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The New World (1/14)
Syriana (1/1)

Others:

Superman Returns
V for Vendetta
Da Vinci Code
The Departed
Casino Royale
Apocalypto (2 times...)
The Descent

more that I can't think of...

Kings & Queen (Desplechin)
Caché (Haneke)
The New World (Malick)
She's the Man (Fickman)
Down in the Valley (Jacobson)
The Lady in the Water (Shyamalan)
Jesus Camp (Ewing/Grady)


Awaiting:

Volver (Almodovar)
Black Christmas (Morgan)

k,

#1 so far is The New World (Malick).

Most highly anticipated is Ferrara's Mary and Allen's Match Point.

Update: Well, still no Mary, but Allen's Match Point was okay. Not nearly as great as I had been hoping, though.

Bubble, however, is certainly going to make the final top 10.

1) Lady Vengeance
2) The Departed
3) V for Vendetta
4) Tristam Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story
5) Half Nelson
6) Infamous
7) The Proposition
8) Calvaire
9) Little Children
10) Shortbus

Runners up: Lemming, Casino Royale, Friends With Money, INLAND EMPIRE, Hard Candy, Pan's Labyrinth

Worst: Art School Confidential, Poseidon, Scary Movie 4, Thank You For Smoking, The Holiday, Fur

1. The Departed
2. Pan's Labyrinth
3. Children of Men
4. Volver
5. Letters from Iwo Jima
6. Half Nelson
7. The Queen
8. A Prairie Home Companion
9. The Prestige
10. Inside Man



Runners up: Brick, The Proposition, The Lives of Others, Shut Up & Sing, Old Joy, Casino Royale, Marie Antoinette, 49 Up

1. Munich

Highly Anticipated: Inland Empire, Art School Confidential, Tideland, The Brand Upon the Brain.

1. Miami Vice (Michael Mann)
2. Der Freie Wille (Matthias Glasner)
3. Fantasma (Lisandro Alonso)
4. Still Life (Jia Zhang-Ke)
5. Offside (Jafar Panahi)
6. The Paper Will Be Blue (Radu Muntean)
7. Belle toujours (Manoel de Oliveira)
8. Déjà Vu (Tony Scott)
9. Fireworks Wednesday (Asghar Farhadi)
10. Dance Party, USA (Aaron Katz)

In no order:

Le filmeur (Alain Cavalier)
One Way Boogie Woogie/27 Years Later (James Benning)
Homecoming (Joe Dante)
Mona Lisa (Li Ying)
The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (Cristi Puiu)

Match Point (Woody Allen, 2005)

----

Oedipax wrote:#1 so far is The New World (Malick).

Most highly anticipated is Ferrara's Mary and Allen's Match Point.

I have seen Ferrara's Mary and it is quite good. Binoche and Whitaker are terrific in the film. The film is very heavy on religious ponderings and philosophy so if you like that sort of stuff, then you'll like it. Not Ferrara's best film but far from his worst. I liked it but Match Point was for me the far better film.

Life in the Undergrowth (David Attenborough / BBC) - sublime, jaw-dropping stuff that adds wonderful fuel to the misanthropic fire.

1. Three Times (Hou)
2. Broken Sky (Hernandez)
3. The Good German (Soderbergh)
4. Miami Vice (Mann)
5. Mary (Ferrara)
6. Brick (Johnson)
7. Flags of Our Fathers (Eastwood)
8. Letters From Iwo Jima (Eastwood)
9. Little Children (Field)
10. The Proposition (Hillcoat)


Second ten:

United 93 (Greengrass)
Babel (Inarritu)
Mountain Patrol (Chuan Lu)
Casino Roayle (Campbell)
Black Dahlia (De Palma)
Akeelah and the Bee (Atchison)
Hard Candy (Slade)
The Departed (Scorsese)
Hills Have Eyes (Aja)
Half Nelson (Fleck)

I'm looking forward to:

Colossal Youth (Costa)
Still Life (Jia)
Old Joy (Reichardt)
Klimt (Ruiz)
Fay Grim (Hartley)
The Fountain (Aronofsky)
Breaking and Entering (Minghella)
Children of Men (Cuaron)
The Great Ecstasy of Robert Carmichael (Clay)
Mutual Appreciation (Bujalski)
Coeurs (Resnais)
History Boys (Hytner)
Volver (Almodovar)
Syndromes and a Century (Weerasethakul)
Belle Toujours (Oliveira)
River Queen (Ward)
Half Moon (Ghobadi)
Nightwatching (Greenaway)
Drawing Restraint 9 (Barney)
Regular Lovers (Garrel)
Crazy Again (King)
The Wind That Shakes the Barley (Loach)
Woman on the Beach (Hong)

Not necessarily in this order...

1. Brick (Rian Johnson, 2006)
2. Miami Vice (Unrated Cut) (Michael Mann, 2006)
3. "OK GO Video" (from Youtube)
4. "American Express Ad" (2006, Wes Anderson)
5. Nacho Libre (2006, Jared Hess)
6. "What Goes Around Comes Around" - Coke Ad (2006, Nagi Noda)
7. Bubble (2006, Steven Soderbergh)

Best Performance: Tommy Lee Jones / The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada

Best Supporting Performance: Mark Wahlberg / The Departed

Best Cinematography: Dion Beebe / Miami Vice

Best Screenplay: Rian Johnson / Brick

Best Direction: Michael Mann / Miami Vice

Best Production Design: Jim Clay & Geoffrey Kirkland / Children of Men

Things I hope to see: The Science of Sleep, The Fountain, Pan's Labyrinth, The Prestige, Mutual Appreciation, Old Joy, Half Nelson, The Host.

Things I've seen: The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, Superman Returns, Little Miss Sunshine, Sympathy For Lady Vengeance, Snakes On A Plane, The Departed, Volver, Children of Men, The Queen, Marie Antoinette, Duck Season, United 93, Nacho Libre, Brick, Bubble, A Prarie Home Companion, Inside Man, Dave Chappelle's Block Party, The Intruder, L'Enfant, Manderlay, Miami Vice (Director's Cut), Down In The Valley, The Devil Wears Prada.

This list is a work in progress.
Oh, and I'm also very aware of the fact that is extremely male-dominated, American list.

Aki Kaurismäki - Laitakaupungin Valot
Park Chan-Wook - Sympathy For Lady Vengeance
George Clooney - Good Night And Good Luck
Stephen Gaghan - Syriana
John Hillcoat - The Proposition
Michael Mann - Miami Vice
Tommy Lee Jones - Three Burials Of Melquiades Estreda
Alexander Sokurov - The Sun
Richard Linklater - A Scanner Darkly
Mitsuru Meike - The Glamorous Life Of Sachiko Hanai

1. The Trailer for Bubble

The best of 2006:

Army of Shadows - Melville
Caché - M Haneke
Drawing Restraint 9 - M Barney
Children of Men - Cuaron

The very good:

Marie Antoinette - S. Coppola
Gabrielle - P. Chereau
A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints - D. Montiel
A Prarie Home Companion - R. Altman
Match Point - W Allen
The New World - T Malick
The History Boys - Hytner
L'Enfant - J & L Dardenne
Volver - Almovadar

1. Reqiuem
2. The New World
3. Cache
4. A Scanner Darkly
5. The Departed
6. Volver
7. Scoop
8. Pan's Labyrinth
9. The Queen
10. Letters From Iwo Jima

The Departed (Scorsese, 2006)
Half Nelson (Fleck, 2006)
Volver (Almodovar, 2006)
The Fountain (Aronofsky, 2006)
Pan's Labryinth (Del Toro, 2006)
Inside Man (Lee, 2006)
Stranger Than Fiction (Forster, 2006)
Little Miss Sunshine (Dayton/Faris, 2006)
The Science Of Sleep (Gondry, 2006)
The Proposition (Hillcoat, 2005)

Top 10 films of 2006 *so far* *updated December 9*

1. The Departed
2. Borat
3. Apocalypto *I have a feeling this is going to be the most underrated film of the year*
4. Casino Royal
5. Half Nelson *Has the most powerhouse performace of the year*
6. V for Vendetta
7. The Queen
8. Lady Vengeance
9. United 93
10. Thank you for Smoking


Runners up- World Trade Center, A Scanner Darkley, Inside Man, Miami Vice, Pirates of the Carabian: Dead Man's Chest, Akeelah and the Bee, Flags of Our Fathers, The Proposition, Running Scared, Brick, Miami Vice, Superman Returns

Worst-
Little Miss Sunshine *is it just me, or did anyone else think this as the most depressing and unfunny films they have ever seen. It's sad to say that this film is going to be the dark horse for Oscars over the great Apocalypto*
The Wicker Man
The Omen
The Da Vinci Code *aka The Da Vinci Bore*
All The King's Men *there is a very good reason why they held off the release last year of this film*

En Soap
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
The Science of Sleep
The Departed
The New World
Brick
Match Point
Big Bang Love, Juvenile A
Marie Antoinette
Offside

Having now seen both The Departed and The Lives of Others in the cinema again in 2007, I must say I was previously mistaken. And what the fuck, to continue the theme of revisionism, Marie Antoinette replaces The Fountain.

Oh yeah, El Crimen Perfecto would certainly have made the cut had I not felt silly about including a 2004 film.

1. The Fountain
2. Children of Men
3. The Wild Blue Yonder
4. A Scanner Darkly
5. The New World
6. The Devil and Daniel Johnston
7. The Departed
8. Miami Vice
9. Superman Returns
10. Slither

Anticipating:
Rescue Dawn
Mary
The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes

The Sun (Aleksandr Sokurov)
Flanders (Bruno Dumont)
Instructions for a Light and Sound Machine (Peter Tscherkassky)
Cache (Michael Haneke)
Three Times (Hou Hsiao-Hsien)
Magic Mirror (Manoel de Oliveira)
Kekexili: Mountain Patrol (Lu Chuan)
12:08 East of Bucharest (Corneliu Porumboiu)
Offscreen (Christoffer Boe)
Regular Lovers (Philippe Garrel)

And these weren't bad, either: Shanghai Dreams (Wang Xiaoshuai), Iron Island (Mohammad Rasoulof), Battle in Heaven (Carlos Reygadas), Saratan (Ernest Abdyjaparov), Tristram Shandy (Michael Winterbottom), Mary (Abel Ferrara), The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes (Quay brothers), Hana & Alice (Iwai Shunji), 13 / Tzameti (Gela Babluani), Takeshis (Kitano Takeshi), Drawing Restraint 9 (Matthew Barney), A Soap (Pernille Fischer Christensen), The Boss of It All (Lars von Trier), The Science of Sleep (Michel Gondry), Lights in the Dusk (Aki Kaurismaki), The Comedy of Power (Claude Chabrol), Klimt (Raul Ruiz), Offside (Jafar Panahi), Homecoming (Joe Dante), The Pervert's Guide to Cinema (Sophie Fiennes), Zidane: a 21st Century Portrait (Douglas Gordon & Philippe Parreno), A Scanner Darkly (Richard Linklater).

Mutual Appreciation (Andrew Bujalski)
Wassup Rockers (Larry Clark)
Invisible Waves (Pen Ek Rataranuang)

Inside Man (Spike Lee)