My top fifteen films of 2006

There were a lot of films of 2006 that I wanted to see. Some of them I got around to: some I didn't. The ones I did see tended to be the mainstream suburb-trash that weren't that high up o the list. Things like The Fog, Saw II and so on. I would have liked to have dragged myself to see some more worthy filmic offerings, but there you go. We do what we can, and I've listed the ones I missed on my Movies I Want To See list to remind me to get them from the video shop.
Out of the ones that I did get around to, these are the ones I liked the best.

15. Syriana
Thanks, Clooney, for making the most incomprehensible account of connectedness and corruption in the oil industry of all time. I felt like a total idiot watching this. That said, it was a fascinating and gripping film with some gorgous cinematography and excellent actors.

14. Crash
Everyone's talked this one to death, so I'll just say it won the Oscar for good reason.

13. The Proposition
Yay for Aussie films that aren't totally about larrikins, drinking or suburbia. Groan to this film for dragging out the tired old dialogue about Australians' dichocotomous relationship with the harsh landscape, a la Priscilla, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Mad Max to an extent, Man From Snowy River, etc. We know it's important, but do we need to see it all again? Yay for David Gulpilil and for Nick Cave, and for this film's non-condescending tone. Bring on the sequel!

12. Superman Returns
Brandon Routh was great, whatshername with the different eye colours was surprisingly competent, and the saving-the-jet sequence was a stroke of CGI genius.

11. Casino Royale
We saw this at Gold Class. Lying in the back row in a giant soft recliner, champagne in hand, lost in an exotic world of fast cars, hot casinos, fast women and hot beaches (yeah, that's right, Daniel Craig emerging from the surf)- who wouldn't love it? Animated opening credits were fantastic, as was the sequence near the start where Bond chases a bad guy through a building site- cranes, explosions, 40-foot leaps...pure awesomeness and decadent escapism.

10. Snakes On A Plane
I don't care if anyone says this was a dud. I know it tanked and failed to live up to expectations at the box office, but it was a couple of hours of stupid, formulaic fun. And it had Samuel L. Jackson in it. I enjoyed it.

9. Brokeback Mountain
Thought it would be a bit self-indulgent, but it really wasn't. Michelle Williams will never do better, and neither will Heath Ledger. How far he's come since Two Hands... even if we discreetly ignore A Knight's Tale, he's really come into his own. Jake Gyllenhaal will go onwards and upwards from this film, assuming he doesn't choke and lose it and do an Ashton Kutcher. A heartfelt and honest story, and all the homophobic under-educated losers who told me "Ew, I just couldn't go to see something about gaybos" should be forced to watch this film, as demonstrated in A Clockwork Orange. They're probably the people whose idea of cinematic heaven is Jackass and Big Momma's House.

8. The Prestige
Oh yeah, Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale (remember when he was in Little Women, the 1992 version, as Winona's love interest? And that redheaded Eric guy was the rival suitor? Look who went on to American Psycho and who dropped off the planet after making a few straight-to-video clunkers) and Michael Caine, ALL IN ONE FILM. That's right. Scarlett Johannsen was probably a product of less-than-inspired casting, but what about DAVID BOWIE as the creepy old magician in the woods?!?! GOLD!!! Twists galore, death, Ripperesque settings, mayhem, destruction, illusions and quite a lot of excellently tailored 19th-century mens' suiting. Brilliant.

7. Freedomland
This was surprisingly excellent. Is it a coincidence that Julianne Moore (and Michael Caine!) is in two of my top 15? She was in that really bad 2005 movie where her child goes missing, but apparently there was never a child and she's nuts, then her husband doesn't know her and all the dudes in white coats are looking for her to lock her in the loony bin, then all this stuff happens and it turns out it was aliens. Aliens all along. That was a shocker. Anyway, Freedomland is great. The scene where she is sitting with the older woman on the log outside the shell of Freedomland and she does that monologue? We were both glued to the couch. Time stopped, during that performance. It was inspired. Overall, just a really great, classily-done movie.

6. The Devil Wears Prada
The clothes! The SHOES! How jealous am I of Anne Hathaway? I want to end up like Meryl Streep: formidable, dipped in steel, untouchable, powerful, yet with a killer manicure and as many Balenciaga bags as I can carry. I did have some moral/feminist issues with the closing sequences, and the film's message overall, but I still enjoyed it. It would have been so much better though if there had been no half-arsed attempt at some greater meaning and had just been a two-hour fashion party. Great fun.

5. Pirates of the Caribbean 2
After Johnny Depp has booted that strumpet Vanessa out of the Provencal cottage, along with the two kids, and I am happily installed therein as her able replacement and Johnny's new lover, and in between me making buttered scones and cocoa for Johnny, and us skipping through fields of sunflowers, holding hands and chasing butterflies under rainbows, we will snuggle together on the limited-edition Versace couch and watch old VHS tapes of his Pirates movies, as well as Dead Man which didn't seem to get much press in Australia. It was giant in Europe though. And then I will braid and bead Johnny's hair, and do him some killer eyeliner, and we will re-enact scenes from Pirates 2 , with Johnny as Sparrow and me as Old Squidface Davy Jones, and then we will bitch about how lame it was that Anthony Warlow had to resort to channelling Johnny in The Pirates of Penzance 2006 season (who, in turn, was channeling Keith "I fell out of a palm tree" Richards) because nobody cares about Pirates of Penzance any more because G&S have become ultra-lame and poncy. Thank you, John English. Do you really have two black eyes? Because it looks like you do.

4. Little Miss Sunshine
Ah, wasn't this sweet? Little Olive in her little pageant. The pageant scences really reminded me of Brisbane dance eisteddfods. So many stage mothers, all swooping and squawking, like chicken hawks. JonBenet probably got off lightly. And Steve Carell was just great as the nutcase uncle, and Greg Kinnear is always great. And Toni Collette? She should give herself a big tick for this. Just after seeing this movie, I was really ready to rethink how I felt about her. I thought she had really redeemed herself, after Tokyo Story. Sadly, then she released her debut single, and those reconsidering thoughts were crushed. Just in time. We laughed and laughed all the way through this. Funny, bittersweet, heartwarming, and with the best, BEST, ending of 2006.

3. Thank You For Smoking
Saw this at Noosa. It was totally enjoyable, intelligent, accurate and thought-provoking. Is the tobacco industry really this bad? Oh well, we saw The Insider, so it must be. Great opening titles. I love Smoke That Cigarette by Sammy Davis Jr. but I assumed it was so uncool that I'd never hear it in public. Hopefully, this film will have introduced some more people to the glory that is Sammy. For more information, rent out Sweet Charity, and fast forward through Shirley Maclaine (rest her soul) dancing like a maniac on bridges, in hotel rooms, at her house, in some guy's house that she's dating, all shot at wacko angles in ECU, to Sammy singing Rhythm of Life with a bunch of homeless zombies in a deserted car park. Comes a close second to the glow-in-the-dark street urchin dance in The Wiz.

2. An Inconvenient Truth
I wonder why no one ever elected Al Gore. Apart from how he was illegally shafted at the eleventh hour by the crooked White House election staff and replaced with GWB, the talking puppet, he seems like a really good guy, and someone that would have arrested the damage being done around the world to the environment much earlier (as opposed to Bush's "not at all"). This film made me sit up, open my eyes, and get cranky. I still cynically believe that we're all headed straight to hell in a corporate shopping trolley (with GWB behind pushing), but as soon as electric or hybrid cars come into my price range, I'm buying one. Until then, it's shorter showers and taking the pushbike.

1. Children of Men
Breathtaking. After Alfonso Cuaron made the second Harry Potter, everyone carried on about how he had injected some unnecessary seriousness and gravity into a childrens' film. Hardly anybody said what a FANTASTIC job he had done: it was all "Mexican foreign directors" this and "change of tone" that. Well, now they can all go bite their socks, because Cuaron has made the best film of the year. When he wins an Oscar for this, he should take a photo of himself with the trophy, make photocopies, go see every critic who dissed him for Harry Potter and staple it to ther faces. Children of Men is an accurate and heartbreaking vision of the future. This is exactly what is going to happen to the world. Apart from the excellent script, perfect acting and inspired casting (I never knew Clive Owen was so brilliant), the cinematography is the best I've seen since I can remember. Film students all over the world will be made to watch the flawless tracking shots, crisp, perfectly-backfilled lighting, and the incredible one-shot scenes, filmed from one camera and capturing gorgeously-framed and detailed images. Just the thought of this film brings a lump to my throat. I bet Spielberg is checking on his stock portfolio already. Hold your breath, film geeks, and pray for all you're worth that Cuaron comes back from this with something just as amazing and unforgettable.