Sunday, August 13, 2006

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:

11 comments:

NicksFlickPicks said...

Well, now I'm regretting giving the cold shoulder to MirrorMask when it passed through Hartford last year.

I'm going to post my own Awards So Far once I've seen my 50th movie of the year, probably some time this week. (World Trade Center and Miami Vice are probably next up on the docket, unless Monster House supersedes one of them, on your recommendation and Nathaniel's.)

We'll have a lot in common in the acting races. I'm hoping/assuming that a lot of what I've seen so far will be eclipsed by what's coming later in the year, although a few of springtime's brightest lights will probably hold on till year's end. David Morse is a good example - I'm so glad we agree about him!

NATHANIEL R said...

i wish i could agree on basic instinct 2... but i was so bored that i consider it very missable. (the only joy being in my shock at how often they shoved the title into actors' mouths)

and now i'm wishing again that i'd seen "down in the valley"

and no emily blunt in supporting actress? I guess this means you haven't seen devil wears prada

tim r said...

Nope, not yet. Even from the trailer though I could tell she was something.

Anonymous said...

Ooh my turn my turn!

Top 10 of 2006 so far (I go by original release date, so things like U-Carmen eKhayelitsha don't qualify here):

1. Volver
2. The Host
3. Princess
4. Frozen City
5. Offside
6. Slumming
7. Summer 04
8. Grbavica
9. 1:1
10. An Inconvenient Truth

Best Director
Pedro Almodovar (Volver)
Bong Joon-ho (The Host)
Anders Morgenthaler (Princess)
Jafar Panahi (Offside)
Aku Louhimies (Frozen City)

Best Actor
Janne Virtanen (Frozen City)
Michael Ostrowski (Slumming)
August Diehl (Slumming)
Robert Seeliger (Summer 04)

Actress
Maggie Gyllenhaal (Sherrybaby)
Penelope Cruz (Volver)
Laura Linney (Jindabyne)
Martina Gedeck (Summer 04)

Supp Actor
John C. Reilly (Prairie Home Companion)
Woody Harrelson (Ditto)

Supp Actress
Blanca Portillo (Volver)
Carmen Maura (Volver)

Screenplay
Volver
Frozen City
Summer 04
Slumming
Offside

Cinematography
Big Bang Love: Juvenile A

Editing
The Host
Volver
Big Bang Love: Juvenile A

Score
Volver
The Host
Princess

I'll cut it at that. It's funny - if I attempted this a week ago, I'd have about a quarter of these candidates; three weeks ago, I'd have none.


I haven't actually managed to catch the vast majority of your picks, Tim. I have however seen:
The Devil and Daniel Johnston (which I appreciated on a B- level)
Forty Shades of Blue (which I didn't much appreciate beyond the acting)
U-Carmen (which I thoroughly enjoyed)
The Proposition (which I thoroughly despised - and I thought Pierce's acting was its weakest aspect)
Le Temps qui reste (which I admired on a B level - I remember Moreau's performance even more vividly than Poupaud's but I'm biased since I adore that woman)
Lemming (which was fun above all for featuring Rampling at her icy-creepy best)
A Prairie Home Companion (which was very much hit-and-miss, with most of the hits belonging to Reilly and Harrelson, and most of the misses belonging to the rest of the cast; I don't understand the world's fascination with Streep when she's perfectly mediocre)

Anonymous said...

Can I make a case for tomandandy's score for the upcoming "Right at Your Door", which pulses with low-level menace? It's the first soundtrack in months that I've felt compelled to track down and buy...

Anonymous said...

I dig the shout-out for Robert Downey, Jr. He was amazing (and so was the film)!

Glenn Dunks said...

I hate every single person who posts best of the year things in the middle of the year.

(essentially because I'm bitter and angry that about 10% of these movies have actually been released in Australia. United 93 was only just released here this last week)

Anonymous said...

Kamikaze, you should give the Melbourne Film Festival a shot

Glenn Dunks said...

I would if I wasn't attending a different film festival over the next few weeks and if I didn't have to travel to Melbourne each day.

And my friends want to see these movies and they have school and such (plus, I do too. And work).

I have SUCH a hard life, really.

Emma said...

Woah, you've seen some obscure movies. I'll have to check out for them.

My best of 06 have been Cars and Volver.

Anonymous said...

Volver.