you mock, but if al quaeda had hit us at 2:20am, imagine the lives lost during the precious seconds of the guinn-gibbons rock, paper, scissors match to determine who would have chief-executived his way through the crisis.

Children of Men was, I must say, unfortunately a bit disappointing. I mean, it was fine, just not as unerringly awesome as I would have wanted.

this has been a surprisingly weak year for movies. admittedly, i haven't seen even half of what i normally see, but part of that is that nothing seemed very interesting. we'll have to see what oscar says.

Oscar, eh? 'Cause Crash and Million Dollar Baby are such winners.

Alas, this was the first year for some reason that I finally understood why during the holidays the media becomes so bloated and boring with best of lists and year in review articles. It's good to have you back cm... it seems that you too were no stranger to the black hole that is the holidays (when it comes to news and articles that is).

Also just saw Little Children and Notes on a Scandal, both of which I found very worth watching. I'm hoping pan's labyrinth will rock my world.

notes on a scandal looked like some old re-released shelved mess wherein two excellent actresses, pre-fame, were somehow roped into a joe esterhaus script. i am somewhat happy to hear that you liked it, although zero percent more likely to ever see a movie about two women and a lot of interpersonal drama, unless they are also both Queens of the realm (i can deal with interregnum drama).

crazymonk, both of those movies were better than average. you're just a douchebag.

ps, nothing you say can hurt my mood. it's 2007, and you know what happens in 2007?

spiderman 3, that's what.

so that's a sufficient standard for the oscar's, "better than average?"

Both those films were better than Gladiator or A Beautiful Mind, which was the worst Oscar winner of all time.

Volver will never come to Las Vegas. We're just going to have to accept that.

Crazymonk, are we going to get any sort of favorite movies list from you?
Or do you not want to partake in such ratings?

"Volver will never come to Las Vegas. We’re just going to have to accept that."

Volver opens at the Suncoast on January 12.

It's not that I don't want to partake, it's that I haven't seen a large chunk of 2006's films.

Have you seen the movie "Water" (Deepa Metha)?...that was one of my favourites this year. Volver didn't rock my world and I agree about Notes on a Scandal--I don't think I can handle two hours of female drama, despite the actresses.

Well, you could always add the disclaimer, "best movies I've seen" or something like that, cm. Or wait until later.

Notes on a Scandal is only an hour and a half. It's definitely more interesting than "female drama," and frankly I'm just curious what another non-critic has to say about it, I'm not saying I loved it to death or anything.

Thanks, Josh. Better late than never, I suppose.

I know I'm somewhat alone on this website, but I really liked the Departed. Also, Little Miss Sunshine was enjoyable. Other than that, I haven't seen much this year that stood out.

Am I getting less easily entertained by movies? Or were they genuinely worse?

i also liked the departed, and by default it's one of the best movies i saw last year. if i manage to see 10+ 2006 movies, it will probably drop down, i suspect. but it was a weird late fall season. nothing particularly strong.

ingen, i happen to think they were worse (or at least less appealing in their marketing), but maybe you are less easily entertained too.

I enjoyed The Departed, but it was riddled with flaws. Little Miss Sunshine was occasionally funny, but was surprisingly conventional.

What are some of the best movies I've seen this year? When the Levees Broke, Casino Royale, An Inconvenient Truth, Borat, The Descent, The Prestige, The Fountain, The Departed

But again, I haven't seen that many of the most critically acclaimed movies of 2006. (I will eventually.)

I like your list cm, but every single movie on that list was riddled with flaws, maybe barring The Descent and Borat. I loved The Departed, but damn if Scorses didn't need to reign Jack in. But still, it was some of the most fun I had in a theater this year. Casino Royale fell apart at the end and was way too long (which is a problem with 90% of movies these days). An Inconvenient Truth was great, but all that crappy black and white Gore stuff killed me. I hated the science-magic stuff in the Prestige. And the Fountain was an interesting film, but just didn't hold together all that well. I guess that Borat had the least flaws thus far this year. But despite how funny I found it, there is no way I would call it the best film of the year. But there are a million things I have yet to see, including Dreamgirls, the Eastwood movies, the Mexican filmmaker movies, etc. I'll get back to you then.

The Descent did kick some ass, didn't it? I forgot about that.