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 Directing 2006 - Best Actor in a Supporting Role 2006

Best Film Editing 2006

Best Supporting Actor 2006

Best Score 2006

Best Sound Mixing 2006

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 Visual Effects 2006 - Best Art Direction 2006

Best Actress 2006

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.

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 Documentary 2006

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.

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.

Director Paul Verhoevens hollywood directing has tainted his ability to make smaller themed films, Black book is an example of this. The story of a young dutch girl being caught up with german politics and corruption near the end of the second world ...(read more)war is a small and interesting story. Still Verhoeven throws glitz, smut and glam to the story. Also alot of the characters are hollywood stereotypical, you have the evil german commander etc etc. As well as action set pieces that are silly and unnecessary. Still lead Carice van Houten is watchable, being able to bring the most out of female actress, is a technique which Verhoeven has made his own.

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

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.