The Top (sort of) Ten Movies of 2006

Wow, what a crappy year.

Although I saw more than ten movies this year, I tend to think of top ten lists as having certain basic standards. Not just any movie is allowed into the top ten list, even if it was the tenth best movie of the year. Thus, if a year is so bad that the tenth best movie of the year really, truly, was White Chicks, then, dammit, you just have to make a top nine list and leave the tenth space open for Elijah.

So without further ado, my top eight list, followed by my speculation on three movies that maybe could have made the top ten if I'd seen them by the time I wrote this:

1. The Queen: like The Wire, but about the queen of England! What do I mean by that? Well, one of the many awesome things about The Wire is that it reveals to you a bureaucratic logic that allows you to understand how certain institutions work, and which is so important that without it you really can't understand much about why certain things happen in the world. That's a bit opaque, so let me give you an example. The Baltimore police department has a thing for statistics. More particularly, they very much don't like opening homicide cases without knowing in advance who they think is responsible for the murder. So, if they're pretty sure that designating a death as a homicide won't also bring with it an arrest, they would rather designate the murder as a suicide or an accident or ... well, they'd just rather avoid it altogether. Similarly, about the queen of England: she really does believe that she has certain responsibilities as queen; in particular, she is supposed to conduct her affairs with a certain dignity. So, when Princess Di dies, the queen doesn't go out and make a statement because, well, the royal family has never done that for anyone else, so why should she do it for Di?

2. The Departed: This was really entertaining. Alec Baldwin and Marc Wahlberg in particular were hilarious. I have the feeling there were big flaws with this movie, but I can't really think of them, nor could I think of them at the end. Though, the rat crawling across the railing at the end was a bit much.

3. Inside Man: Now, this really was flawed (it really went downhill in the last act). However, like The Departed, it was a lot of fun, and it was a love-letter to New York City that I wouldn't have been able to appreciate had I not lived here.

4. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest: Truth be told, I probably would have rated this higher than Inside Man if I thought that literally no one was reading this. I laughed a lot, I got caught up in the swordfighting ... I was just really into it. I saw it twice! However, I seemed by far to have the warmest reaction to this movie of my friends. So number 4 for you!

5. Borat: It was pretty dern funny. The "running of the Jews" was priceless. But it wasn't that original or the greatest comedy of all time or whatever.

6. Casino Royale: Okay, I saw this movie twice, too, but the second time was because I wanted to see something with Mom. I have to admit, it was a lot better the second time because I knew "how" to watch it, if you will. I knew it wasn't so much about beating an arch-villain as it was explaining why Bond was the way he was. Thus, the five endings were more bearable. And let's be honest: Daniel Craig is the best Bond ever, and the first hour made my socks orgasm.

7. Little Miss Sunshine: It was okay. The "sexy" dance that the nine-year gave at the end was cute and funny. Thank God it wasn't Dakota Fanning in that role.

8. Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby: Sascha Baron-Cohen really made this movie. Without him, it would have been pretty mediocre. But besides Baron-Cohen, I have only one word: cougar.

Now, I assume two out of the following three would have made my top ten.

I think The Last King of Scotland would have come in at #2, because (a) it is supposed to be really bloody; (b) it's about a historically evil figure, which relates to my dissertation; (c) it's got great acting; and (d) it got good reviews.

I figure The Descent would have finished at #8, because (a) I heard from my brother and Mikey Y that it was good; and (b) I love horror movies.

Finally Mel Gibson's Apocalypto probably would have finished at #7, knocking out Ricky Bobby, because it (a) has gotten reasonably good reviews; (b) is supposed to be a high-class action movie; and (c) is supposed to be really violent. Awesome.

Now, to give you a sense of how bad 2006 was for movies, the following movies from 2005 and 2004 all would have been good enough to be in the 2006 top ten:

2004 (in order of box office grosses):
1. Spider Man 2
2. The Incredibles
3. The Bourne Supremacy
4. Mean Girls
5. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgandy
6. Sideways
7. Kill Bill: Volume 2
8. The Manchurian Candidate
9. Dawn of the Dead
10. Saw
11. In Good Company
12. Napoleon Dynamite
13. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
14. Team America: World Police
15. Cellular
16. Open Water
17. Hotel Rwanda: The Chronicles of Riddock
18. Shaun of the Dead

Here are the top movies of 2005, also in order of gross:

1. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
2. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
3. War of the Worlds
4. King Kong
5. Wedding Crashers
6. Mr. & Mrs. Smith
7. The 40-Year-Old Virgin
8. Brokeback Mountain
9. March of the Penguins
10. Cinderalla Man
11. Red Eye
12. Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
13. Crash (according to Mom)
14. Fever Pitch
15. In Her Shoes
16. A History of Violence
17. Capote
18. Serenity
19. Hustle and Flow
20. Kung Fu Hustle
21. The Matador
22. Junebug