films of 2006

Best Film 2006 - Best Foreign Language Film 2006 - Best Sound Editing - 2006 - Best Cinematography 2006 - Best Original Screenplay 2006 - Best Makeup 2006 -

Best Film Editing 2006

Best Directing 2006 - Best Actor in a Supporting Role 2006

Best Foreign language Film 2007

Best Sound Mixing 2006

Best Visual Effects 2006 - Best Art Direction 2006

Best Supporting Actor 2006

Best Score 2006

Best Original Screenplay 2005

Best Actor 2006

Best Animation 2006

The best animated feature of 2006, is a strange story of a house that seems to be alive and eating anything that attempts to disturb it. Monster house works perfectly as an animated feature. Gil Kenan bring alot of adult and kids humor to the story, plus many fun characters. Also a series of good set pieces to an exciting and original story.

Best Foreign Language Film 2005 - Best Film Editing 2005

An actress gets her big break in a hollywood film only to discover that the script has been cursed and is infact a remake of an incomplete script, where the leads orignally died. As with all of David Lynchs films there is meaning, and inter laying stories, but as with all of the director films it is hard to work out, and most people get lost and just sweep along with his films. Visually as always Inland Empire is impressive. You won't forget those human rabbits in a while. The performances are also good especially Laura Dern as the lead, with a tough role to pull off. Still to say Lynchs films are an aquired taste is an understatement, and with the said three hours can be a bit to much.

Best Actress 2006

Once in a while, a european thriller comes out and Hollywood has nothing on them, most recently it was the film hidden. Them is the latest. Based on true events, the film opens with a great pre credit later night fright. The action moves to a young couple having their lives turn upside down by a bunch of intruders in their creepy house in the woods. Them's strengths are in the use of sound which is brillantly realised. The couple live in an old house that creeks everywhere, building tension, also the use of hard rain, televsions sets and car radios, are also very effective. Still the tension is streched and when the action moves to the forest and beyond things lose sight. The end payoff works, but the explanation credits takes the edge off an otherwise fright feast!

Based on the famous American photography Diane Arbus. Fur is a strange look into the world of people with freakish illnesses, and one person finding there true career and emotional voice. The main freak in this case is a character named Lional, played by the always watchable Robert Downey Junior. The film is carried by the stronger central performances of Nicole Kidman and Junior. Still this is a slowed paced film, and may not be to everyones tastes.

Best Costume Design 2007

Best Documentary 2006

Andrea Arnold took the Oscar for her short film wasp, and 'Red Road' would be the debut feature length film. The film is a gritting low budget brit film based in murky Scotland, which bagged the director the Cannes Jury Prize in 2006. There is a lot of talent obviously from Arnold.

'Red Road' Follows a CCTV worker Jackie who catches a face on one of the camera which brings back torment and anger for Jackie, reasons that are at the time unknown. This appearance releases a series of bizarre behaviour by Jackie to track down the man in the video.

A strong central performance from Kate Dickie is the centre piece here, and a number of other supporting roles that come in strong support.

The direction and script is strong, but the pace of the film can be seen as a problem, at nearly two hours the film can be seen to take to long to get to a resolve, there are interesting character studies with Jackie and a number of other characters.
Still although a satisfying ending, it takes a long winded way to get there. A few shaping with the editing would have made for a much tighter less baggy film.
Still except a lot from Andrea Arnold in the future.

An interesting take on the US involvement in the second world war, from the stand point of the guys who raised the flag at tiwo jima. Good performances, but a lack of standout performances, bad pacing and a lack of standout moment, struggles to make flags of our fathers a great film.

After the hype and excitment has cleared is the The Da Vinci Code a worthy adapatation, of one of the most popular novels of the past five years. The answer is a missed effort, and a rushed film to make, whilst the buzz was still fresh. The ...(read more)story is a great one. The search for the holy grail though a series of da vinci art. Still Ron Howard is not a good enough director to bring the complicated story to the screen, followed by a bad script, which runs like a 6-12 year old explansion of everything that is going on, and not allowing the viewer to work things out by themselves. Hanks is missed cased and Mckellen acts more like a bumbling school teacher than a grail expert. A great book needed more time to get things right, one feels.

'Fearless' is based on the life of Chinese martial arts master Huo Yuanjia (1869-1910), the founder and spiritual guru of the Jin Wu Sports Federation. It is set during the late 1800s to early 1900s, a pivotal period in China's history, when the whole country is shrouded under increasing internal turmoil and the imminent threat of foreign invasion.

Jet LI announced that 'Fearless" would be his final martial artist movie, it will be interesting to see which root the actor will take after this film. If this is his last film sadly this is not the great swan song he would of hoped for.

The story of the founder of the modern martial art is an interesting one, but the film is on the wrong director?s hands, the script is sloppy, mixing very odd humour and drama to failed results. The action sets pieces are fine, the standouts include a fight high up above a town, also a frantic sword fight in a building between Li and an enemy.

Overall an ok action piece but lacking in direction and won't last long in the memory.

Sadly Breaking the Entering would be Anthony Minghella's swan song.

Also sadly breaking and Entering, I feel is by along way his weakest film.
The Story follows a number of characters joined together by a series of break ins to Will (Laws) offices, which leads will to the boy responsible and his mother.

The problem I found was that the film never really moved out of its run of the mill drama which you would see from a TV soap opera. The characters were never really developed enough, with exception to Jude Laws character Will. Martin Freeman and Ray Winston are purely put in for slightly failed comic relief. And the affair between Will and the Juliette is too random and unconvincing.

Overall bravo to Minghella for wanting to get back to his low budget film making roots after the more bigger projects of his, as with truly, madly, deeply and away from the majesty of The English Patient but fails to be either compelling or as original as either.

The bench mark for South African Aperteid films was set with the brillant Cry Freedom. Since then there has been few films made on the subject. Catch A Fire is a well told story. Tim Robbins is a great actor but miscast, seems nerves with the accent, also it is hard to work out his motive and generally the monatone speech is a problem. Derek Luke does well, but the lack of pace, energy and emotion, fails to grip the casual viewer of the important true story.

Interesting idea and Mictchell has succeeds in making the most revealing film about sexual behaviour yet. Shortbus is funny in places, and intellegent, but with exception to the gay couple the other characters are not interesting enough to hold interest beyond the voyeur points and explotations displayed.

Best Costume Design 2006

Following the success of underground hit wolf creek and some could say the success of The Beach, another watch out when travelling film emerges. Following the usual story of not trusting a lone stranger in oz is well acted, but the villian is so shad...(read more)y in the first place no one would trust him, and the slow build up to the inevitable ending is to slow and the seen it all before ending is nothing new. I look forward to my trip to oz next year!

An A list of names such as De niro and Bowie lead there voices to Bessons fantasy, of a boy trying to save his house from the developers by transporting himself in a CGI animated world and defeat the usual main bad guy. Run of the mill sadly that the kids will love and the adults will find poor compared to the already difficult animaton kids market.

Comes off like one of stephen kings early years novel. A kind of pet cemetry. A group of young twenty somethings arrive on an island and find the local dog popualtion are a tad hunger. The Breed is a throw back to the cheap horror flicks of the 70s, ...(read more)with cheap being the word. Terrible drama school acting and script are the main faults. The film is devoid of any real fear, and surprisenly the decision to use really dogs instead of a mixture of half fake, half real dogs is a bad one, as the dogs never look menacing and come off looking more pissed off than deadly.