Nic's Top Ten Films of 2006

With the Oscars a week away I've asked my son Nic, who is a great film historian, the heir to Roger Ebert, and a filmmaker to boot, and a sometime contributer to the comments section, to give us his take on the best movies of 2006.

10. The Heart of the Game

The makers of The Heart of the Game probably couldn’t have imagined the events that happened while they were shooting.  The basketball team in this movie went through so many hardships that you’d swear it was one of those sports movies that come out every year and you can’t tell the difference between them.  But this is a documentary.  The events in the film actually took place and we are actually seeing them.  Like Hoop Dreams, what happens in this movie is more incredible than any sports movie.

9. For Your Consideration

Christopher Guest’s latest film is a funny and accurate depiction of Hollywood and the whole Oscar process.  Personally, I can’t see how a film called Home for Purim could get made much less generate any Oscar buzz, but, in this film, it does.  Fred Willard and Jane Lynch as the T.V. show hosts are hilarious.  It may not be Christopher Guest’s best, but in an age where Norbit passes for entertainment, I’ll take For Your Consideration.

8. Flags of Our Fathers

A great director usually makes one great film in a year.  If a director makes two great films in a year, that is an achievement.  Clint Eastwood made two very powerful films in 2006.  The one flaw of Flags of Our Fathers was that when it tried to be emotional at the end, it wasn’t as emotional as it could have been.  However, the story of how these men were used as symbols makes this one of the best films of the year.  The battle scenes are disturbing, but a more disturbing scene is when they are preparing to reenact the flag raising at Soldier Field and somebody tells them to just pretend the other three men are there.  The film isn’t flawless, but it is a powerful movie that connects very well to today.

7. Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby

6. Stranger Than Fiction

Two great movies starring Will Ferrell came out this year and they are both a break in his usual routine.  The first was Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.  Now, I know what this looks like.  This looks like a kid putting some crazy movie on his top ten.  But, seriously.  When I saw the trailers for this, I thought it was going to be another one of those Will Ferrell movies, like Anchorman and Old School: movies that have one or two funny moments, but are crap for most of it.  This one was different.  It is completely accurate to life in the South.  It could be used as a historical document of the South.  There are two things I love about this movie.  One is John C. Reilly as Cal Naughton, Jr.  The way he says, “I’m Cal Naughton, Jr.” gets me every time.  Number two is Ricky Bobby’s kids: Walker and Texas Ranger.  I knew kids in South Carolina just like that.

The second movie this year with Will Ferrell was Stranger Than Fiction.  It’s so rare for a movie to be this thoughtful, but this film succeeds at that.  Will Ferrell’s performance is amazing and so is Maggie Gyllenhaal.  I loved the scene where they’re eating cookies together and she explains why she makes cookies.  Now, who doesn’t think you could make the world better with cookies? 

5. A Prairie Home Companion

Robert Altman’s final masterpiece is touchingly brilliant.  So it doesn’t have a plot, but who ever said that movies had to have a plot?  Whenever I think back on my English classes where they tell you everything has to have a plot structure and everything has to be just like this, I think about how wrong they all are.  No film is exactly the same as another film and no film should ever have to fall into the guidelines of an English class.  A Prairie Home Companion is a moving elegy for all things that have gone.

4. The Prestige

Christopher Nolan once again surprises us by turning what could be a dull movie into an intriguing and exciting experience.  Like Batman Begins he makes a great movie out of what has been done before, but not so well.  There were two magician period pieces in 2006 and this is the better one.  The twists and turns of the plot actually work.  You know what, forget what I said earlier about plot.  This movie is all about movies.  The three acts of a magic trick- the pledge, the turn, and the prestige- are the three acts of a movie.  Okay, so maybe movies can fit into the whole plot structure thing.  I can only say that, after this, I am really looking forward to The Dark Knight.

3. Pan’s Labyrinth

Guillermo del Toro’s imaginative masterpiece is dark, disturbing, and heartbreaking.  It is certainly not for the squeamish.  But it is an amazing and beautiful film experience.  This film reminds us why we go to the movies.

2. United 93

Paul Greengrass brings a documentary style realism to this gut wrenching dramatization of September 11, 2001.  It’s shocking and disturbing, but that’s the way it should be.  It’s not what you’d call great entertainment, but a story about that day shouldn’t be.  When I saw this, the entire theater was silent after the film ended.  The only sound was someone crying in the first row.  I’ve been to movies where the entire theater erupts into applause, but never a theater that was completely silent.

1. Letters From Iwo Jima

Clint Eastwood’s extremely powerful and emotionally connecting companion piece to Flags of Our Fathers is the best film of the year.  It’s amazing how a movie about death and destruction can be extraordinarily beautiful at the same time.  The relationship between the Ken Watanabe character and the regular soldier seems right out of a Kurosawa film: the fool meets the king theme.  The tank commander who was an Equestrian was a great character.  The character who is supposed to be a spy from the Japanese government has a great flashback scene where he is ordered to kill a dog.

Watanabe’s character is the kind of role that would have been played by Toshiro Mifune.  The Equestrian could have been played by Takashi Shimura, the samurai leader in Seven Samurai.  And, of course, it’s the kind of movie that would have been directed by Akira Kurosawa.  It feels like a Kurosawa movie.  There is simply not enough that can be said about this movie.  It’s a perfect movie and it is virtually impossible to make a perfect movie.  This is a film that every American needs to see because it rips away all preconceptions anyone has about World War II.  This film, I think, solidifies Eastwood’s position as the best living American director.

Comments

[yellojkt]

I am out of it. The only movie on that list I've seen is Prairie Home Companion which I thought was true to the spirit of the radio show: meandering and pointless, but occasionally funny.

[China Law Blog]

FYI: This years Roosevelt girls' team is 22-0 and ranked #1 in the state.

[Bob]

Like yellojkt, PHC is the only one of these movies we saw this year. We'll be taking some of Nic's recommendations for our next rentals.

Can't believe we haven't seen the Chris Guest film yet.

I think we only saw three movies in a theater this past year. PHC, V for Vendetta, and that Bruce Willis is a bad cop who has to usher some convict to testify against other bad cops thing. Which actually was pretty good, I thought, for what it was.

Oh, wait, we also saw The History Boys, which I wanted to like but didn't.

Hey Marathon Man -- congrats on our combined Bronstein win!

[Joe]

That's great. Um...what's a Bronstein award? Is it for Phil Bronstein, ex of Sharon Stone, San Fran Chron publisher, bitten by a gila monster Bronstein, or a different Bronstein? I'm clueless.

[Joe]

Actually, Phil Bronstein was nipped by a kimodo dragon I think. Ouch. Perhaps he was distracted by a nearby beaver.

[Mountain Mama]

I haven't seen "United 93," but I saw "Schindler's List" in the theater when it came from. After it had ended, the theater was deadly quiet. I was so emotionally drained afterwards I remarked to my then-husband that I felt like I'd been to a funeral.