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2006's Best Movies (adjusted for time)

And here we are at the end of my trilogy. The deck is stacked against me because we all know the third part of a trilogy is rarely worth the trip. So, folks, listen closely and I'll make you this promise: This is probably not going to be worth it. Carrying on. We're going to take a look back ten years to see how the movies of 2006 have fared. Time is the only real test of quality for movies and every time I do this exercise, I'm surprised to find how my feelings have changed. With that said, these were my top ten movies from 2006: 10 - After The Wedding 9 - Blood Diamond 8 - The Fountain 7 - The Lives Of Others 6 - Brick 5 - The Departed 4 - Letters From Iwo Jima 3 - Exiled 2 - Pan's Labyrinth 1 - Children Of Men First things first, when I took a look back I was stunned by how many great comedies came out in 2006. Obviously many of these movies didn't make my top ten list but they all have grown exponentially in my mind over the past ten years. Grandma's Boy is a dumbass movie but it's also one helluva hilarious dumbass movie. Little Miss Sunshine was a movie originally in consideration for my top ten list in 2006 but I cooled on it quickly. In the years since, I've come to a greater appreciation for this movie. Beerfest is ridiculously quotable and still gets watched on the regular. Borat is not necessarily a movie I look to watch anymore but it's been undeniably influential on comedy as a whole. Also, Mike Judge's Idiocracy is a bit of a mess and more of an interesting curiosity than a great movie but it can also now be called unfortunately prophetic. That leaves one, and it's a big one but we'll hold it for now because it's jumped into my top ten list. On the drama front, I loved Ken Loach's, The Wind That Shakes The Barley. Handsome production with a great performance from Cillian Murphy. Running Scared was a crazy little movie from Wayne Kramer, boasting a frenetic performance from Paul Walker. I'm a sucker for "It happened all in one night" movies and this movie was one of the better attempts I've seen. Lastly, we come to Richard Kelly's, Southland Tales. It's a mess of a movie but also one with some true brilliance hiding underneath. It's a movie crying to be seen at home where it can be more properly digested and deserves a new audience. Now we can move on to my brand new top ten list -- the one time has decreed is the better list. The top three movies have stayed the same while four others have shifted and three have fallen off the list completely. Letters From Iwo Jima, Blood Diamond, and The Fountain are gone -- I just don't care about these movies. They all have great qualities but I can't remember the last time I thought about them, let alone watched them. Here we go. 10 - Talladega Nights: The Ballad Of Ricky Bobby This is the most underrated of the Ferrell/McKay movies. I remember thinking it was funny but I'm not into NASCAR at all and thus allowed myself to shutdown to a certain degree -- big mistake. It's easily Ferrell's second best character to date (nobody beats Ron Burgundy) and the rest of the cast is insanely hilarious -- especially Gary Cole as Ricky's long lost father. Classic comedy. 9 - The Departed I'm glad Scorsese finally won his Oscar but he should have won one earlier for any number of better movies. I could talk all day long about Goodfellas vs Dances With Wolves but I'll spare you all the vitriol. In the end, The Departed is awesome and cool but wasn't really close to the legend's best work. 8 - Dave Chappelle's Block Party I've loved this movie for a long time and have no idea how this missed my list ten years ago. This was the first change I made and it was an easy one. The comedy, the music, the social commentary -- it's all amazing. 7 - Casino Royale The second best Bond movie I've ever seen after Skyfall. I was never a big Bond fan but this movie kicked and still kicks all kinds of ass. Anyone who had seen Layer Cake knew Craig was made for the role of Bond and he's never disappointed us. 6 - After The Wedding A small movie with heart to spare. The second movie in a row starring Mads Mikkelsen. This guy is one of the finest actors alive right now and has been for some time now. See this movie if you haven't yet done so. 5 - The Lives Of Others This won the Oscar for best foreign language film and while I still think Pan's Labyrinth is the better movie, there's no denying the power on display here. This is a movie which looked into a dark period of Germany's past and may be more relevant than ever for Americans. 4 - Brick The movie that gave Rian Johnson to the world. This guy is about to unleash Episode VIII on us so let's not forget his earlier movies. This was film noir set in a high school and JGL killed in the lead. I still love this one as much as I did ten years ago. 3 - Exiled Anthony Wong is the shit. Johnnie To is a fucking legend. Hollywood wishes it made action/crime/gangster movies as good as Hong Kong (and Korea and Japan and actually anywhere in Asia). This movie is brilliant. 2 - Pan's Labyrinth Guillermo Del Toro is a genius. I whole-heartedly believe this to be the truth. Everything he does is so specific and unlike anything he's ever done prior and also unlike anything we've ever seen before. He's the most unique filmmaker in the world today and this is his masterwork. 1 - Children Of Men Did I just call GDT a genius? Well, the same goes for his compatriot, Alfonso Cuaron. I watch this movie multiple times every year and it still stuns me. There's not a wasted moment in the entire movie. It's as close to perfect as I've seen in as long as I can remember. I don't think there's been a better movie since. I could be wrong. I'm probably wrong. That's it. Time, right? It certainly changes things. I'll be back some time this week with my thoughts on Logan or maybe John Wick: Chapter 2. One or the other. I'll decide later. Until then, love each other.

[lucasflanagan-blog]

My Wife And Her (Unprofessional) Top Ten List

I'm back with part two of my (epic) trilogy about this past year's best movies. For the middle child of this piece we'll be consulting my wife on her thoughts of last year's crop of moving pictures. Her views are different, that's for sure and that's where I'll end it right here -- plenty more shit-talking soon to follow. Note: Anything seen in parentheses to be taken with a (monumental) grain of salt. And now, the moment she's all been waiting for: 10 - 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi You'd typically be hard pressed to find a Michael Bay movie on a top ten list but this is where we start. In the spirit of honesty, I also thought this was a pretty damn good movie -- surprisingly good. My wife found the actors convincing and movie itself well paced. This despite not being a huge fan of war movies. 9 - Hacksaw Ridge Again with the war movies. What in the sweet hell is going on here? Again, she found the acting terrific -- especially Garfield and Vaughn. And I'm beginning to suspect she's a bit of a sucker for incredible true stories. Seriously guys, you should see her watch A&E. She should work for the network. 8 - Manchester By The Sea I'll keep this short so I don't end up going into how much I cried during this movie. She can sum it up in six words: Emotional. Well acted. Maybe too dark. This last bit is hilarious to me for reasons which will soon become clear. 7 -- Fences Maybe the single movie more depressingly sad than Manchester By The Sea. Maybe the movie that made me feel like Denzel was yelling at me non-stop for the first forty five minutes. My wife loved it. Said, and this is a quote, "good story about love." She also loved the acting but maybe the story was too typical? "I don't know, this is YOUR list." That last bit was a quote from me -- written just now. 6 -- Moonlight Well gang, this was my favorite of the year sooooo is it divorce court? I guess I can let it slide because she really did like this movie. She cited the exploration of the sexuality of two men who live in a society not as accepting as what really piqued her interest. The knocks? For her, the movie ended too abruptly. Note: I wonder why she doesn't like Peter Jackson more. There is nothing abrupt about how he ends his movies. 5 -- Lion Ah, the fabled top five and we come to Lion. I also really liked this movie but found the second half far too inferior to the first half. My wife felt the same way plus she doesn't like Nicole Kidman at all but found the first half of the movie so good, she was willing to overlook the second half flaws. 4 -- Hidden Figures My wife found a sense of pride in this story. I'm actually a little surprised this wasn't higher on her list because I watched her watch this movie and I know how much she liked everything about the film. 3 -- La La Land Loved it. I remember the night we saw this in vivid detail. I felt like we could have danced our way home. Whimsical. That was another word I heard her say. You want more words? Romantic, that is until the end. Roller coasters, people. We're riding roller coasters. 2 -- Nocturnal Animals Oh boy. Manchester was too dark but this pitch black noir wasn't? I'll never understand you, woman. And you know what? I like it that way just fine. The fact that my wife loved this movie so much made me fall in love with her a little bit more. I love noir. I love it so much because it is so hard to get right. In fact, it is the hardest genre to nail and the easiest to mislabel. Everyone likes to call something "noir" and few movies today truly are. This movie nailed it. But why did my wife love it? It was gorgeous. Oh boy again. Gorgeous? I mean, it WAS but man did I marry a weird person. What else was great? Tom Ford. The acting -- especially Jakey G. The editing. Wait, the editing? I married someone who pays attention to the editing of a movie? I take it all back. Jackpot. 1 -- 20TH Century Women Great choice. This was in the running for me as well. What a strong year for movies. Her words: Just amazing. (Tears flowing. Hers. Not mine. Maybe mine. Okay mine but not only mine.) The story of female empowerment and how women can empower men in their own lives. The sense of family and community even if it's non-traditional. Okay gang, that's all she wrote. Actually, it's all I wrote. It's all she said. It's all she said and then all I wrote. Nailed it. I'll be back soon with a look to the past. (this weekend -- never mind previous notes, this one is true) Love each other.

[lucasflanagan-blog]

Update 1.0

Combing through 2016 movies my wife has seen and has any sort of opinion on. I’m trying to goad her into creating a top ten list that I will then post here in the hopes of starting a fight or something. Here goes.

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The Best Movies of 2016 According to Me and Only Me

I love movies. I love talking about them, talking shit about them, arguing about them and writing about them. This new blog I'm starting is my attempt to get back to basics with what I like to write about the movies I love and hate and everything else in between the highs and lows. Oscar Sunday is the perfect opportunity to discuss what I loved best about this past year. I saw many movies and still somehow seemed to miss a great deal of what I suspect might be worthwhile movies to check out. This stands as a testament to the strength of this past year -- the strongest in recent memory. But let's cut through the bs and get down to it. 

 First off, I want to highlight how strong a year this was for the horror genre. Something happened and horror movies -- a whole mess of them -- delivered in a legit way. Cooties was the best horror comedy I've seen since Shaun of the Dead. Rainn Wilson ruled nearly every minute of that movie. Adam Wingard did some interesting things with The Blair Witch and while that movie didn't entirely work, it's still a nice entry on Wingard's resume. The same goes for James Wan with The Conjuring 2. Not perfect but still a solid movie. 10 Cloverfield Lane and Green Room might not exactly be horror movies but they both slipped into the genre rather nicely while never being hampered by traditional genre trappings. The Mind's Eye was an extremely weird and crazy as shit little telekinesis movie. The Witch was a terrific exercise in slow building dread while still hiding so much more underneath the surface. Light's Out and Don't Breathe were, on the surface, more traditional fare but over delivered in every conceivable way. Specifically, Don't Breathe which always zigged when you expected a zag. Lastly, The Autopsy of Jane Doe and I'm not saying anything else about this movie except: SEE THIS MOVIE! There is one more horror movie to talk about but it nearly snuck into my top ten and will thus be discussed in this next section.

 Now, getting closer to the main course. In trying to pare down to a top ten, I was shocked at how many movies I was originally considering. This speaks to two things: How many great movies I saw this year and how close some of them were for me. Dr. Strange is definitely the craziest Marvel movie I've seen to date. Lion surprised me with how touched I was by what, on the surface, was a traditional, sappy, awards-bait story. Dev Patel was magnificent in showing the turmoil of going twenty-five years without finding your way home. Hidden Figures was the feel good movie of the year. Fences was crushing and while imperfect in it's pacing and constant tendency toward monologues, which is never great to watch on screen as opposed to seeing it live, the highs were really, REALLY high. Hacksaw Ridge was Mel Gibson's most complete effort as a director since Braveheart and while pretty standard, it was still a handsome production. The Lobster was definitely not for everyone and I'll definitely not be able to recommend it to anyone I know but for me, it totally worked. I found this movie hilarious at times. Is something wrong with me? Don't answer that. Next up is The Wailing, a Korean horror movie about...well, it's a Korean horror movie. It's about the Devil? Maybe? Whatever, the movie was nuts in all the best ways.

 This next group of movies is still in the same boat but were either made by some of my favorite directors or based on or part of something else I adore. Nicolas Winding Refn is a polarizing figure. I find the man to be a genius behind the lens and The Neon Demon felt like him summing up his career to this point while still projecting how he feels about the industry in general. Everybody Wants Some was marketed as a spiritual successor to Dazed and Confused and while that's a fairly accurate tag, the movie speaks more to the bonds of friendship and new love. Linklater is as good a filmmaker as there is working today. Everything he does just works for me. I feel like we speak the same film language. The Jungle Book surprised me. Rudyard Kipling is one of my favorite authors but this movie didn't look special to me in any way upon it's release. Word of mouth led me to an eventual viewing and I was stunned. It's one of the most useful applications of CGI I've ever seen in a movie. Nailed it. Oh Rogue One. I really don't know how this didn't make my top ten list. I love Star Wars and this easily ranks as the third best Star Wars movie ever. The best depiction of Darth Vader ever. Holy shit. Midnight Special made me cry. Hard. On an airplane. In front of a lot of strangers. Michael Shannon is in the discussion of greatest actors of his generation and kills it in this movie. Joel Edgerton has quickly become one of my new favorites and Jeff Nichols is the best filmmaker in the business right now. And finally, the final movie to JUUUUUUST miss making the cut. Arrival. Awesome, quiet, meditative movie and when the pieces of it's puzzle finally fall into place, you're left stunned in the best possible way. And next up for Denis? The Blade Runner sequel. Get psyched. 

 And now for my top ten. (Note: The top three movies were so close and are constantly playing leap frog. As I'm writing this, I still don't know which is going to be number one for me. And yes, I know it's February and nearly March. Don't look here for sense.) 

 10. THE HANDMAIDEN 

 Chan-wool Park is a madman. His movies are impeccably designed, ultra violent and perverse as hell. This one was no different. Easily the most gorgeous film of the year and full of twists, innovations, titillation and drama. I respect it more than I love it but I respect the living shit out of this movie. 

 9. DEADPOOL 

 Unlike any superhero movie we've yet seen. Violent, sexually deviant, foul-mouthed in the most horrible way but also smart, superbly written, hilarious, violent, sexually deviant and foul-mouthed in the most horrible way. Deal with it prudes. 

 8. THE INVITATION 

 Ahhhh The Invitation. The most contested movie of the year in my house. My wife hated it which killed me a bit. It'll undoubtedly be brought up in our divorce proceedings. Karyn Kusama reminded me of Hitchcock in this movie. Actually, the best ode to Hitchcock since the man himself. She is now on my list of directors whom I see no matter what. What's it about? Who cares? Karyn Kusama directed it. 

 7. THE NICE GUYS 

 Shane Black is a legend. How did this movie get ignored this awards season? Not even for it's script? Maybe the tightest script of the year. For sure, the best dialogue. Gosling and Crowe should spend the rest of their careers working with each other. Amazing movie. 

 6. NOCTURNAL ANIMALS 

 Another on the list of: HOW DID THIS MOVIE GET IGNORED? Tom Ford is carving out a hell of a place for him in Hollywood. A Single Man was amazing and now with Nocturnal Animals, I suspect studios will be hot after Mr. Ford. Also, how can you go wrong with the three best actors working today in the same movie? Shannon, Gylenhall, and Adams all crush here. Such a nasty slice of noir. We haven't seen noir willing to go full noir like this in a long time. I honestly can't remember the last time I saw one willing to be pitch black like Nocturnal Animals. I love when filmmakers don't give a shit about what an audience might think or like and just go out and make a fucking movie. 

 5. MANCHESTER BY THE SEA 

 This is a tough one. It's also another movie that is hard to recommend because it's so soul crushingly sad. But it's also funny and somehow life affirming. It's a great piece of character writing and solid directing by Kenneth Lonergan. Michelle Williams continues to be excellent while Casey Affleck continues to be the best Affleck. Anyone else wondering what Live By Night would have been with Casey playing the lead? 

 4. 20TH CENTURY WOMEN 

 And again another member of the WHERE IS THE LOVE CLUB. Mike Mills wrote the best script of the year. I'm willing to debate but there is really no debate. This was the best written movie of the year. Mills is an amazing talent. And then he went and cast so many people I love. Billy Crudup is great. Greta Gerwig, my wife now understands why I have such a crush on her. She is impossibly cool. Elle Fanning is going to be one of the biggest stars in the world very, VERY soon. Remember that. And finally, Annette Benning has never been better. She was robbed! And this is where things get messy/interesting/crazy/nonsense-y? 

 3. HELL OR HIGH WATER 

 Whoah. This movie was number one on my list for a very long time. Ben Foster gave one of my favorite performances of the year. Jeff Bridges was funny and badass at the same time and Chris Pine was incredibly authentic as a man willing to put literally everything on the line for his family. This was noir and a western at the same time and that ain't easy to pull off. Impeccably written and basically told two separate stories about varying degrees of brotherhood at the same time while still having plenty to say about the haves and have-nots. About ownership, not only about tangible things but also about one's life. I have a brother who'd I'd rob banks for and maybe that's why this movie spoke to me so sweetly but I loved it all the same. 

 2. LA LA LAND 

 This was the most inspiring movie of the year for me. I loved every second of it and maybe down the road this will be remembered by me as the best. I don't know, I have yet to receive my time machine. Gosling is as charismatic as actors get and ditto for Emma Stone. They're both likable nearly to the point of annoyance. Chazelle is a great writer and even better director. He allows his movies to breathe while still managing to fill them to the brim. It's a high wire act few can pull off. 

 #1 MOONLIGHT 

 This one was just different. I've never seen anything quite like Moonlight. It's the movie which stuck with me the longest after seeing it. I saw it over a month ago and not a day goes by without me thinking about it. The story is timeless and new at the same time. The way Barry Jenkins shot this movie feels revolutionary to me. Everything was shot in hyper color and then drab. Things shoot into and out of focus. It's like seeing a movie with all of your senses. Mahershala Ali gave my favorite performance of the entire year. He was nothing short of extraordinary. Everything about this movie was extraordinary. I liked it upon leaving the theater. I liked it more the following day. I loved it a few days later. And where Hell or High Water and La La Land were, in many ways, equally extraordinary, they were maybe just the best versions of their respective genres that we've seen in years. Moonlight defied genre to just be unforgettable. 

 Enjoy the show everybody.

 RIP Bill Paxton. 

 Love each other.