The Gaijin Mountain Man's Top Ten for 2006
I had a great time with the movies this year. Many of them I would like to have seen when they were in the theater, but a computer screen did just fine. Some of these I haven't reviewed yet in my column thing, but I'll get to them soon. Have a great year full of genre flavored kisses everyone.
The Constant Gardner - The loss of a loved one is a hard subject for a film to cover. Too earnest and it'll come across as manipulative, but if dealt with too easily and quickly it loses its potency. A fine balance is needed and this one finds it. Meirelles paces the narrative like a master, editing scenes with such a deft touch. He stirs the timeline around you, and creates the story through a collage of intense scenes and slowly realized atrocities. Through this he is able to make a depressing story invigorating and warm.
Altered States - I'm a stupid, stubborn man. I'd avoided this for years. I had read a quick description that created the impression it was a celebration of hippie freak outs, and the couple of Ken Russell films I'd seen did the opposite of impress me. I finally softened my attitude after reading that Paddy Chayefsky wrote it. He also wrote Network which is one of my favorite movies from the 70's (no easy accomplishment) and figured if it had a 10th of the originality and vision of Network I wouldn't be disappointed. As I'm sure you've figured out, since it's on my top ten list, I was rocked by this film. Yes, there's a trippy focal point here, but it's both exciting and grounded by the relationships between the main character and his family and friends.
The unappreciative attitude toward love caused by professional obsession has been explored in many movies but this conveys it, strangely, through exploration of biological regression involving the use of psychotropic drugs, with a more realistic and deeply felt conclusion than most.
Brick - Brick contained my favorite character of the year. Brendan Frye doesn't look anything special, but he has an inventive, witty, and wise mind tempered with a hefty set of balls, but he's also plagued with fallibility. Writer, director Rian Johnson creates in his first film an addition to the hard boiled detective pantheon that is worthy to live alongside the giants of Philip Marlowe and Sam Spade. Even now, months after watching it, I find myself thinking back on one or two of the fights (both physical and mental) Brandon got himself into and his badass tactics in taking down people who were confident in his loss.
Fist of Legend - Usually, while watching a martial arts movie I have to consciously let some things slide. Either the story blows, the cinematography is muddy, or the acting hurts my brain. Not with this gem. Sure some of the dialog can go a little crooked but only at certain points. Other than that you get a streamlined story of righteous revenge with a non-complicated , yet effective love story, and brilliant Master Woo-ping choreography that's impeccably directed.
Dead Man's Shoes - Ah, the nice surprise. All of the entries in this here list I knew about months or even years before I saw them, but this was a chance encounter. I noticed the cover, of a guy in a gasmask holding a shotgun and pistol, on some internet list of DVD's coming out that week. The cover looked cheap, but a good cheap, a raw and passionate cheap. I was luckily able to find it on the old infranet and later that night had my mind blown by a brutal little British doozy of a flick that has no pretensions. It tells a great story in a fun yet pleasantly serious manner.
This was made in '04 but hadn't made it stateside until this year. Another awesome film gets shoved in the back and tons of appreciators will never find it. A lot like Rolling Thunder last year I knew nothing going in, and had my psyche stolen by a maddened film trying to find an audience. I hope I receive a similar gift sometime next year.
Scanners - I caught the exploding head scene on cable when I was in high school right before I had to leave for a pep rally or some such nonsense. That scene looked so killer I planned on renting the movie soon to see if it fulfilled the promise of that one awesome scene. Many times, many, many times I went to the video store in the years after and not once did I take this beauty down off the shelf. Don't know why, maybe I was afraid of the movie disappointing me and ruining the reputation that exploding head scene built in my mind. How stupid. Instead I've rented stupid crap like A Very Brady Sequel when I could have seen something awesome like this, and it's the exact type of movie I'm always in the mood for. Low budget sci-fi that uses inventive story instead of money, and fulfills your dream of wonderment, and I'm proud to say I have dreams of wonderment quite often thank you.
Pan's Labyrinth - The single greatest scene I witnessed this year was in Pan's Labyrinth: A little girl crawls through a wall, and encounters what Del Toro has called in an interview "The Pale Man", and it is so terrifying and cool I find myself thinking about it at least once a week since. This is of similar quality with The Devil's Backbone, and has me wondering if maybe all of his movies should take place during the Spanish civil war.
The Departed - I and most fans of Asian cinema were understandably skeptical of this remake. Most times the remakes are maddening dumbed down. I was double worried because Scorsese hasn't impressed me in about fifteen years, and triple worried because Nicholson hasn't impressed me in about twenty. Well, Nicholson still didn't win me over, and the romance sub-plot was a little poopy, but Alec Baldwin was super fun and Boston became one of the best characters in the movies this year.
Slither - Crappy horror flicks are just about the most popular thing going now. Almost every week I hear about a new one to ignore. It seems I'm the only one ignoring them though. They all seem to be gobbling the business, all but this one. Apparently people don't want their horror with a funny tone and imaginative story twists. No, they want their horror to be serious, boringly brutal, and as unimaginative as a standard romantic comedy. The horror/sci-fi genre deserves better. It deserves more Slithers.
United 93 - I can usually gauge how much I like a move by how often I'd be willing to re-watch it. I'm surprising myself by saying Brickis probably the movie this year that I could watch the most often. United 93 is the one on this list I will probably watch the least, but it is the only film this year that I thought was perfect. I was not disappointed with one element. Paul Greengrass triumphed on a difficult subject that was made even more difficult with the current international situations and their connection to the events in this movie. I will not watch this movie often. It is too strong. But I'm so glad I saw it that once.
