I haven't seen Little Children or Notes on a Scandal, which were also released this year but haven't yet made it to Australian shores for my viewing pleasure.
And since none of these films are very pomo, check out Giant magazine's Top 10 Best Fake Trailers on Youtube.
An Encouraging Trend
Film-making seems to be becoming more and more international as developed countries increasingly look to the developing world for inspiration and vice versa, film industries flourish in more pockets of the world and people of different 'cultures' find that looking out complements looking in. American Edward Norton and Australian Naomi Watts brought to life a dysfunctional British couple in the Chinese countryside of The Painted Veil, Roberto Benigni's 'The Tiger and the Snow' moved from Rome to war-stricken Baghdad, 'Flags of Our Fathers' and 'Letters From Iwo Jima' utilise US and Japanese settings and actors, and the Golden Globe Best Picture nominee Babel was shot in Morocco, Mexico, California and Japan. Yahoo! News provides an interesting article on Morocco becoming a hot spot for Hollywood films here.
And you can get used to seeing more African films, with its citizens becoming more savvy in marketing its many attractions to the rest of the world. Following the success of last year's The Constant Gardener and early 2006's Tsotsi (the South African picture picked up the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film), major studios and international casts embarked upon such productions as Wah-Wah (set in Swaziland) and Catch A Fire (shot in South Africa and Zimbabwe), with both of these films attracting large audiences. It's nice to know that the continent, which received increased news coverage this year with the continuing efforts of the One campaign and the attention generated by celebrities Angelina Jolie, George Clooney (speaking out against the atrocities being committed in Sudan) and Madonna (who adopted a Malawian boy), is slowly but surely emerging as a unique international player.
Escapism for the masses? I wish!
2006 continued where the year before left off, delivering yet more feel-bad catharses with controversial political issues never long out of sight. Let's recap some of the more critically and commercially successful releases for fun...
Do I need to go on? The rampant pessimism almost makes me long for some 1940s-style extravagant escapism. Okay, not really, but since when is being socially aware complemented by a bleak outlook?
If you'd like to see all the films that were released in 2006, check out the home of the Golden Raspberry Awards. And on that note, I'm going to have a lot of fun creating a 'Worst Of Year' list...
P.S. Happy New Year!!! *<BoD
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