Top 15 of 2006 part I

Time to sweep some more stagnant writing out of the brothel of half written drafts. I made a list of my 15 favourite films of 2006 a few years back, and May-hem is the pefect time to drag it out of the gutter and throw it up on screen (there will be lists for 2007 and 2008 later this month as well). I found a “Top 10” meant having to ditch a few films I really enjoyed, while a “Top 20” meant having to add a couple that weren’t that great; so “Top 15” it is. The first five films in ascending order:



15. Little Miss Sunshine

A dysfunctional family (including Steve Carroll as a gay suicidal college professor) make a cross country road trip in order to enter the daughter into a talent show, upsetting numerous plebs along the way.

A decent comedy whose simple message is that quirky people can be a nuiscance, but normal people are just plain shit. A core value I can get behind.




14. District 13

When Casino Royale debuted at cinemas, many fans were impressed by the prologue parkour chase across the Construction site. ”What could be better than that?” they asked. The answer was quite simple – a film consisting of constant parkour stunts for its entire running time, and also starring the inventor of parkour.

District 13 is a 2004 French film (released in 2006 internationally, so making this list) set in a dystopian Parisian future (2010, oh shit that’s seven months away) and stars two martial arts/parkour experts/batshit crazy assholes who team up to fight gangsters, disarm a bomb, and save the girl. Their plan is to spend the whole film running around like Spiderman on Crystal meth (it works).




13. Children of Men

Clive Owen, who is currently in a neck and neck race with Jason Statham to become the surliest British Action star (I bet those two are just a blast at dinner parties), stars as a cynical ex-activist living in the dystopian British future of 2027 (not to be confused with the dystopian Paris of 2010, or the dystopian present of Port Adelaide 2009).

Events take a turn for the interesting, when he is put in charge of a pregnant woman (in fact, the first pregnant woman of the last 18 years. I forgot to mention, everybody is sterile in 2027. They must have caught mumps).

Anyone who has trod through the grime and vomit of Piccadilly Circus on a New Year’s Eve will testify how perfect London is as a setting for dystopian future storylines. Children of Men makes great use of these surroundings, and has a tense story line with abrupt scenes of amazing action (the shootout at the refugee camp is particularly good).


12. Primer

Abe and Aaron are friends and engineers who spend their evening working on a project that will hopefully make them rich, a device that makes objects lighter and will revolutionise shipping and travel. While tinkering with this device, however, they accidentally invent a time machine. The time machine can only send them back a few hours, so they use it to play the stockmarket and gamble. Shit eventually goes pear shaped, and the film becomes a mindfuck of alternate time lines, duplicated people and increasingly complex paradoxes.

Primer was an independent film created by an Engineer, and he treats the whole mind fuckery of time travel with an Engineer’s precise calculations. I love time travel films, and this one made my nose bleed (but in a good way). I finished the film with one thought: “Causality is a Mother Fucker”.

A decent Sci-Fi film, one that will require viewing at least twice to fully grasp.

However, if you found films like Donnie Darko and Memento confusing, then avoid Primer like it was Pig AIDS. It will give you an aneurysm.

(Also: Pig AIDS is the scientific name for Swine Flu).


11. Feast

Project Greenlight was an American reality TV show produced by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, that involved putting together an amateur team of scriptwriters, Director, and Producer and creating a film . Feast was the resulting film of Season 3.

I think reality TV is Satan’s piss, months of grooming and competition to produce singers who perform a smattering of god awful music, and then completely disappear a few weeks later. Project Greenlight sounds like a film version of American Idol, and I was surprised to find that the resulting spawn of the show, Feast, wasn’t only watchable, but actually pretty damn good.

A Horror Comedy in the vein of Evil Dead, it features a band of unlikely types holed up in a bar in the middle of nowhere, and under attack from unknown (and decidedly horny) monsters. The plot couldn’t be more clichéd, but the film makers spend the whole time turning the usual horror preconceptions on their ear, and to great effect.

The film also presents the best introduction process I have seen in a while, freeze framing each character (guy Ritchie style) as they first appear on screen and giving their name, their role (ie “the Hero”, “the Old Guy”, “the Cripple”), and also their life expectancy.

Best character: Henry Rollins as the dorky motivational speaker. He made me lulz.