2006 Film Journal

Updated 2006/12/31

Recent films:
Mission Impossible 3 (sometime in 2006, DVD)
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Firefly (throughout 2006, DVD)
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March of the Penguins (2006/12/28, DVD)
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Little Miss Sunshine (2006/12/23, DVD)
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An Inconvenient Truth (2006/12/07, DVD)
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Casino Royale (2006/12/02, theater)
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The Producers (2006/11/25, DVD)
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The Departed (2006/10/22, theater)
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End of the Spear (2006/10/05, DVD)
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Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2006/09/18, DVD)
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The Sentinel (2006/09/04, DVD)
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Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest (2006/08/05, theater)
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Phone Booth (2006/07/25, TV)
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Iron Monkey (2006/07/09, DVD)
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Superman Returns (2006/07/08, theater)
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Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2006/05/29, DVD)
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Wedding Singer (2006/05/29, DVD)
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X-Men 3: The Last Stand (2006/05/29, theater)
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The Big Hit (2006/05/21, DVD)
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Emperor's New Groove (2006/05/20, DVD)
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50 First Dates (2006/05/07, DVD)
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Inside Man (2006/04/15, theater)
Thoughts: Unusual movie, but pretty entertaining and well made. Denzel turned on all his charm, playing a detective with ambiguous morals. Jodie Foster played an unusually confident, sleazy role as a high-powered NYC lawyer who can make things happen behind the scenes. Poor Clive Owen had to do almost all of his acting behind sunglasses and a mask, but still managed to come across as a pretty solid villain. This wasn't a classic heist movie, and the twists were clever but not especially surprising. However, Spike Lee still manages to get a few editorial comments about the diversity of NYC (a scene where Denzel asks the crowd to identify an obscure foreign language and immediately gets a response) as well as stereotypes of American black culture (a disturbingly amusing video game that a young black boy is playing on his PSP). Worth seeing once, but wait for it to hit DVD so you can discuss it with people.
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Spaceballs (2006/04/02, DVD)
Memorable quotes (click here for a longer list:

Dark Helmet: So, Lone Star, now you see that evil will always triumph because good is dumb.

Dark Helmet: Before you die there is something you should know about us, Lone Star.
Lone Starr: What?
Dark Helmet: I am your father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate.
Lone Starr: What's that make us?
Dark Helmet: Absolutely nothing! Which is what you are about to become.
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X2: X-Men United (2006/04/01, TV)
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A History of Violence (2006/03/19, DVD)
Thoughts (mouse over to read): Probably one of the more unusual movies I've ever seen, not so much from the technical standpoint (like "Memento"), but more from the storytelling style. The pacing is very different from the standard Hollywood fare. Some scenes may go on longer for no immediately apparent reason, characters will pause for a confusingly long time in between lines of dialogue, etc. This is a movie that requires thought, and perhaps some help from more well-versed critics to identify the load of themes that made this one of 2005's most critically-acclaimed films. Basically, this is intended to be an essay of sorts on the source and impact of violence in American life, by showing us the results. For example, Hollywood has glamorized violence (the hero is the one who uses violence to beat down the bad guys) - so in a "heroic" moment in the film, we see the antagonist gruesomely drawing his last breaths through a face shattered by a bullet. The audience goes from Hollywood-style cheering to revulsion in an instant. We see similar takes on this theme in the impact of violence on sex, family, and identity. I'd recommend seeing this movie in a smaller group and spending time afterward talking about it.
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Big Trouble in Little China (2006/02/05, DVD)
Thoughts: Now I know who "Lo Pan" is in the Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny music video. Plus, this movie was a lot of fun to MST3K-style comment on . Classic B-movie flick, worth seeing once to see what the cult status is all about, and that's about it.
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King Kong (2006/01/02, Theater)
Thoughts (mouse over to read): Surprisingly touching. You wouldn't expect a movie about a 25-foot tall ape to reduce Joyce, Joy, and Maria to tears by the end, but they were apparently sobbing the entire time from when Kong first arrives in NYC to his eventual denouement. Peter Jackson does a wonderful job making us care about the central relationship between Kong and Ann Darrow, played by a wonderfully expressive Naomi Watts (since they can't talk to each other, the communication is almost completely through facial expression). We really don't care about everyone else in the movie, from Adrien Brody's playwright and Jack Black's slightly insane moviemaker to the entire crew of the ship (although I could have done without the entire insect attack scene... seeing a crewmember get gobbled down by a toothed leech is one of the most disturbing things I've ever seen on film).

Andy Serkis does an amazing job portraying a gorilla's movements - much props to his preparation for his role, studying video of real ones in order to mimic them for the computer animation folks. Kong is computer-generated marvel - he looks and acts real. His facial expressions are believable, even while remaining firmly entrenched in the "animal kingdom" (at no point do we think it's human), and I particularly liked the effect of his eyes clouding over as life slips away on top of the Empire State Building.

Top-notch blockbuster movie. Could have been shorter, but seeing Kong take on 3 T-Rex's is worth the price of admission alone.
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Bruce Almighty (2005/12/25, DVD)
Click here for a more comprehensive review of this surprisingly thoughtful comedy.

Some golden quotes:
Bruce: [being overwhelmed with hearing prayers] Give me a break!
[Bruce is instantly transported to meet with God]
God: Really something, isn't it?
Bruce: Is this heaven?
God: No, this is Mount Everest. You should flip on the Discovery Channel from time to time. But I guess you can't now, being dead and all.
[pause]
Bruce: I'm *dead*?
God: Naw, I'm just messing with ya.
Bruce: That's not funny, Man! That is *not* funny.

Bruce: There were so many. I just gave them all what they want.
God: Yeah. But since when does anyone have a clue about what they want?

God: Bruce, you have a divine spark. You have a gift for bringing joy and laughter to the world. I know, I created you.
Bruce: Quit bragging.

God: No matter how filthy something gets, you can always clean it right up.

Bruce: How do you make somebody love you without affecting free will?
God: [scoffs] Welcome to my world, son.

Bruce: Lord, feed the hungry, and bring peace to all of mankind. How's that?
God: Great... If you wanna be Miss America.
God: Grace. You want her back?
Bruce: No. I want her to be happy, no matter what that means. I want her to find someone who will treat her with all the love she deserved from me. I want her to meet someone who will see her always as I do now, through Your eyes.
God: Now THAT'S a prayer.
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The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (2005/12/18, Theater)
Thoughts (mouse over to read): Having recently read the book, I had a pretty good idea of what to expect going into the movie. The filmmakers did a pretty good job, I think. While the commercials might have you believe that it's "Lord of the Rings Lite," the battle scene at the end was really not all that important in the grand scheme of the movie. They did a good job transporting the viewer through the wardrobe to the magical world of Narnia. The little girl playing Lucy did a marvelously natural job expressing wonder and delight (according to reviews, they actually blindfolded her and brought her onto the snowy Narnia set, capturing her honest astonishment on camera after taking off the blindfold). Some parts of the movie were awkward or unintentionally funny, at least to an adult viewer, but overall it did a good job of capturing the feel of an intelligent childlike fantasy, with some Christian symbolism. They did inexplicably leave out my (and many others') favorite line of dialogue from the book: "Is (Aslan) safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he is good. He's the king, I tell you." I'd give the film a solid B to B+ - certainly worth seeing in the theater, but not worth seeing more than once in the theater like the LOTR movies were.

On a related note, if you haven't seen the SNL Chronicles of Narnia rap yet, you really should take some time to do so. One of the funniest satires on "gangsta rap" that I've ever heard.
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Simple post to keep track of the films I watch in 2006, along with short reviews and rankings.