Will Tim ever get his blogging groove back?

He's not sure. But Taye might help. Come on Taye, whisk me off to Jamaica or what have you.

Mid-year stock-taking

Mainlymovies is well aware that he's been a rubbish blogger of late, what with back-to-back holidays and books to finish and other demands on his time. So to kickstart this whole thing back into something approaching life, here's a recap of what's been particularly good (and awful) over the past six months or so. List time!


The Movies of 2006 (so far)

Black Sun (d. Gary Tarn) A
Requiem (d. Hans-Christian Schmid) A—
MirrorMask (d. Dave McKean) A—
A Scanner Darkly (d. Richard Linklater) A—
United 93 (d. Paul Greengrass) A—
The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (d. Tommy Lee Jones) A—
The Devil and Daniel Johnston (d. Jeff Feuerzeig) A—
Monster House (d. Gil Kenan) B+
Strayed (d. André Téchiné) B+
Forty Shades of Blue (d. Ira Sachs) B+



Best Director

Paul Greengrass (United 93)
Tommy Lee Jones (Three Burials...)
Dave McKean (MirrorMask)
Gary Tarn (Black Sun)
André Téchiné (Strayed)



Best Actress

Emmanuelle Béart (Strayed)
Sandra Bullock (The Lake House)
Sandra Hüller (Requiem)
Stephanie Leonidas (MirrorMask)
Pauline Malefane (U-Carmen e-Khayelitsha)



Best Actor (struggling a bit here...)

Nicolas Cage (The Weather Man)
Tommy Lee Jones (Three Burials...)
Edward Norton (Down in the Valley)
Guy Pearce (The Proposition)
Melvil Poupaud (Le temps qui reste)



Best Supporting Actress

Nichola Burley (Love + Hate)
Charlotte Rampling (Lemming)
Meryl Streep (A Prairie Home Companion)
Emily Watson (The Proposition)
Kate Winslet (Romance and Cigarettes)




Best Supporting Actor

Mos Def (16 Blocks)
Robert Downey, Jr (A Scanner Darkly)
Woody Harrelson (A Prairie Home Companion)
David Morse (Down in the Valley)
Barry Pepper (Three Burials...)



Original Screenplay

Guillermo Arriaga (Three Burials...)
Neil Gaiman, Dave McKean (MirrorMask)
Dan Harmon, Rob Schrab, Pamela Pettler (Monster House)
Bernd Lange (Requiem)
Dan Wilde (Alpha Male)


Adapted Screenplay

David Auburn (The Lake House)
Paul Greengrass (United 93)
Richard Linklater (A Scanner Darkly)
Hugues de Montalembert (Black Sun)
Gilles Taurand, André Téchiné (Strayed)




Original Score

tomandandy (The Hills Have Eyes)
Nathan Johnson (Brick)
Nick Cave, Warren Ellis (The Proposition)
John Ottman (Superman Returns)
John Powell (United 93)



Editing

William Goldenberg, Paul Rubell (Miami Vice)
Douglas, Pearson, Rouse (United 93)
Rian Johnson (Brick)
Roberto Silvi (Three Burials...)
Dan Zimmerman (The Omen)



Sound

Black Sun
Brick
Miami Vice
Monster House
United 93



Cinematography

Dion Beebe (Miami Vice)
Bogumil Godfrejów (Requiem)
Alar Kivilo (The Lake House)
Chris Menges (Three Burials...)
Gary Tarn (Black Sun)




Production Design

Forty Shades of Blue
MirrorMask
Requiem
A Prairie Home Companion
Strayed



Costume Design

MirrorMask
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
A Prairie Home Companion
The Proposition
Three Burials...



Documentary Feature

Black Sun
The Devil and Daniel Johnston
Who Killed the Electric Car?



Animated Feature

Curious George
Monster House
A Scanner Darkly








Top ten reissues:

The General (Buster Keaton, 1927) A
King Lear (Grigori Kozintsev, 1969) A
The Fallen Idol (Carol Reed, 1948) A
I Am Cuba (Mikhail Kalatozov, 1964) A
The Innocents (Jack Clayton, 1961) A
Kiss Me Deadly (Robert Aldrich, 1955) A
The Passenger (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1975) A—
Celine and Julie Go Boating (Jacques Rivette, 1964) B+
L’armée des ombres (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1969) B+
Metropolitan (Whit Stillman, 1990) B+


Worst ten movies so far this year:

The Da Vinci Code D—
The Thief Lord D—
Underworld: Evolution D—
Hostel D—
Silent Hill D—
Ultraviolet D—
Quo Vadis, Baby? F
Shopgirl F
Lady in the Water F
Get Rich Or Die Tryin’ F



And the so-bad-it’s-completely-unmissable award:

New Guest Oeuvre: Michael Mann (see right panel)

Let's get back into the swing of this...