I'm taking a(nother) page from Kevin Smith.
I saw Kevin Smith do this on his website, and I thought it may be a fun idea for me to try as well.
Of the 219 major film releases of 2006, I am sad to say I only caught 24. That's less than one new movie every two weeks. Not to say I would've liked to see all 219, hell, some of the 24 I saw I regret.
But tonight, I'm going to try my hand at film critic, and I guess, give you my top 24 movies of 2006!!! Enjoy, if you must.
24.) Talledega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby - Am I the only one who thinks Will Ferrell is a one trick pony? His character in Talledega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby is as familiar as the title in Anchor Man: The Legend of Ron Burgandy. Same as he was in Old School, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, A Night at the Roxbury, Zoolander, Elf... he's basically a loud idiot. Oh, I just can't wait to see Blades of Glory.
23.) Grandma's Boy - Really? Everyone told me this was an hilarious movie, but really? I think I laughed once. Honestly, I don't remember when.
22.) Poseidon - Perhaps the most phoned in movie of last year. A remake of a classic film that was much better, starring a bunch of Kurt Russells, with the exception of a gay Richard Dreyfuss (you can tell he's gay because he has an earring). The screenwriters exercise in mediocrity was never more prevailing then when Matt Dillion's character, Lucky Larry, drunk and suddenly and inexplicably angry at everyone, claims he can cross this pipe to the other side of the rotunda to safety, against the advice of the hero, because "you don't just get the nickname "Lucky Larry." You gotta be lucky!" Larry is then quite predictably crushed to death.
21.) Underworld: Evolution - This one only makes it this far up the list because I'm still sort of happy I saw it. Really bad movie. Really bad. And yet, it may be my favorite memory at the theater last year. I went to see this with Erin. It was about vampires and werewolves I think. There was a girl vampire and a vampire/werewolf/dude who were trying to stop this other vampire guy and werewolf guy. This movie was so totally over the top that we laughed through the whole ending, much to the chagrin of those around us. The final vampire guy pulls a helicopter out of the sky, and it's all downhill from there. We were in tears laughing, my stomach hurt, the whole nine yards. But yeah, really bad movie.
The rest of these are harder to put into order, as I liked them all. But here they are.
20.) X-Men: The Last Stand - I think I liked this X-Men better than the last two. The Phoenix was really cool. I've heard it argued that she was underused, but to use her anymore would've added hours to this movie in backstory about who the Phoenix was.
19.) Silent Hill - The best live action video game movie ever made. Though it's competition in that category was scarce. (Super Mario Bros., Tomb Raider, Resident Evil, House of the Dead...) It was actually kind of scary. So the video game movie record is now 1-34.
18.) Click - A film that tugs at your heart a bit disguised as an Adam Sandler comedy. Well played Click, well played.
17.) The Da Vinci Code - They tried really hard to cram everything in the book into this movie, and unfortunately, they were just about successful, making the movie come off kind of preachy. There was a lot of info to swallow in the book, but you were reading it, making it much easier to take. Plus, I'm a Tom Hanks fan, but he was the only actor that didn't belong in this movie.
16.) 16 Blocks - This movie was like Die Hard, if Bruce Willis was an out of shape, deadbeat cop. Plus, Mos Def was really good as Eddie, the cake guy.
15.) Superman Returns - The Man of Steel is always cool. I'll admit, I never really liked Superman until I got into Smallville, and so maybe that's why I didn't dig this movie more. It was very much a sequel to the original Donner films, which is cool, but I was really hoping that Kevin Spacy's Lex Luthor would be more like Michael Rosenbaum's Lex Luthor and less like Gene Hackman's Lex Luthor. Smallville's Lex is much more cold and dark. Hackman's Lex hung out with Otis.
14.) The Last Kiss - Zach Braff is quickly becoming one of my favorite people, because of this movie, Garden State, and my girlfriend getting me hooked on Scrubs. Well done from start to finish, the fight scene was heart breaking, and the ending was perfect.
13.) Clerks II - I'm always a fan of Kevin Smith, and I pretty much like everything he's done. (Even Jersey Girl) This movie did not disappoint, as I was prepared for it to do.
12.) Mission Impossible III - I am not however a fan of Tom Cruise. But even Tom couldn't spoil this movie. I enjoyed the first film, I hated the second. I only saw this one for two reasons: J.J. Abrams of Lost fame was the director, and it was free, as I snuck into the theater after watching the god-awful Posiedon.
11.) Saw III - Call me lame, I love the Saw movies. They're gory to the point of borderline nausea, but in a different way than other gory movies. They don't show you anything any gorier than any other movie, they just make you THINK about things gorier than other movies. Saw is like the "what's grosser than gross" joke of the entertainment industry. They just suggest, your mind fills it in. Plus, they're really smart flicks too. I'm usually good at guessing endings, but all three of these stumped me.
10.) V For Vendetta - Wachowski's + political message movie + bald Natalie Portman = Awesome.
9.) Lady in the Water - Yeah, Lady in the Water. Deal with it. A lot of lists put this as one of the worst movies of last year, I'm putting it in my top ten. Why? I really liked it, that's why. It felt like a bedtime story, like a creepy, M. Night Shyamalan bedtime story. I think people didn't like it for the same reason people didn't like Jersey Girl. They were expecting something else. Sadly, they missed out on a cool flick waiting for Haley Joel Osment to see dead people again.
8.) A Scanner Darkly - If you didn't live in or near a major city, you probably missed the theatrical release of this film entirely. The film was fully rotoscoped (meaning animated over live action) and had Keanu Reeves, Woody Harrelson, and Robert Downy Jr... ringing any bells yet? Check it out, it's really good.
7.) Brick - Another one you may have missed. Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt from 3rd Rock From the Sun, it's basically a detective story. The fact that everyone involved is a high school student is what really blows your mind though. It's very film noir, in the vein of The Maltese Falcon, yet set perfectly in a modern day high school.
6.) Inside Man - The only thing I didn't like about this Spike Lee joint was how smarmy Jodie Foster's character was all the time. But she was supposed to be like that. A very good movie. Denzel is awesome, Clive Owen is awesome. This movie... awesome.
5.) Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest - Yeah. I'm sorry, I love these movies, and I can't wait for part three At World's End. I've said it before, Johnny Depp is the best actor working today, and this movie was just really really fun.
4.) Little Miss Sunshine - Like American Beauty meets National Lampoon's Vacation. The characters in this movie were so well done, and personally, I hope Abigail Breslin wins an Oscar for best supporting actress. Everyone in this movie was so spot on, you couldn't help but want to smack Greg Kinnear, you couldn't help but want to hug Steve Carell. And the ending... so funny.
3.) Children of Men - This was the movie that blew me away this year. I think the movie consisted of seven shots from start to finish. Okay, that's an exaggeration, but the amount of work and timing that had to go into making the shots last as long as they did was phenomenal. The story was really well done, because it was never really about the fact that women couldn't have babies. That was just the backdrop to a quest story. And those long shots made the movie feel so intense.
2.) The Pursuit of Happyness - If this movie doesn't make you believe that you can do anything you set your mind to, you will probably spend your life serving Big Macs. Will and Jaden Smith are both amazing in this movie based on the true life of Chris Gardner, founder of Gardner Rich & Co. The TRAILER for this film choked me up, and I doubt I will ever forget the visual of the ending.
1.) The Departed - Holy. Freaking. Cow. This was a movie. All you other chump movies out there (which I will get to in a moment) who dare to step into the ring, this movie has embarrassed you. DiCaprio, Nicholson, Damon, Wahlberg, Sheen, and Scorsese. Doesn't really get any bigger than that, folks. You have not seen a movie about cops and organized crime unless you have seen this movie. I agree with Kevin Smith, Matt Damon's transformation in the elevator is acting at it's best. Jack Nicholson is as good if not better in this movie than anything he's ever done. I am first in line when it hits DVD this month.
So there it is. My top 24 that I got to see. I know there was a few on there that shouldn't have made the top 24, mainly because there were some that I missed. In fact, here are the ones that I am bummed that I missed so far.
Pan's Labyrinth
Rocky Balboa
Stranger Than Fiction (Will Ferrell not as a loud idiot?!?)
Lucky Number Slevin
Who Killed the Electric Car?
Beowulf and Grendel
World Trade Center
Snakes on a Plane (Yeah, I'm serious. Maybe for bad movie night...)
Idiocracy (I like Mike Judge)
The Science of Sleep (I like Michel Gondry)
The Last King of Scotland (Forest Whitaker is tearing up the best actor circuit)
Babel (Yeah, I didn't see Babel yet. I swear, it's on my "to do" list)
Borat (Sacha Baron Cohen was the only thing funny about Talledega Nights)
Cars (Looks cute)
Then there's the ones that I'm kind of glad I missed.
Basic Instinct 2 (There's really not much more Sharon Stone has left to offer after the first one.)
Slither (A disgusting worm that makes people gross and unappealing, and that's just the guy from Firefly...)
Little Man (Why do the Wayans get to keep making movies?)
Scary Movie 4 (...and yet not even the Wayans will do these anymore.)
See No Evil (Kane, unless you're Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, if you're a wrestler, don't make movies.)
The Marine (John Cena, see above.)
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (Didn't we say all we needed to with 2 Fast 2 Furious?)
Miami Vice (...or Bad Boys 3.)
Marie Antoinette (Sofia Coppola... please stop.)
Final Destination 3 (This looks like one of those sequels that is really just the first movie with different actors.)
Big Momma's House 2 (Martin Lawrence, you can do "cop" better, like in Bad Boys or Blue Streak.)
The Pink Panther (I'm kind of glad Peter Sellers is dead, so he didn't have to see this day.)
and of course...
Bloodrayne (That Uwe Boll can keep making movies serves as proof that contracts with the devil are set in f***ing stone.)
So there it is. My 2006 in movies.
Okay okay, one more list.
What I'm looking forward to (and you should be too) in 2007:
The Number 23
Hannibal Rising
Reno 911: Miami
Hot Fuzz
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Spider-Man 3
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
Reign Over Me
Live Free or Die Hard
Shrek the Third
The Dead Girl
Balls of Fury
Zodiac
300
The Ex
28 Weeks Later
The Bourne Ultimatum
Fanboys
Resident Evil: Extinction (yeah, I know... but I'll still see it.)
Saw IV
American Gangster
His Dark Materials
I Am Legend
National Treasure 2: The Book of Secrets
Okay, seriously, I'm done now.
Comment away all you people impatient for a post. :)
-j
Of the 219 major film releases of 2006, I am sad to say I only caught 24. That's less than one new movie every two weeks. Not to say I would've liked to see all 219, hell, some of the 24 I saw I regret.
But tonight, I'm going to try my hand at film critic, and I guess, give you my top 24 movies of 2006!!! Enjoy, if you must.
24.) Talledega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby - Am I the only one who thinks Will Ferrell is a one trick pony? His character in Talledega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby is as familiar as the title in Anchor Man: The Legend of Ron Burgandy. Same as he was in Old School, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, A Night at the Roxbury, Zoolander, Elf... he's basically a loud idiot. Oh, I just can't wait to see Blades of Glory.
23.) Grandma's Boy - Really? Everyone told me this was an hilarious movie, but really? I think I laughed once. Honestly, I don't remember when.
22.) Poseidon - Perhaps the most phoned in movie of last year. A remake of a classic film that was much better, starring a bunch of Kurt Russells, with the exception of a gay Richard Dreyfuss (you can tell he's gay because he has an earring). The screenwriters exercise in mediocrity was never more prevailing then when Matt Dillion's character, Lucky Larry, drunk and suddenly and inexplicably angry at everyone, claims he can cross this pipe to the other side of the rotunda to safety, against the advice of the hero, because "you don't just get the nickname "Lucky Larry." You gotta be lucky!" Larry is then quite predictably crushed to death.
21.) Underworld: Evolution - This one only makes it this far up the list because I'm still sort of happy I saw it. Really bad movie. Really bad. And yet, it may be my favorite memory at the theater last year. I went to see this with Erin. It was about vampires and werewolves I think. There was a girl vampire and a vampire/werewolf/dude who were trying to stop this other vampire guy and werewolf guy. This movie was so totally over the top that we laughed through the whole ending, much to the chagrin of those around us. The final vampire guy pulls a helicopter out of the sky, and it's all downhill from there. We were in tears laughing, my stomach hurt, the whole nine yards. But yeah, really bad movie.
The rest of these are harder to put into order, as I liked them all. But here they are.
20.) X-Men: The Last Stand - I think I liked this X-Men better than the last two. The Phoenix was really cool. I've heard it argued that she was underused, but to use her anymore would've added hours to this movie in backstory about who the Phoenix was.
19.) Silent Hill - The best live action video game movie ever made. Though it's competition in that category was scarce. (Super Mario Bros., Tomb Raider, Resident Evil, House of the Dead...) It was actually kind of scary. So the video game movie record is now 1-34.
18.) Click - A film that tugs at your heart a bit disguised as an Adam Sandler comedy. Well played Click, well played.
17.) The Da Vinci Code - They tried really hard to cram everything in the book into this movie, and unfortunately, they were just about successful, making the movie come off kind of preachy. There was a lot of info to swallow in the book, but you were reading it, making it much easier to take. Plus, I'm a Tom Hanks fan, but he was the only actor that didn't belong in this movie.
16.) 16 Blocks - This movie was like Die Hard, if Bruce Willis was an out of shape, deadbeat cop. Plus, Mos Def was really good as Eddie, the cake guy.
15.) Superman Returns - The Man of Steel is always cool. I'll admit, I never really liked Superman until I got into Smallville, and so maybe that's why I didn't dig this movie more. It was very much a sequel to the original Donner films, which is cool, but I was really hoping that Kevin Spacy's Lex Luthor would be more like Michael Rosenbaum's Lex Luthor and less like Gene Hackman's Lex Luthor. Smallville's Lex is much more cold and dark. Hackman's Lex hung out with Otis.
14.) The Last Kiss - Zach Braff is quickly becoming one of my favorite people, because of this movie, Garden State, and my girlfriend getting me hooked on Scrubs. Well done from start to finish, the fight scene was heart breaking, and the ending was perfect.
13.) Clerks II - I'm always a fan of Kevin Smith, and I pretty much like everything he's done. (Even Jersey Girl) This movie did not disappoint, as I was prepared for it to do.
12.) Mission Impossible III - I am not however a fan of Tom Cruise. But even Tom couldn't spoil this movie. I enjoyed the first film, I hated the second. I only saw this one for two reasons: J.J. Abrams of Lost fame was the director, and it was free, as I snuck into the theater after watching the god-awful Posiedon.
11.) Saw III - Call me lame, I love the Saw movies. They're gory to the point of borderline nausea, but in a different way than other gory movies. They don't show you anything any gorier than any other movie, they just make you THINK about things gorier than other movies. Saw is like the "what's grosser than gross" joke of the entertainment industry. They just suggest, your mind fills it in. Plus, they're really smart flicks too. I'm usually good at guessing endings, but all three of these stumped me.
10.) V For Vendetta - Wachowski's + political message movie + bald Natalie Portman = Awesome.
9.) Lady in the Water - Yeah, Lady in the Water. Deal with it. A lot of lists put this as one of the worst movies of last year, I'm putting it in my top ten. Why? I really liked it, that's why. It felt like a bedtime story, like a creepy, M. Night Shyamalan bedtime story. I think people didn't like it for the same reason people didn't like Jersey Girl. They were expecting something else. Sadly, they missed out on a cool flick waiting for Haley Joel Osment to see dead people again.
8.) A Scanner Darkly - If you didn't live in or near a major city, you probably missed the theatrical release of this film entirely. The film was fully rotoscoped (meaning animated over live action) and had Keanu Reeves, Woody Harrelson, and Robert Downy Jr... ringing any bells yet? Check it out, it's really good.
7.) Brick - Another one you may have missed. Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt from 3rd Rock From the Sun, it's basically a detective story. The fact that everyone involved is a high school student is what really blows your mind though. It's very film noir, in the vein of The Maltese Falcon, yet set perfectly in a modern day high school.
6.) Inside Man - The only thing I didn't like about this Spike Lee joint was how smarmy Jodie Foster's character was all the time. But she was supposed to be like that. A very good movie. Denzel is awesome, Clive Owen is awesome. This movie... awesome.
5.) Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest - Yeah. I'm sorry, I love these movies, and I can't wait for part three At World's End. I've said it before, Johnny Depp is the best actor working today, and this movie was just really really fun.
4.) Little Miss Sunshine - Like American Beauty meets National Lampoon's Vacation. The characters in this movie were so well done, and personally, I hope Abigail Breslin wins an Oscar for best supporting actress. Everyone in this movie was so spot on, you couldn't help but want to smack Greg Kinnear, you couldn't help but want to hug Steve Carell. And the ending... so funny.
3.) Children of Men - This was the movie that blew me away this year. I think the movie consisted of seven shots from start to finish. Okay, that's an exaggeration, but the amount of work and timing that had to go into making the shots last as long as they did was phenomenal. The story was really well done, because it was never really about the fact that women couldn't have babies. That was just the backdrop to a quest story. And those long shots made the movie feel so intense.
2.) The Pursuit of Happyness - If this movie doesn't make you believe that you can do anything you set your mind to, you will probably spend your life serving Big Macs. Will and Jaden Smith are both amazing in this movie based on the true life of Chris Gardner, founder of Gardner Rich & Co. The TRAILER for this film choked me up, and I doubt I will ever forget the visual of the ending.
1.) The Departed - Holy. Freaking. Cow. This was a movie. All you other chump movies out there (which I will get to in a moment) who dare to step into the ring, this movie has embarrassed you. DiCaprio, Nicholson, Damon, Wahlberg, Sheen, and Scorsese. Doesn't really get any bigger than that, folks. You have not seen a movie about cops and organized crime unless you have seen this movie. I agree with Kevin Smith, Matt Damon's transformation in the elevator is acting at it's best. Jack Nicholson is as good if not better in this movie than anything he's ever done. I am first in line when it hits DVD this month.
So there it is. My top 24 that I got to see. I know there was a few on there that shouldn't have made the top 24, mainly because there were some that I missed. In fact, here are the ones that I am bummed that I missed so far.
Pan's Labyrinth
Rocky Balboa
Stranger Than Fiction (Will Ferrell not as a loud idiot?!?)
Lucky Number Slevin
Who Killed the Electric Car?
Beowulf and Grendel
World Trade Center
Snakes on a Plane (Yeah, I'm serious. Maybe for bad movie night...)
Idiocracy (I like Mike Judge)
The Science of Sleep (I like Michel Gondry)
The Last King of Scotland (Forest Whitaker is tearing up the best actor circuit)
Babel (Yeah, I didn't see Babel yet. I swear, it's on my "to do" list)
Borat (Sacha Baron Cohen was the only thing funny about Talledega Nights)
Cars (Looks cute)
Then there's the ones that I'm kind of glad I missed.
Basic Instinct 2 (There's really not much more Sharon Stone has left to offer after the first one.)
Slither (A disgusting worm that makes people gross and unappealing, and that's just the guy from Firefly...)
Little Man (Why do the Wayans get to keep making movies?)
Scary Movie 4 (...and yet not even the Wayans will do these anymore.)
See No Evil (Kane, unless you're Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, if you're a wrestler, don't make movies.)
The Marine (John Cena, see above.)
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (Didn't we say all we needed to with 2 Fast 2 Furious?)
Miami Vice (...or Bad Boys 3.)
Marie Antoinette (Sofia Coppola... please stop.)
Final Destination 3 (This looks like one of those sequels that is really just the first movie with different actors.)
Big Momma's House 2 (Martin Lawrence, you can do "cop" better, like in Bad Boys or Blue Streak.)
The Pink Panther (I'm kind of glad Peter Sellers is dead, so he didn't have to see this day.)
and of course...
Bloodrayne (That Uwe Boll can keep making movies serves as proof that contracts with the devil are set in f***ing stone.)
So there it is. My 2006 in movies.
Okay okay, one more list.
What I'm looking forward to (and you should be too) in 2007:
The Number 23
Hannibal Rising
Reno 911: Miami
Hot Fuzz
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Spider-Man 3
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
Reign Over Me
Live Free or Die Hard
Shrek the Third
The Dead Girl
Balls of Fury
Zodiac
300
The Ex
28 Weeks Later
The Bourne Ultimatum
Fanboys
Resident Evil: Extinction (yeah, I know... but I'll still see it.)
Saw IV
American Gangster
His Dark Materials
I Am Legend
National Treasure 2: The Book of Secrets
Okay, seriously, I'm done now.
Comment away all you people impatient for a post. :)
-j
