I'd be sort of sad if I had to start my annual year-end film detrius thread here.

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DV with a crappy black and white conversion

Wait a sec, maybe that was just the trailer you saw? Isn't the hype on this one that S.S. used 1940s vintage equipment to shoot it?

― Bill Weber (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 14:12 (seventeen years ago) link

Yeah, I thought it was like Far From Heaven meets Elephant (the White Stripes album, not the Van Sant film).

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 14:18 (seventeen years ago) link

I got a severe eau du Borzage from the trailer - maybe he bought Frank's camera.

― David RER (Frank Fiore), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 14:59 (seventeen years ago) link

I don't think the 'vintage' angle extends to celluloid - just lighting, editing and sound. I'm pretty sure this is related to his HD deal with Mark Cuban.

― milo (milo), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 15:21 (seventeen years ago) link

http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/thegoodgerman/hd/ - trailer I'm watching. There's no depth to the B&W (compare to Clooney's movie last year, which was shot on color film and converted giving it the widest possible tonal range). This just has the look of a digital image converted later on.

― milo (milo), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 15:26 (seventeen years ago) link

http://www.thereeler.com/features/the_voice_in_the_wilderness.php

interesting.

sad comment from any taubin.

nathan lee is a really good writer, personally prefer him to atkinson.

but foundas... ech.

― temporary enrique (temporary enrique), Wednesday, 6 December 2006 10:35 (seventeen years ago) link

That is a very interesting article, but I question its credentials as "detrius."

The National Board of Review winners, however, are what this thread was created for:

Top 10 Films (winner in bold)
Babel
Blood Diamond
The Departed
The Devil Wears Prada
Flags of Our Fathers
The History Boys
Letters from Iwo Jima
Little Miss Sunshine
Notes on a Scandal
The Painted Veil

Best Foreign Film
Curse of the Golden Flower
Days of Glory
Pan's Labyrinth
Volver
Water

Best Actor
Forest Whitaker, The Last King Of Scotland

Best Actress
Helen Mirren, The Queen

Best Supporting Actor
Djimon Hounsou, Blood Diamond

Best Supporting Actress
Catherine O'hara, For Your Consideration

Best Acting By An Ensemble
The Departed

Breakthrough Performance - Male
Ryan Gosling, Half Nelson

Breakthrough Performance - Female
Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls
Rinko Kikuchi, Babel

Best Director
Martin Scorsese, The Departed

Best Directorial Debut
Jason Reitman, Thank You For Smoking

Best Adapted Screenplay
Ron Nyswaner, The Painted Veil

Best Original Screenplay
Zach Helm, Stranger Than Fiction

Best Documentary
51 Birch Street
An Inconvenient Truth
Iraq in Fragments
Shut Up & Sing
Wordplay

Top 10 Independent Films
Akeelah and the Bee
Bobby
Catch a Fire
Copying Beethoven
A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints
Half Nelson
The Illusionist
Lonesome Jim
Sherrybaby
10 Items or Less
Thank You for Smoking

Best Animated Feature
Cars

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Wednesday, 6 December 2006 21:33 (seventeen years ago) link

isn't blood diamond supposed to be incredibly awful?

― deep space nine (deep space nine), Wednesday, 6 December 2006 21:38 (seventeen years ago) link

God, the NBR blows. Idiotic that they have a separate list for independent films. (And what, Little Miss Sunshine isn't independent because it appeared in their overall top 10?) Also, Stranger Than Fiction was not that great of a screenplay.

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 6 December 2006 21:40 (seventeen years ago) link

Between the Top 10 overall and the Top 10 indies, I feel safe in declaring this to be the worst year ever for American cinema. Jesus.

― milo (milo), Wednesday, 6 December 2006 21:41 (seventeen years ago) link

"independent" as someone observed long ago is a marketing term.

has Letters from Iwo Jima even been released in LA?

― Dr M (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 6 December 2006 21:42 (seventeen years ago) link

Letters from Iwo Jima has been everywhere for at least a month.

― milo (milo), Wednesday, 6 December 2006 21:43 (seventeen years ago) link

Everywhere but my house.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Wednesday, 6 December 2006 21:44 (seventeen years ago) link

nowhere in New York.

― Dr M (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 6 December 2006 21:44 (seventeen years ago) link

Anyway, I'm sort of relieved that it wasn't Dreamgirls. The NBR was that flick's best chance until the West Oklahoma Critics Circle announces their winners.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Wednesday, 6 December 2006 21:45 (seventeen years ago) link

I love that everytime I open this thread, Daniel Craig's boobies stare back at me.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Wednesday, 6 December 2006 21:45 (seventeen years ago) link

Yeah, I thought Letters from Iwo Jima wasn't supposed to open until next year.

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 6 December 2006 21:46 (seventeen years ago) link

It got pushed up when Flags underperformed.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Wednesday, 6 December 2006 21:47 (seventeen years ago) link

Flags has vanished from NY, but no Iwo.

is that the Oklahoma! Critics Circle?

― Dr M (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 6 December 2006 21:50 (seventeen years ago) link

How nuts is it that Flags nearly got an entire row of perfect ***** ratings in the most recent Film Comment critics' chart?!

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Wednesday, 6 December 2006 21:55 (seventeen years ago) link

I dunno. Sometimes I don't even know half those chart guys are. I'm not even sure I saw anything **** new this year. Yet I generally like Eastwood when he's not ripping off Rocky IV.

― Dr M (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 6 December 2006 22:03 (seventeen years ago) link

That John Waters list is better with his comments, of course:

1 United 93 (Paul Greengrass) The best movie in the last five years. No cheap shots in this one! I have friends who would watch a snuff film, yet they refuse to see this great action picture—I don’t get why.

2 Jackass Number Two (Jeff Tremaine) Playing on more than three thousand screens, Jackass 2 was the number-one-grossing movie in America on its opening weekend—and the male stars eat shit and drink horse semen for real. They’re nude a lot, too. If this isn’t cultural terrorism, I don’t know what is.

3 The Last King of Scotland (Kevin Macdonald) Forest Whitaker tops the performance of Joseph Olita in 1981’s Rise and Fall of Idi Amin, one of my all-time favorite trash masterpieces.

4 Shortbus (John Cameron Mitchell) When was the last time the star of a film rimmed someone, sang “The Star-Spangled Banner,” and walked away with his dignity? A touching, lovely movie that I hope gets turned into a Broadway musical.

5 The Departed (Martin Scorsese) The best-acted film of the year from America’s coolest director. The final shot is beyond perfection.

6 Sherrybaby (Laurie Collyer) Maggie Gyllenhaal plays an ex-convict drug addict (the kind I see in Baltimore every day), and the film is so depressing and great that I wish I could see it with an all-female prison audience.

7 Inside Man (Spike Lee) Handsome bank-robbing outfits—so chic, so scary, so fashionably conformist.

8 Sleeping Dogs Lie (Bobcat Goldthwait) A feminist tale of a girl who once blew her dog and mistakenly tells her boyfriend. Now there’s a high-concept romantic comedy.

9 Hamilton (Matthew Porterfield) A tiny, minimalist art film from Baltimore that made it to New York and is astonishing in its simple beauty, amazing performances, and hypnotic pace. The real thing.

10 Marie Antoinette (Sofia Coppola) Sofia Coppola is Karen Kilimnik!

― Marmot (marmotwolof), Wednesday, 6 December 2006 22:17 (seventeen years ago) link

he oft has bad taste when watching films, too (tho I've only seen Shortbus and Ditztoinette).

― Dr M (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 6 December 2006 22:22 (seventeen years ago) link

Yeah but I'm intrigued by Bobcat Goldthwait Feminist Dog Blowing Movie now that I know what it is.

― Marmot (marmotwolof), Wednesday, 6 December 2006 22:26 (seventeen years ago) link

Yeah, that one's been totally Netflixed.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Wednesday, 6 December 2006 22:54 (seventeen years ago) link

many x-posts I was thinking Letters from Iwo Jima was the title of the American part.

― milo (milo), Wednesday, 6 December 2006 23:47 (seventeen years ago) link

Between the Top 10 overall and the Top 10 indies, I feel safe in declaring this to be the worst year ever for American cinema. Jesus.

No shit. Jesus is that list depressing.

― C0L1N B... (C0L1N B...), Thursday, 7 December 2006 05:04 (seventeen years ago) link

I'd at least wait until the formerly-Village Voice polls come out before declaring that.

In any case, it's the worst year ever for me going to cinema from America or anywhere else.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Thursday, 7 December 2006 05:48 (seventeen years ago) link

uh holmes, the word is 'detritus'. jus' sayin!

― temporary enrique (temporary enrique), Thursday, 7 December 2006 09:18 (seventeen years ago) link

but anyway it must have been a bad year for films, i only paid to see three.

― temporary enrique (temporary enrique), Thursday, 7 December 2006 09:20 (seventeen years ago) link

The only movie I went to see this year was Casino Royale.

― Marmot (marmotwolof), Thursday, 7 December 2006 09:27 (seventeen years ago) link

Enrique, it's kind of a tradition.

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 7 December 2006 17:17 (seventeen years ago) link

I can't figure out why I liked Volver as much as I did despite it being completely Almodovar-By-Numbers

― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Thursday, 7 December 2006 17:25 (seventeen years ago) link

Yeah, I've been having trouble figuring that out, too. Mostly it was just an entertaining, well-made film.

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 7 December 2006 17:38 (seventeen years ago) link

I'm a fan of detrius, even if I'm not a fan of most of the movies detrius celebrates.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Thursday, 7 December 2006 18:41 (seventeen years ago) link

Was The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada released this year or last year?

― milo (milo), Thursday, 7 December 2006 21:36 (seventeen years ago) link

take your pick. it was on last year's list for critics, but most theaters didn't get it til this year I think.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Friday, 8 December 2006 06:25 (seventeen years ago) link

re Volver, it's the singer not the song

― Dr M (Dr Morbius), Friday, 8 December 2006 14:30 (seventeen years ago) link

Regardless of how mediocre or bad 2006 was for American films, I saw one critic point out that it would seem to be even more shockingly terrible for foreign titles released in the U.S. this year. Volver will probably win every "not from here" prize in existence, and almost everyone is saying it's not up to his last three. Beyond that, it's Lazarescu, L'Enfant and ... that would seem to be it for heavy hitters with widespread support. Duck Season and Three Times and Gabrielle would push the list over five, but I defy you to try and stretch that list to the 15 or 20 necessary to match years past.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Friday, 8 December 2006 18:37 (seventeen years ago) link

On the other hand, I just saw that the NY Times suggested that NYFCC might pick Army of Shadows for Best Picture this year.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Friday, 8 December 2006 18:45 (seventeen years ago) link

(not that any of their critics should know that, as I think they're not involved in the awards.)

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Friday, 8 December 2006 18:45 (seventeen years ago) link

even more shockingly terrible for foreign titles released in the U.S. this year.

I don't think it's all that shocking when US distributors seem to be taking fewer and fewer chances (or ones that do are folding). Tsai ming-Liang has completed two since Goodbye Dragon Inn that haven't been distrib'd.

Foreign detrius films are crowd-pleasers; even if I liked Volver OK, I'd likely put Kekexili (Mountain Patrol), Battle in Heaven, 4, Fratricide plus maybe Changing Times ahead of it.

Doesn't The Science of Sleep count as foreign?

― Dr M (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 9 December 2006 05:41 (seventeen years ago) link

Maybe it does. Maybe it does.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Saturday, 9 December 2006 08:47 (seventeen years ago) link

I saw Gabrielle at NYFF '05, but it'd be my only serious challenger thus far to Inland Empire at #1.

― Dr M (Dr Morbius), Sunday, 10 December 2006 08:24 (seventeen years ago) link

A ton of critics awards came out today. I don't keep track of what shows up when, but I can't remember the last time so many happened simultaneously. The only two that really matter ...

L.A. FILM CRITICS
Picture: "Letters From Iwo Jima"
Runner-up: "The Queen"

Director: Paul Greengrass, "United 93"
Runner-up: Clint Eastwood, "Flags of Our Fathers" and "Letters From Iwo Jima"

Actor: Sacha Baron Cohen, "Borat" and Forest Whitaker, "The Last King of Scotland" (tie) (no runner-up)

Actress: Helen Mirren, "The Queen"
Runner-up: Penelope Cruz, "Volver"

Supporting actor: Michael Sheen, "The Queen"
Runner-up: Sergi Lopez, "Pan's Labyrinth"

Supporting actress: Luminita Gheorghiu, "The Death of Mr. Lazarescu"
Runner-up: Jennifer Hudson, "Dreamgirls"

Screenplay: Peter Morgan, "The Queen"
Runner-up: Michael Arndt, "Little Miss Sunshine"

Cinematography: Emmanuel Lubezki, "Children of Men"
Runner-up: Tom Stern, "Flags of Our Fathers" and "Letters From Iwo Jima"

Production design: Eugenio Caballero, "Pan's Labyrinth"
Runner-up: Jim Clay and Geoffrey Kirkland, "Children of Men"

Music: Alexandre Desplat, "The Queen" and "The Painted Veil"
Runner-up: Thomas Newman, "The Good German" and "Little Children"

Foreign-language film: "The Lives of Others"
Runner-up: "Volver"

Documentary/non-fiction film: "An Inconvenient Truth"
Runner-up: "Darwin's Nightmare"

Animation: "Happy Feet"
Runner-up: "Cars"

Douglas Edwards experimental/independent film/video award: "Old Joy" (Kelly Reichardt) and "In Between Days" (So Yong Kim)

New generation award: Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris (directors) and Michael Arndt (screenwriter), "Little Miss Sunshine"

Career achievement award (previously announced): Robert Mulligan

----------

BOSTON FILM CRITICS
Best Picture: The Departed (ru: United 93)
Best Director: Martin Scorsese (ru: Paul Greengrass)
Best Actor: Forest Whitaker (ru: Ryan Gosling)
Best Actress: Helen Mirren (ru: Judi Dench)
Best Supporting Actor: Mark Wahlberg (ru: Michael Sheen, Alec Baldwin)
Best Supporting Actress: Shareeka Epps (ru: Meryl Streep)
Best Ensemble Cast: United 93 (ru: The Departed)
Best Screenplay: The Departed (ru: The Queen)
Best Foreign Film: Pan's Labyrinth (ru: Volver)
Best Documentary: Deliver Us from Evil, Shut Up & Sing (ru: 51 Birch Street)
Best New Filmaker: Ryan Fleck (ru: Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris)
Best Cinematography: Pan's Labyrinth (ru: The Painted Veil, Curse of the Golden Flower)

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Sunday, 10 December 2006 23:37 (seventeen years ago) link

"matter" (Boston critics not too parochial on that Bos-mick mob thing, huh).

Idi Amin and Borat tying in LA is about the level of 'seriousness' present in the whole exercise.

Douglas Edwards experimental/independent film/video award: "Old Joy" (Kelly Reichardt) and "In Between Days" (So Yong Kim)

^the Ghettoizing Actual Art award?^

― Dr M (Dr Morbius), Monday, 11 December 2006 14:25 (seventeen years ago) link

Sick. Jackie Earl Haley just won an NYFCC award.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Monday, 11 December 2006 16:03 (seventeen years ago) link

Oh, following this in realtime, are you? c'mon, Child Molester is a gimme.

http://www.nyfcc.com/awards.php

― Dr M (Dr Morbius), Monday, 11 December 2006 16:36 (seventeen years ago) link

and why has your inner dreamgirl already prejudged that one? cuz it figures to be a Bill Condon vision, ie harmless mediocrity?

― Dr M (Dr Morbius), Monday, 11 December 2006 16:37 (seventeen years ago) link

They misspelled Jackie Earle Haley's name.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 11 December 2006 16:42 (seventeen years ago) link

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