As regular readers know, I’ve been keeping track of all the movies I watch in the cinema this year. I’m up to 62. I did a little sorting and organization, and threw the whole list into a spreadsheet. What were my favourites and the total dogs?
Darren’s Top 10 Movies of 2006
10. The Good Shepherd
9. Cars
8. The Last King of Scotland
7. Munich
6. Hard Candy
5. Thank You For Smoking
4. The Departed
3. Babel
2. United 93
1. Blood Diamond
The Top 10 Worst Movies Darren Saw in 2006
10. The Break-Up
9. Running Scared
8. The Black Dahlia
7. Ultraviolet
6. Accepted
5. My Super-Ex Girlfriend
4. Man of the Year
3. Van Wilder 2: Rise of the Taj
2. Fun With Dick and Jane
1. Stick It
For at least five of the films on my worst list, I pretty much knew exactly what I was getting into. I’m as much addicted to the experience of going to a movie as I am to the movies themselves.
UPDATE: I just saw The Good Shepherd, and remembered two movies that I’d seen and hadn’t written about. I was reminded of Half Nelson by Steve Burgess’s year-end list.
Fast Food Nation – 5.5/10 – It’s kind of a polemic, more about the messages than telling a story. I’d read the book, so there wasn’t a lot for me to discover in the movie. There are some truly repulsive scenes of factory farming, and you won’t be going to McDonald’s afterwards, but it’s a pretty mediocre movie.
Half-Nelson – 7.5/10 – A terrific performance from Ryan Gosling. It’s unpredictable, which I appreciated, and not your average teacher-and-student movie, but it didn’t really stick in my memory.
The Good Shepherd – 8.5/10 – It’s a long, complex movie about the emergence of the CIA, but it’s neither boring nor difficult to follow. Matt Damon’s character is an emotional void who struggles with mixed loyalties to his country and his family. There are a half-dozen great performances, including director Robert De Niro and Tammy Blanchard.
DarrenBarefoot.com 
I thought Brick was great, not so sure about Hard Candy (too many older men in the audience… creepy). I think you should see Children of Men before the year is out 🙂
BTW I think there’s something amiss with your tab ordering here… pressing tab from the name field jumps to the About link at top of page
Wow, you really didn’t see a lot of foreign films in the theatre this year.
Alexis: True, I didn’t see many. Looking at ‘best foreign film’ lists for the year, one I’d like to see is “Pan’s Labyrinth”, but it hasn’t opened here yet. The other big foreign film this season is “Volver”, which doesn’t interest me.
Which good ones did I miss?
It turns out that I didn’t watch a lot of foreign movies in the theatres either this year. (I seemed to watch a lot of DVDs this year, mostly older movies.)
But if you haven’t seen them, I’d recommend “Journey from the fall” (which is flawed but worth seeing.) It’s about the Vietnamese during the Vietnamese war. I’d also recommend C.R.A.Z.Y and Eve the Firehorse, both of which are Canadian.
I’m just about done the Oscar project. I just have to watch ‘Ben Hur”, which I plan to do over the holidays. Then I’ll be watching all of Ebert’s top 100 films. That’s a project that I’m starting slowly, as I’m trying to watch more Asian cinema too.
Mom also recommends the South African movie “Tsotsi”, which I haven’t seen yet.
what did you dislike about “stick it”? My little sister is a gymnastics buff and loved it.
Tsk tsk, you go see more than 50 movies but fail to see what many people call the funniest movie ever made: Borat.
Heck, I haven’t even seen Nacho Libre (it looked horrible on the previews) but if you watch Nache Libre and don’t watch Borat, you’re doing the entire genre of comedy a dis-service.
TravisO: I know lots of people found ‘Borat’ funny, but it wasn’t for me. This post and discussion thread explains why:
http://tinyurl.com/y2caml
I’ve seen more movies this year than I have in the past ten years, but I’m still well below your pace. I’ve only seen two of your best 10, but six of your worst 10. Believe it or not, I agree with you about all six of them! I also saw Borat and wish I hadn’t bothered. The fact that I don’t like Da Ali G Show should have been a clue.
Dear Darren,
We will be doing something together for the upcoming Northern Voice conference. We will have to talk in person before. Meanwhile just this note to say I didn’t see any of your best or worst movies this year. I think I saw The Queen and that’s it!
Alexwh
Darren:
I would have also put “A Scanner Darkly” and “Renaissance”.
I don’t know whether Renaissance (I saw it at the film fest) will be in general release, although I’ve seen stories done on it on the space channel. If you haven’t seen it, it blows any other graphic novel movie adaptation out of the water. It’s a british/french film, live action filmed with b&w animation overtop. It’s a detective mystery that takes place in 2027 Paris.
Someone here also mentioned Tsotsi. I loved it! It’s now on DVD I believe.
Ok. Darren you’ve convinced me to see “The Good Shepherd.” Looks like the “Children of Men” is opening next week so I need something to see at the movies this weekend and I know that it isn’t going to be charlotte’s web….
I like both of your lists though “The Good Shepherd” is one that has, so far, sneaked under my radar.
As for the worst list, “Ultraviolet” has to be one of the very worst things I’ve EVER seen and I actually enjoyed “Accepted”. Not great but fun.
I don’t agree with you saying Fun With Dick and Jane was number 2 for top 10 worst movies but I do agree with Stick It like Oh My God that was a stupid movie.