Top Movies of 2006
1. Pans Labyrinth: By far, and by a distance, the best movie of 2006. Viva Guillermo Del Toro. A little girl's imaginative world of magic, fears and innocence in a world of brutality. With such a perfect set up, the movie delivers a haunting unforgettable experience. To reveal more is to take away. Makes my top 20 list of all time. The scene I will remember the most is toward the end, where I can still see Ophelia's eyes as she shakes her head in defiance.
2. The lives of others: About spying on intellectual freedoms in the DDR. The whole theatre was in rapt attention as the plot unveiled and it got to be more and more thrilling. The story comes to a logical, natural yet unexpected end. The movie ends a bit later, with one of the most beautiful lines ever "Nicht, Est is fur mich." Meaning "No, it is for me." Magnificent. There is an excellent dialogue about mid way during the movie that's very memorable as well. The girlfriend of this playwright is against her wishes having an affair with a powerful politician and the playwright is begging her not to go. She says something to the effect that they control what we have and what we can get to be, that is why she is going. And she asks him "is that not why you are in bed with them." (The playwright at that stage gets along with these politicians.)
3. Letters from Iwo Jima: Clint Eastwood rapidly is becoming God. Fantastic movie about horrors of war. Tells the Japanese side of the story of the Iwo Jima invasion by American troops. The Japanese army was out numbered and was essentially waiting for death. There is a beautiful scene where a private in the Japanese army is sent out to throw away the refuse and as he gets out of the cave, he sees in the entire dark gray horizon full of American ships ready to attack. The darkness and spine chilling effect of the composition of this scene is alone worth the price of admission.
4. Volver: As dark as the mascara on Penelope and as bright and beautiful as her eyes. Her performance is the best by an actress this year – I liked it over Dench and Mirren. Tom Cruise left her for Katie? Tom Cruise should be given an honorary oscar for the most dumb decision in real life.
5. Notes on a Scandal: Kate Blanchett is terrific. A grudging well done to Judi Dench. She is too full of herself and I always thought here is "Judi Dench on the screen" not here is the character. I am in love with Kate Blanchet after this movie. Her portrayal of vulnerability, guilt and deceit is memorable.
Top 10 of all time. In no particular order
Seven Samurai. After seeing the sweeping greatness of this movie, I was stunned by how much ahead of his time Kurosawa was. IMDB.com has some excellent appreciations of this movie. Amongst his many masterpieces it is tough to choose between this and Roshomon, but the simplicity of the plot here makes it more attractive.
This movie lanunched many others of its kind. Magnificient Seven and Sholay are some of them. After seeing Kurosawa's masterpiece, I simultaneously wanted to beat the living crap out of the nincompoop dimwitted Neanderthals who made and acted in Sholay and beat the living daylights out of the semiliterate nincompoops who love Sholay.
Blue: In the tri color trilogy, this is my favorite. The idea of liberty as triumphing over oneself was fantastic. Your colleague's blog (Alice in wanderland) has something to say about a liberated woman and what it means. I think she is on the right track but is scratching the surface there; this movie is much deeper on that idea. It is beautiful in texture and in acting.
Pans labyrinth. See earlier review Ed - 'Pan' just jumped from top 20 to top 10 ?
Vertigo. The heart break part of the movie Nivens character slowly killing Novaks character by asking her to dress and act as some one else. This is one of the poignant aspects of this thriller. (Ebert discusses this in his review. Check out roger ebert.com and search for vertigo.) And beautiful San Fran all around.
Million Dollar Baby. I have a soft spot for gritty women of deep resolve. That's why I can live with my stubborn wife.
The Mask: I think there is only one form of genuine comedy – physical. This intellectual wit stuff is vain bullshit. Jim Carey is God in my books. Just watching Careys many expressions makes this movie worthwhile.
Pulp Fiction. This is like watching a mad genius gone berserk. Best line in the move – "Lucky for you, you caught me in a transitional state." Or something to that effect.
To kill a mocking bird. Does any body read the book any more?
The terrorist. Santosh Sivan's terrific cinematography and direction in this minimalist movie are fantastic. And according to Ebert "one of the best plot twists" ever. To create life or to destroy it – what a choice Ayesha Dharkars character has to make. Notable in this movie is the lack of any scenes of violence – and Santosh sivan says that he did not want to show violence because showing violence glorifies it.
And that annoying Mani Ratnam started with this movie and ended with Dil Se. Where's a gun when you need one?
Sagara Sangamam. Kamal is a true genius of our times. His performance here is marginally better than in Nayakan – although both are at extraordinarily high levels. One of the greatest actors of all time in a movie with one of the best melodies of all time – Mouna Mela Noi.
The world would be a better place if the following movies were not made or if the following actors were not given a chance to act
Anjali by Mani Ratnam. I am temped to add Dil Se but the song Chayya Chayya is one of the best musical videos ever. The over acting by the child actress when Anjali dies, made me want to give up my anti capital punishment stance and condemn Mani Ratnam to death by lethal injection or preferably death by making him watch his own movie.
Sholay by assorted idiots
Amitabh Bachchan. When is this overrated actor going to pay back the city of Bangalore for the miss world/miss universe that he hosted there?
Mrs Doubtfire: Robin Williams sentimental weeping counts as one of the most annoying things of all time.
Nargis. This idiotic woman passed a bill or wanted to pass an act in the parliament censuring Ray for making movies about poverty!! Yet another person in the category of high outreach to intellect ratio.
17 comments:
Would love to see these. As always one of the biggest things I miss about the US is easy access to great movies. Your East German movie reminded me of some other german movies I loved. "The Tin Drum", "The White Rose", and recently I reviewed (I think) a series of movies I saw at the Max Mueller Bhavan, all very good, you should try some of them.
Penelope Cruz - Dude, admiring someone as a good actress (or a beautiful woman or a good anything), and being married to someone are very different things
Kamal - his later work is depressingly terrible
Amitabh - Completely wrong on this one
Nargis - Are you confusing her acting ability with her thinking ability. She might be able to act great even if she does dumb things
You need to do something about all the suppressed hostility you have in you.
You go Sidharth. Tell him where he gets off ! About time too !
Now, Palls, be nice in your rejoinder, don't start a flame war here. And let me defend you on the last point mainly because I kind of fall into the same category too: there is a species of Indian that sees itself (with some justification) as a connoiseur of good cinema. And living in the US you are exposed to all sorts of good movies from around the world if you take a little trouble to get off the beaten path. And you don't necesssarily pay special attention to Indian movies since there is such a lot of good stuff around. There is no colonial hangover here at all, there is just a lot of fantastic world cinema to check out.
Pals,
Can you critique Sholay? I will make a start in case you don't know where to begin (because its so monumentally bad). Critiquing Sholay must be easy esp.considering it was "inspired" by 7 Sam and its western adaptations.
Also can you say when you last saw the movie? That will give us an idea about your movie-viewing connoisseurship (?), sophistication, etc etc
Amitabh for President!!!
Sidharth -- I am so disappointed you deleted your acerbic comments
Despo, can you stop trying to mediate with all the gravitas of a Supreme court judge gently tapping the gavel on a grave constitutional matter. If you cant throw mud over a matter like this, at least encourage others to.
Else your blog will become like George Will's columns.
Patro:
Heres my critique of Sholay.
This is a movie starring dimwitted Neanderthals by dimwitted neanderthals for the enjoyment of audience of type Z.
Where type Z includes dimwitted neanderthals or others who have temporarily lowered their IQ by at least 75 points off their normal levels.
Given that I seem to be the only person making inflamattory remarks that spice up this blog, I am concerned that the readership shows neither passion nor fight.
Arvind
Yes, Amithab for president ... of any neighboring country or galaxy with less developed life!!
Arvind
Gentlemen, gentlemen -- we are all mild-mannered, well-tamed corporate citizens here. I am sure we can sort out any disagreements without resort to unnecessary harsh language and judgementalism. So kindly approach all disputes with pleasantness and an open mind.
Meanwhile -- can New Yorks finest pick up that local lowlife and conduct a body cavity search
Proof by assertion Pals.
Republican politics!!!
Despo:
I called NY's finest and told them that you wanted to get Bill O Reilly searched. Turns out they wanted to do so themselves.
Then it occurred to me that may be you didnt mean O Reilly. I was shocked for who would have thought that Amithab is visiting NYC!!
Arvind
Pals,
BTW to understand your moronic critique required me to lower my IQ way below the 75 point interval and then some and then some more and then below even your IQ level.
It then seemed to make sense. Very fleetingly. ^_^
Pals,
By any of your aesthetic criteria most Indian actors are people you should deeply respect.
IQ - they are surely smarter than you (Rajni, Amitabh, Salman Khan!!!, Sunil Shetty! MGR, Jayalalitha etc)
Money - they are surely richer than you (same list)
Beautiful life - in oodles - the kind you would dictate should flourish as opposed to life in certain latitudes and longitudes. If you know what I mean.
Aesthetics of art - who needs that with all the above. But yet there will be many such people i.e. smarter, richer, with more beautiful lives and art/aesthetics to boot (flowing out of all body cavities maybe??) who will say you are wrong about Sholay.
Its nice to know that you feel at home to shoot of your mouth randomly. Makes me laugh.
Hope that is flaming enough. Seems certain mojos are lost.
>>BTW to understand your moronic critique required me to lower my IQ way below the 75 point interval and then some and then some more and then below even your IQ level.
It then seemed to make sense. Very fleetingly. ^_^
If only one could ones your IQ a little bit more, one might then finally be capable of appreciating Sholay!! Clearly you are capable of appreciating this 70mm projection of filth that essentially rapes a masterpiece of Kurosawa.
The situation is a bit like Godels Theorem. At most two of the following can be true
( i ) you are intelligent
( ii ) you have good taste
( iii ) you like Sholay
Arvind
i wish kurosawa were around. how that would've shut you up?
Die Weiss Rose. I nearly saw a related movie: Sophie Scholl the last days. Sophie Scholl was one of the founding members of the white rose resistance movement in Munich during the war.
There were no tickets and so I had to get back. One of these days, I shall write you a post about Angelika Film Center in NY. They play the best movies and almost never play something like Sholay!!
BTW, despite the fact that half the comments on this post are mine, this must count as one of the more successful posts - simply because it has managed to piss off such a large number of people!! As George W would say, with a flourish atop a carrier, mission accomplished.
Arvind
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