The Departed is Travers’ #1 film. Dreamgirls is number two.

Stephen King’s ten:

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/commentary/0,6115,1569937_1472578_0_,00.html

Oscar shortlist, visual effects (3 nominees):

“Casino Royale,” “Eragon,” “Night at the Museum,” “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest,” “Poseidon,” “Superman Returns” and “X-Men: The Last Stand.”

Thomson sez Eastwood’s two films are his best ever:

http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,,1972299,00.html

And here he is making two films at a time, filled with a profound uncertainty over the nature of war such as might have astonished the Man With No Name, that instant icon he fashioned for Sergio Leone.

‘i’ve never seen so many men wasted so badly.’

Is that from GoodBadUgly?

yes indeed

jaymc, is your film critic friend a member of the Chicago Critics group?

The apex and embodiment of this thread:

Rex Reed’s best and worst:

The 10 Best Films of 2006

1. Babel
2. Notes on a Scandal
3. The History Boys
4. The Painted Veil
5. The Queen
6. Flags of Our Fathers/Letters from Iwo Jima
7. The Illusionist
8. Infamous
9. Dreamgirls
10. Volver

Honorable Mentions: Water, Scoop, Find Me Guilty, Deliver Us from Evil, The Last King of Scotland, Kinky Boots, Our Daily Bread

THE 10 WORST FILMS OF 2006

1. Borat
2. The Fountain
3. Apocalypto
4. Lucky Number Slevin
5. The Black Dahlia
6 All the King’s Men
7. Lady in the Water
8. Brick
9. Inland Empire
10. Fur

Extra hisses and boos to: The Da Vinci Code, A Prairie Home Companion, Déjà Vu, The Prestige, Rumor Has It, Freedomland, For Your Consideration, Perfume

jaymc, is your film critic friend a member of the Chicago Critics group?

Yup. He sez:

I am SO happy with these nominees. I don’t agree with all of them, I can’t imagine anybody does, that’s the nature of democracy, but I think we made some great choices, ignoring several recent disturbing trends like Dreamgirls for pic and Blood Diamond for anything. Babel had a much stronger showing than I thought it would and that makes me happy too. Seeing Brick, Children of Men, and The Fountain score their nominations is great too—they’ve been underepresented in critics awards so far. They deserve each and every one of them. I love the tech nods for The Fountain. A few categories, including our great choices for breakthrough performer, score, and cinematography include five of my ten (in the first round we voted ten in each category). That’s cool.

And here are the Chicago Film Critics nominees (winners to be announced on Dec. 28):

BEST PICTURE

Babel

The Departed

Little Miss Sunshine

The Queen

United 93

BEST FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FILM

Apocalypto

Letters From Iwo Jima

Pan’s Labyrinth

Tsotsi

Volver

BEST DIRECTOR

Clint Eastwood: Letters From Iwo Jima

Stephen Frears: The Queen

Paul Greengrass: United 93

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu: Babel

Martin Scorsese: The Departed

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Babel: Guillermo Arriaga

Letters From Iwo Jima: Iris Yamashita

Little Miss Sunshine: Michael Arndt

The Queen: Peter Morgan

United 93: Paul Greengrass

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

The Departed: William Monahan

Little Children: Todd Field & Tom Perrotta

Notes On A Scandal: Patrick Marber

A Prairie Home Companion: Garrison Keillor

Thank You For Smoking: Jason Reitman

BEST ACTOR

Leonardo DiCaprio-The Departed

Ryan Gosling-Half-Nelson

Peter O’Toole-Venus

Will Smith-The Pursuit of Happyness

Forest Whitaker-The Last King of Scotland

BEST ACTRESS

Penelope Cruz-Volver

Judi Dench-Notes on a Scandal

Maggie Gyllenhaal-Sherrybaby

Helen Mirren-The Queen

Meryl Streep-The Devil Wears Prada

Kate Winslet-Little Children

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Ben Affleck-Hollywoodland

Jackie Earle Haley-Little Children

Eddie Murphy-Dreamgirls

Jack Nicholson-The Departed

Brad Pitt-Babel

Michael Sheen-The Queen

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Adriana Barraza-Babel

Cate Blanchett-Notes On A Scandal

Abigail Breslin-Little Miss Sunshine

Toni Collette-Little Miss Sunshine

Jennifer Hudson-Dreamgirls

Rinko Kikuchi-Babel

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

Babel: Gustavo Santaolalla

The Fountain: Clint Mansell

Letters From Iwo Jima: Kyle Eastwood and Michael Stevens

Notes On A Scandal: Philip Glass

The Queen: Alexandre Desplat

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

Babel: Rodrigo Prieto

Children of Men: Emmanuel Lubezki

The Departed: Michael Ballhaus

The Fountain: Matthew Libatique

Letters From Iwo Jima: Tom Stern

BEST DOCUMENTARY

Deliver Us From Evil

An Inconvenient Truth

Jesus Camp

Shut Up and Sing

Wordplay

MOST PROMISING PERFORMER

Ivana Baquero-Pan’s Labyrinth

Sacha Baron Cohen-Borat & Talladega Nights

Shareeka Epps-Half-Nelson

Rinko Kikuchi-Babel

Keke Palmer-Akeelah and the Bee

MOST PROMISING DIRECTOR

Rian Johnson-Brick

Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris-Little Miss Sunshine

Gil Kenan-Monster House

Jason Reitman-Thank You For Smoking

James McTeigue-V For Vendetta

xpost re Rexy

Gee, maybe All the King’s Men is worth a look after all.

The Painted Veil and Children of Men are getting more praise than I would’ve expected, but given Curran and Lubezki (resp) I guess I’m seeing both.

Children of Men edged into the Film Comment critics’ poll’s Top 20, just sneaking past Casino Royale (?!)

http://filmlinc.com/fcm/poll/2006pollcritics.html

well, I guess you’re right about Scorsese vs Lynch in polls to come.

That top 10 isn’t THAT much more middbrow than Rex Reed’s! Half Nelsom, The Queen andeven Borat — this is the magazine in which Schrader’s canon was too safe for the room?

I’m hoping that with Regular Lovers, Children of Men, Painted Veil, Letters from Iwo Jima, Pan’s Labyrinth all opening in NYC in the next 2 weeks, it just might be a Happy Old Year after all.

Well, Film Comment’s poll has always been at least three big steps towards the center from VV’s, hence the Sideways/Before Sunset split in 2004. But, yeah, Half Nelson higher than Hou Hsiao-hsien is sort of a wtf.

i don’t get FC’s ‘unreleased films’ list — some of those are going to be released soon, so it’s not like they’re being kept from the punters.

I’m really baffled by the absence of Children of Men from most of these lists. It was the best movie I saw this year, I think—dinky in a way but on the whole very, very compelling. Certainly more so than something like The Departed! Is it because it’s not opened wide in the US yet?

i don’t get FC’s ‘unreleased films’ list — some of those are going to be released soon

And some won’t. I don’t have a handle on the state of foreign-film distrib in the UK, but many of their choices on that list in past years have still never, ever been released in the US. So they most certainly are being kept from the ever more miniscule number of punters who are interested in world cinema that doesn’t have an easy genre hook.

Philippe Garrel’s Regular Lovers (two years old) is opening in NYC next week — he’s been making features since the ’60s, and I’m pretty sure this is his first commercial release in America.

that makes sense only

14. Southland Tales (Richard Kelly, Germany/U.S.)* 53

UH

i mean that so has a distribution deal right?

Does it? When its Cannes screening was a ‘disaster’? Kelly himself has said he doesn’t think the version he showed will be distributed.

Also, directors of cult movies starring Jake Gyllenhaal are much higher on the arthouse foodchain than, say, Raul Ruiz or Tsai ming-Liang.

that’s because of that crazy thing called capitalism.

kelly’s film will see the light of day in 1x form or another — trimmed maybe but that’s not unusual. cannes is like a test audience of rich media folk.

I’m really baffled by the absence of Children of Men from most of these lists.

Bounces back from being “only” nineteenth on the FC poll to slam into ninth-place on the IndieWire nee VV poll.

http://indiewire.com/critics2006/

Neither Departed nor Inland Empire at #1 (though the latter feel within a 10-point margin of the former, good enough for #3 and #4 respectively). The blue ribbon goes to Lazarescu ... presuming that the voting body is more or less the same as it was in the VV poll days, that has to count as the most surprising winner in the poll’s history, in my opinion.

there’s no solid art-house tradition to get with now (ie since the 70s) — so these random films (that turkish one the other year, or that russian one the same year) somehow get to the top of the pile and stay there.

Oh, and Children of Men cleaned up in the cinematography category, which I expected (and is the main reason I’m excited to see it ... the promise of good cinematography, I mean, not that it won the category).

I guess Lubezki is the new Chris Doyle.

I didn’t think charges of obscurity/annoyance vs Lynch would disturb the VV poll’s core given their past love for the likes of Safe.

Haha... I presume by virtue of a new venue, Armond is forced to reveal his hand.

http://ballot.indiewire.com/ballots/display_ballot/127

My charge wasn’t that the new Lynch was either obscure that people were tired of Lynch but that a significant proportion of his usual VV-allied demo actively disliked Inland Empire. Didn’t turn out to be entirely the case, and it ended up on only a couple less ballots than the I thought widely liked The Departed.

Well, I think you read a wider spectrum of people than I do; didn’t catch all that much of the active dislike.

Wish I had caught up with Broken Sky, I feel in my gut the DVD may not appear til summer.

I’m pleased with the high finish of Nolte in Supporting Perf, who would be my runaway choice at the moment.

Rosenbaum’s year-end; he like cow “liberation” scene in FFN (as did I as metaphor for the narcotized US public) and Bobby:

http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/criticspicks06/movies/

I’ve never been a big Melville fan, but I don’t remotely get the Army of Shadows mania. I recall maybe two scenes from it.

I’m more than pleased with all the Nolte and Wahlberg mentions.

Eric or Morbs — seen The Painted Veil yet? It hasn’t opened here yet. At present I’m deciding whether to catch The History Boys or re-screen Withnail & I; doesn’t Richard Griffiths give the same perf?

not yet. Will likely see TPV and THB in next 2 weeks.

enrique might want to glance at all 200 of these:

http://ballot.indiewire.com/ballots/scores#best_undist

I like Rosenbaum’s excuse for a Vin Diesel legal comedy tanking—HOLLYWOOD HATES LIBERALS.

He says the film has a “leftist slant,” and you should know that is different from liberal by the way ILX libs shout “NADER 2008” at me all the time.

(ie libs are exulting that the Dems are now the party in Congress who will do nothing about Iraq)

Is Regular Lovers only opening in NY or did it get a real distribution deal?

Oh man, that J.R. Jones list...

xpost

I can’t seem to find out; also the NY opening has been bumped to Jan 19.

I don’t give Rosenbaum enough credit to assume any subtle distinction between liberal and leftist on his part. (and it is Lumet)

but he also calls it Lumet’s best film. Strange things can happen to those vet auteurs when they pass 80. I will see it and evaluate.

(also, a ’50s lib is a radical in today’s environment, just sayin)

also ppl tend not to use “leftist” at all if they don’t make the distinction. Clinton-loving “liberals” are what JR is fingering I think.

The Good Shepherd does have its supporters (Cheshire, Armond):

http://daily.greencine.com/archives/002935.html

AN ALL-AMERICAN SACRIFICE

De Niro creates a patriotic masterpiece

By Armond White

I am neither a leftist nor a liberal, because otherwise I couldn’t look at J.R. Jones list and call him a retard and laugh with a clear conscience.

Also, the world should remain centrist or skewed to the right if it means Chris Marker will continue to make bemusedly outraged movies.

Did the Chicago Reader hire an editor or just sell a lot more ads lately, cause Rosenbaum’s piece is approximately five percent as long as it usually is.

You could be a lefty or lib of taste and still laugh.

The website doesn’t always put up the entirety of the current week’s issue right away. When I go out to lunch, I’ll pick up a copy to see if there’s a longer thinkpiece attached to that top 10.

(x-post) knock it off, you closet conservative

Yeah, looks like that’s all we get of Rosenbaum this year. I guess I have noticed a trend lately of wanting to play up the other critics for the paper — not just JR Jones but the music and theatre critics, too. Rosenbaum used to have a front-page story all to himself for his year-end list, now it’s called Critics’ Picks 2006.

does New Times own the Reader?

(btw, Eric, I like the first 80 minutes of All That Jazz)

Nope, the Reader is one of the last independent alt-weeklies in the country.

Just saw The History Boys: a homo Dead Poets’ Society, with Richard Griffiths reprising his obese lech from Withnail; he delivers a moving aria on Hardy’s “Drummer Hodge”. Not at all bad, although the boy everyone’s lusting after looks like the drummer in Culture Club.

Rosenbaum’s inept political fumblings have written him into a corner.

(btw, Eric, I like the first 80 minutes of All That Jazz)

That’s great to hear, but I sort of think the last 10 are what pushes it into insane, embarrassing greatness.

well, the first 10 is where I find the greatness.

Why is Nicholson taking a beating for “showboating” in The Departed when that’s more diverting than Damon’s vanilla corruption or everything embarrassing about the Vera Farmiga scenes? This William Monahan guy is great at the local color and alpha-swearing, characters not so much.

Yeah, Infernal Affairs wins on the script and the opaqueness of the characters’ allegiances, but The Departed wins on nearly every other count.

uhhuh ola

Vera Farmina is fine; she does battiness better than Cate Blanchett used to. Those last two scenes however with her and Damon are unplayable. As usual I found myself wishing the director had dispensed with the facile moral dilemmas of his hero and concentrated on the peripheries (which, to his credit, Scorsese mostly does in this movie).

I just noticed that the new Marker placed higher on indiewire’s rundown of the year’s best docs than the Al Gore movie. Him for presidetn!

But the new Marker is really 5 shorts, ja?

I don’t have a problem w/ Farmiga (still haven’t seen Down to the Bone), but the whole damn part is unplayable. The shrink in IF wasn’t sleeping with both of them, was she? And if Marty fought for the ending, that includes the crowd-pleaser (relatively speaking) of offing Damon?

Think of this film with Wahlberg and Ryan Gosling in the leads. Not all the problems solved, but most.

The atrophying of DiCaprio’s talents is one of the tragedies of the last decade in American film (or maybe he just wasn’t versatile to begin with). One of the great teenage actors ever, but since turning 21 he’s seemed lost in the school play save for Catch Me If You Can. Think of what young Kirk Douglas could do with a line like “The only thing more fulla shit than a cop is a cop on TV.” When Leo says it you can hear the keys clacking.

Message to Mark Wahlberg in winning polls/awards for this rather than I Heart Huckabees: BE MORE ONE-NOTE. (After the splendid verbal soul-rape of Leo, it was push Repeat.)

I would be happy if Wahlberg and Alec Baldwin were cast as tag team cops for the duration of their careers.

Leo was never versatile. Even as a young actor his talent was for acting feral (...Gilbert Grape excepted), and he’s gotten better at it at the cost of several yards of charisma. What does Scorsese see in him — how my generation copped all its cockiness from watching De Niro’s mirror scene in Taxi Driver without living first?

what Scorsese sees in him = $$$

(Alfred, is yr family sleeping late too?) Yes, Baldwin never better (not sure how much that’s sayin).

Merry detrius Christmas

Yeah, I’m waiting for them to have their coffee first before driving over. Since it’s 83 degrees already you can understand my hesitation.

I’m debating whether to finish playing Miles’ “He Loved Him Madly” or to watch Melinda Dillon doing her show-mommy-how-the-piggies-eat scene in A Christmas Story.

or Advise & Consent, an unexpected present from a friend. (Don Murray as convincingly gay as Charles Laughton was convincingly straight; still, my favorite Preminger after Anatomy of a Murder).

‘the departed’ is so much better than ‘infernal affairs’. IA is good but pretty horribly directed, i don’t know what was going on with the camera in that first wong/leung rooftop scene (which was completely copped from a similar scene also featuring leung in ‘hard-boiled’).

a lot of reviews comment on how monahan combined 2 characters to get the shrink, but he actually combined 3. leung ran into this old GF at an inexplicable moment and met her daughter, he said “it’s been over six years, huh” and she introduced her daughter as five years old, and after he left the daughter said, “but mommy i’m 6!” because it was actually his kid, lol. which i think comes into play via ‘the departed’ when farmiga gets knocked up because it’s probably leo’s kid on account of damon’s cock not actually working overtime.

Message to Mark Wahlberg in winning polls/awards for this rather than I Heart Huckabees

He did win the VV poll for I Hart Huckabees, tho.

Well, I’ll be damned; you remember detrius from year to year? Like Ted Baxter with the Tedi Awards?

‘the departed’ is so much better than ‘infernal affairs’.

I presume you don’t think DiCaprio and Damon flat-out suck, then?

IA’s form fits its content, while Scorsese pouring 150 minutes of his operatic naturalism on a blatantly dreamworld plot, hinged on the depth of two actors who can only get deep through lightness (as in Catch Me If You Can and Stuck on You), inevitably leads to ludicrousness. The jarring rat joke at the end suggests that the whole thing should’ve been done as a black comedy a la (the truly great) Prizzi’s Honor.

they don’t flat-out suck (damon as cocky boston sociopath frat bro type is perfect casting, dicaprio is really good especially when he’s pistol-whipping damon) and i guess i’d rather have misplaced skillful naturalism and over appropriate shittiness/horrible sentiment/corny musical interludes (pre-emptive: i don’t think sentiment is a dirty word). and it was at least half-black comedy, from my POV.

Yeah, half-black-comedy, which is why when folx say Jack is “in a different movie,” yeah: it’s the one I’d rather be watching. (Still IA wisely killed the boss halfway rather than at 3/4.)

The Dropkick Murphys count as a corny musical interlude.

man, better the dropkick murphys than sappy cantopop. and i’m almost positive eric tsang lasted ‘til the 3/4 mark.

cocky boston sociopath frat bro type

they quote Freud to get laid?

National Film Registry additions 2006

1) Applause (1929)

2) The Big Trail (1930)

3) Blazing Saddles (1974)

4) The Curse of Quon Gwon (1916–17)

5) Daughter of Shanghai (1937)

6) Drums of Winter (1988)

7) Early Abstractions #1–5,7,10 (1939–56)

8) Fargo (1996)

9) Flesh and the Devil (1927)

10) Groundhog Day (1993)

11) Halloween (1978)

12) In the Street (1948/52)

13) The Last Command (1928)

14) Notorious (1946)

15) Red Dust (1932)

16) Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania (1971–72)

17) Rocky (1976)

18) Sex, Lies and Videotape (1989)

19) Siege (1940)

20) St. Louis Blues (1929)

21) The T.A.M.I. Show (1964)

22) Tess of the Storm Country (1914)

23) Think of Me First as a Person (1960–75)

24) A Time Out of War (1954)

25) Traffic in Souls (1913)

Does anyone have a running list of movies they’ve outrageously neglected to induct yet?

Anaconda (1997)

Next year. It has to be 10 years old first.

what’s the purpose of it?

I really don’t pay attention to the NFR. Has being named to it saved any films from extinction?

http://www.loc.gov/film/filmabou.html

I’m sure Fargo is relieved that it will no longer languish in obscurity and neglect.

otoh, The T.A.M.I. Show needs to be made available.

Owen Gleiberman’s #1: 007.

http://www.ew.com/ew/report/0,6115,1572278_1_0_,00.html

For what it’s worth, some of the VVM dudes put out their top 10s last week:

Robert Wilonsky

http://www.houstonpress.com/Issues/2006-12-21/film/film.html

Jim Ridley

http://www.houstonpress.com/Issues/2006-12-21/film/film2.html

Not even Ridley’s recommendation can get me interested in Casino Royale.

Zancherek also put it in her top 10.

As little as I miss most of the old Voice critics, can’t say that Wilonsky is a real improvement.

SZ is really here and there in terms of aligning with my (lack of) taste. Ridley and I land on the same page as often as anyone I can think of offhand.

Can rockists get you interested in Neil Young: Heart of Gold? (I will watch Chappelle’s Block Party in exchange.)

Luckily, as it is a film, I’m far more likely to watch it than I am to listen to a Neil Young album.

The Neil Young doc was warmer and more compelling than its parent album; it’ll likely make my top ten.

oh yeah, I watched Neil’s last 2 movies more than listened to the albums.

hehe, I don’t remember The Reeler doing this last year — The Top 10 of Top 10 Lists (Part 2 tomorrow):

with their scepter-swinging nominations of the same 20–25 titles to the year’s hyperbole canon, Top 10 lists reward a backloaded release calendar that all but buries dozens of worthy films that preceded their selections earlier in the year (many of which, it should be added, the most influential list-fetishists have not even seen). That it all amounts to so much hogcalling makes it even worse: Choose an authentically singular classic like Awesome; I Fuckin’ Shot That! and you’re a contrarian; rub one out in the brimming gallon jug marked L’Enfant and maybe that first freelance gig will arrive before April next year.

http://www.thereeler.com/features/top_10_of_top_10_lists_2006_part_i.php

(I don’t mind the Slant pair’s rhapsodies over IE, cept for the distressing Bjork mention.)

Since Armond voted for Chris Evans for Best Actor for London, and Ed Gonzalez declared CE a hot piece of ass in his review (Cellular indicated so), I need to get my hands on him...it. Who were the most arousing men of the year? I’m currently sticking with terminally ill Melvil Poupaud in Time to Leave.

london! jeez

seen, gear? (it’s a girl’s name, apparently)

i’m friends a dude who works at the company which had a hand in its production. i found myself at the wrap party for the shoot for some reason (first and possibly last such event in my life) and subsequently was given a dvd screener. unwatchable.

jessica biel is the title character. jason statham is also in it. there’s lots of cocaine use in place of a plot.

I rented that—I figured drugs, Jessica Biel and Isla Fisher were an unbeatable combination. Oh, how wrong I was.

I saw the trailer for London on another DVD. I wanted to shoot my TV, Elvis-style.

But CHRIS EVANS.

HAWT

Who the fuck is Chris Evans?

http://towleroad.typepad.com/towleroad/2006/02/chris_evans_lon.html

He looks more like Kevin Federline than Ethan Hawke.

Who were the most arousing men of the year?

i sorta fancied walid afkir (majid’s son in cache) (which otherwise didn’t hold up very well at all the second time i saw it).

why did i click on that link

...cuz you were hoping to see chris evans’ cock?

majid’s son in cache

ew.

Oh, wait. For some reason I thought you were talking about the white, underage boy belonging to Auteil/Binoche.

Or I’m a racist.

haha, i made a point of NOT saying “that guy’s son” for precisely that reason