Best and Worst of 2006

Jumping the gun on this a little bit, since there are still a few movies out there that are technically 2006 releases. But I thought I’d do the hard work of ordering more than 130 movies now. But first, a few comments on the year that was (a month and a half ago):

–If things continue on their current course, I’ll remember 2006 as the year that the bottom fell out of the Dallas independent film market. So many movies that didn’t play here, that I thought would have in previous years. Of the film’s on indieWIRE’s Critics Poll, four of the top ten and six of the top 20 have yet to play here. I realize that this sounds like a silly complaint to those who don’t even have stuff like Pan’s Labyrinth playing near them, but it really bothers me all the same.

–2006 was the Year of the Decent. As you’ll see from my year-end list, I found a lot of movies that I was at least OK with, and I saw very few that I strongly disliked. Of course, this is mostly because I try to avoid things that I think I’ll hate – there’s no Little Man or Hostel to be found on my list. But in general, I didn’t feel like a lot of films really let me down.

–On the other hand, nothing really knocked me out, either, except for the top two films, and one of those was made over 30 years ago (but not released in the US until 2006, so it’s eligible for the list as far as I’m concerned). Last year, there were 5 that I thought were truly exceptional (see that list here).

And thus, without further ado, the best films of the year (subject to change, but unlikely to do so):

1) Pan’s Labyrinth (Guillermo del Toro)
2) Army of Shadows (Jean-Pierre Melville)
3) The Prestige (Christopher Nolan)
4) The Queen (Stephen Frears)
5) Neil Young: Heart of Gold (Jonathan Demme)
6) Brick (Rian Johnson)
7) Inside Man (Spike Lee)
8) Children of Men (Alfonso Cuarón)
9) Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story (Michael Winterbottom)
10) United 93 (Paul Greengrass)
11) Akeelah and the Bee (Doug Atchison)
12) An Inconvenient Truth (Davis Guggenheim)
13) World Trade Center (Oliver Stone)
14) The Fountain (Darren Aronofsky)
15) Sweet Land (Ali Selim)

Clink “Link” for the rest of the year, meticulously ordered by preference. SPOILER: Running with Scissors was my least favorite. END SPOILER.

VERY GOOD (20): Clean; Volver; Block Party; The Proposition; The Notorious Bettie Page; Little Miss Sunshine; The Departed; Marie Antoinette; Tsotsi; L’Enfant (The Child); Sophie Scholl: The Final Days; Monster House; Fateless; Cars; A Prairie Home Companion; Cavite; The Heart of the Game; Idiocracy; Flannel Pajamas; Letters from Iwo Jima

ALSO GOOD, IF NOTHING SPECIAL (39): Casino Royale; Lemming; Half Nelson; Glory Road; Shortbus; Babel; Little Children; Rocky Balboa; Perfume: The Story of a Murderer; The Good Shepherd; Bubble; The Pursuit of Happyness; Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan; Find Me Guilty; Down in the Valley; Duck Season; 13 Tzameti; The Good German; A Scanner Darkly; Factotum; Stranger Than Fiction; The Last King of Scotland; Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World; Why We Fight; Running Scared; Eight Below; Thank You for Smoking; Wah-Wah; Strangers with Candy; Favela Rising; My Country My Country; Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles; The Bridesmaid; A Good Year; Come Early Morning; Fast Food Nation; Game 6; Wordplay; Darwin’s Nightmare

DOESN’T SUCK (31): Don’t Come Knocking; 16 Blocks; The Devil Wears Prada; The Painted Veil; Notes on a Scandal; Once in a Lifetime: The Extraordinary Story of the New York Cosmos; Jesus Camp; Apocalypto; V for Vendetta; Ask the Dust; The History Boys; Venus; Joyeux Noël (Merry Christmas); Lonesome Jim; Friends with Money; Art School Confidential; Sketches of Frank Gehry; Peaceful Warrior; Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man; The Illusionist; All the King’s Men; Renaissance; Curse of the Golden Flower; The Science of Sleep; Infamous; Deja Vu; The Nativity Story; Winter Passing; Breaking and Entering; Mission: Impossible III; Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest; The Da Vinci Code

SUCKS (22): Lady Vengeance; Miami Vice; Drawing Restraint 9; Hollywoodland; Copying Beethoven; Catch a Fire; Factory Girl; Flags of Our Fathers; The Descent; X-Men: The Last Stand; Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus; Trust the Man; Hard Candy; Superman Returns; Dreamgirls; The Break-Up; The Lake House; Firewall; Night Watch (Nochnoi Dozor); Blood Diamond; The Architect

REALLY BADLY SUCKS (10): Unknown White Male; Lady in the Water; Bobby; Miss Potter; Man of the Year; Poseidon; The King; La Moustache; For Your Consideration; Running with Scissors

Delivering Movies Over The Internet

NOTE: Though long and rambling, not a comprehensive study by any means

Is it really here yet?

I’ve been waiting for internet-delivered movies to come for some time. Mostly, I’ve been waiting for the convenience to come for some time. Oh, sure, there have been the Reals, GoogleVideos, YouTubes, etc…. that have been delivering video clips forever. And there were/are movie services that claimed you could download movies for a fee. I didn’t know what I wanted, but I knew that nothing tickled my fancy quite yet.

Video On Demand blew up big a few years ago and when I finally got it with Comcast I thought my ship had come in. Tons of video content and full movies that you could get any time you wanted! But nothing was in HD and the widescreen versions were actually confined to letterbox within the 4:3 aspect ratio. HD is still coming along in the OnDemand world. Most of it is pay-per-view for new releases and things, so I’m still deterred. Sure there’s a lot of content and I still find myself watching some things on occasion, but it still doesn’t feel like it’s all there.

Also, with Comcast you need the set-top box, cable connection, and television. Same kind of deal with satellite. You can’t necessarily take your DISH or cable box in to the kitchen or bedroom to watch tv. So you need to opt for multiple installations or devices or pieces of equipment. And you’ll need a DVD player for each one to catch up on your rentals and other sundry movie-watching. But even then you’re confined to inside the house or garage. What if you’re on a date and Gorman is up to bat?

It would seem as though Slingbox is the answer to all of my prayers. And it almost is as far as satellite/cable-delivered content is concerned. I mean, this thing is amazing! As long as you set it up right you can watch and control your TV from any device that has an internet connection. A problem….How do I watch my rented DVDs? Also, it’s another piece of equipment.

Consolidating a few items into Windows Media Center Edition seemed like a great solution a few years back. So I have a computer that can do everything a computer does that is hooked up to my TV. It also plays my DVDs, records TV, plays pictures, all my music, etc… But, again, without a slingbox or ORB (also really, really cool) installed, I can’t get access to it anywhere else besides sitting right there in front of the TV.

Without going into all other available options out there that I haven’t tried, let me tell you what I stumbled upon last week. Well, really last month. I read an article stating that Netflix was getting into delivering movies on demand over the internet. The idea intrigued me but I was wondering what it would look like and how they would do it, what the costs would be, what the requirements would look like, etc…

Later on I signed in to my account from work to find a notice stating that the “Watch Now” service would be activated for all subscribers by June 2007….just keep checking back. OK. No biggie. Then last week I found an additional tab at the top of my Netflix menu:
The last tab was labeled “Watch Now”. Hey, I was activated! I couldn’t wait to get home and try it out. That night I fired up my laptop and headed for netflix.com. I scanned the meager selection of movies. I immediately noticed one thing: there was nothing I even remotely wanted to see. However, there was one pre-selected segment called “From your DVD queue” which contained 4 movies. Aha! So there were a few that I wanted to see. At least, a few that I had put in my queue.

As most married men know, getting your wife to “sign off” on technology can only mean good things. It doesn’t even have to be a positive embrace, just as long as you don’t get the evil eye whenever the subject is broached, you’re usually good to go. While thinking about this I spotted a movie in the “classics” section starring Doris Day (The Thrill of It All). I don’t know what the fascination is, but my wife is one of many enamored with all things Ms. Day. This had to be my shoo-in! My plan was to turn in early and spring the delivered movie on my wife whilst she sat amazed at her technology king! (not that I played a part in development or even discovery of watch now…those are merely facts)

The interface seemed easy enough: find movie you want to watch, click Play. So I got the site up, logged in and clicked Play. You’re first taken to a screen which lets you know you need to install the Netflix Player. This is really a web browser plug-in as there is no external program that gets installed. It seemed harmless enough so I went for it. Unfortunately the installer never lets you know when it finishes. So after waiting around for a few minutes I went ahead and clicked Play again. The new player window opened up with simple controls: play, pause, a volume slider, and a full screen button. A few seconds later I was told I needed to upgrade my media player (which I found odd because I had the latest version of Windows Media Player). But I clicked OK and a few seconds later the “upgrade” was complete (I’m guessing this is another plugin and not a full-blown upgrade). Now, the moment of truth!

From the speakers came the opening salvo and I saw the old Universal logo appear. It was working! But the logo stood still! The sound kept going and the screen went black! Now a still picture appeared and the sound kept going! I was getting crystal clear sound thanks to my high-speed internet connection, but the picture was jumpy to say the least: One frame every 3 seconds. This simply would not do. Now, my laptop is 5 years old. It’s a P3 1.2gHz with 512mb RAM. Come to find out these are the minimum specs for Netflix’s watch now service. Full screen and windowed mode were the same. My trial was a bust! It wasn’t until 4 days later (yesterday) that I remembered my TV has a much newer computer connected to it.

So last night I went through the installation machinations on my Media Center and lo & behold – it works! Like a champ! Flawless! Full screen mode is comparable to satellite TV service and the sound is clear. Mind you, this is only with a movie from 1963, but I can see the potential. And Netflix is literally adding new titles every day. I now see that Sherrybaby, Amadeus, The Matrix and others are all available. Netflix first removed the chore of going to the video store and now it’s removing the chore of going to the mailbox. I can get fatter at a more rapid rate!!

But this still isn’t the end-all. I’m still tied to my media center, though I am no longer tied to the postal service. Theoretically with a beefier laptop I can have ubiquitous entertainment (netflix combined with aforementioned media extenders)! But is that even really what I want? Am I just dissatisfied for dissatisfaction’s sake? Do we need more ways to get entertainment?

Lost in a sea of gadgetry and convenience the answer is probably No on all counts, but it sure is fun to see what they will come up with next!