2006 Bonus List: Some Great Movies

2006 blogging, bonus list!

34 Great Movies from 2006

To conclude our festival of 2006, I’ve got a list of recommended movies.  This mini-list is excerpted from the “Doubling the Canon” list (as compiled by participants on the IMDb Classic Film message board) combined with the 2006 list from the They Shoot Pictures Don’t They? list of 1,000 great films.

The They Shoot Pictures list is a 1,000-movie canon of great films;  the “Doubling the Canon” list adds an additional 1,000 movies to the canon.  And now I’m excerpting the 2006 movies.

34 Great Movies from 2006

(Combined list, with They Shoot Pictures picks in caps and Doubling the Canon picks in lower case, all presented in alphabetical order.)

After the Wedding (Efter brylluppet) / Susanne Bier

Bamako / Abderrahmane Sissako

Blame It On Fidel (La faute à Fidel!) / Julie Gavras

BORAT: CULTURAL LEARNINGS OF AMERICA FOR MAKE BENEFIT GLORIOUS NATION OF KAZAKHSTAN / Larry Charles

Brand Upon the Brain! / Guy Maddin

CASINO ROYALE / Martin Campbell

CHILDREN OF MEN / Alfonso Cuarón

COLOSSAL YOUTH (JUVENTUDE EM MARCHA) / Pedro Costa

DEPARTED, THE / Martin Scorsese

Everything Will Be Ok / Don Hertzfeldt

Exiled (Fong juk) / Johnnie To

FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS / Clint Eastwood

HALF NELSON / Ryan Fleck

HOST, THE (GWOEMUL) / Bong Joon-ho

I DON’T WANT TO SLEEP ALONE (HEI YAN QUAN) / Tsai Ming-liang

INLAND EMPIRE / David Lynch

Island, The (Ostrov) / Pavel Lungin

Lady Chatterley / Pascale Ferran

LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA / Clint Eastwood

LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE / Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris

LIVES OF OTHERS, THE (DAS LEBEN DER ANDEREN) / Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck

OFFSIDE / Jafar Panahi

OLD JOY / Kelly Reichardt

PAN’S LABYRINTH (EL LABERINTO DEL FAUNO) / Guillermo del Toro

Planet Earth / Alastair Fothergill

PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION, A / Robert Altman

QUEEN, THE / Stephen Frears

STILL LIFE (SANXIA HAOREN) / Jia Zhang Ke

SYNDROMES AND A CENTURY (SANG SATTAWAT) / Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Ten Canoes / Rolf de Heer, Peter Djigirr

UNITED 93 / Paul Greengrass

VOLVER / Pedro Almodóvar

When the Levees Broke / Spike Lee

WOMAN ON THE BEACH (HAEBYONUI YOIN) / Hong Sang-soo

Here’s the full They Shoot Pictures list.  And here’s the  “Doubling the Canon” list.  Special thanks to the two masterminds behind these lists: Bill Georgaris who manages They Shoot Pictures and Angel Gonzalez Garcia who now leads the "Doubling the Canon" project.

I created and launched  “Doubling the Canon” project around half a dozen years ago, ran it for a few years, and then handed it off to Angel’s capable hands where it’s flourished since.

Next up on the random year(s) generator:  1965.  (Coming soon…)

© 2012 Lee Price

2006 and the Orphan's Tales

2006 Blogging, Part 5 of 5
The Orphan's Tales

In these long breaks between the signature 21 Essays series, I’m experimenting with a new feature focused on possibilities for future series.  I’ll spin the roulette wheel to pick a year (or set of years) and then brainstorm on some potential essay topics.  This time the wheel spins, gradually slows, then clicks to a stop, pointing at:  2006.

Since my son Terry introduced me to these books, I’ve asked him to write today’s entry.

Here’s my 2006 series possibility:  21 essays on Catherynne M. Valente’s two-book series The Orphan’s Tales, an ingenious collection of interrelated stories with more mythological and folkloric references than just about any fantasy book I’ve ever read. And that is saying something.

In order to truly explore every avenue of these two books, In the Night Garden and In the Cities of Coin and Spice, I’d probably need dozens of essays. Valente includes everything from monopods to griffins, and basilisks to manticores, and even (SPOILER alert!) a journey to the land of the dead.

If I were to write a short series of essays based on these books, I’d probably take my hint from Valente’s interlocking narrative:  Each post would expand upon parts of previous posts, connecting the discussions in surprising ways, and finding larger meanings and themes that resonate with each other.  When read in order, the posts would ultimately illuminate one continuous subject (threaded through them all) but with greater depth and variety than any single post could carry.  That was Valente’s method for telling the stories and it would seem a fitting tribute to her.

Terry Price

This is the last of our official 2006 ideas (with no promises that we’ll necessarily be getting to any of them…) but there’ll be one more bonus entry of great 2006 movies that we’ve saved for last.  I’ll post it this weekend.

Next year up on the random year(s) generator:  1965.  (Coming soon…)

© 2012 Lee and Terry Price

2006 and the Labyrinth

2006 blogging, part 4 of 5

Pan’s Labyrinth

In these long breaks between the signature 21 Essays series, I’m experimenting with a new feature focused on possibilities for future series.  I’ll spin the roulette wheel to pick a year (or set of years) and then brainstorm on some potential essay topics.  This time the wheel spins, gradually slows, then clicks to a stop, pointing at:  2006. 

So here’s my fourth 2006 series possibility:  21 essays on Pan’s Labyrinth, Guillermo del Toro’s nightmarish fantasy rooted in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War.

As my friends know, I can never resist the intersection of fantasy and history.  With Pan’s Labyrinth, the history is solid.  And the fantasy is extraordinary.

There’s no way I would try to cover the whole of Pan’s Labyrinth in 21 essays.  Twice that, maybe.  Probably I’d need more like 84 essays to begin to do it justice.  So for 21 essays, I’d have to restrict myself to some very tight parameters.

Much as I enjoy history, I don’t think I’d want to spend 21 days contemplating this depressing and horrifying depiction of Spain in the 1940s.  And much as I love the mythological elements, they’re so dense and varied that covering them all could get overwhelming.

So I think I’d like to put a huge SPOILER sign up over the whole series and spend all 21 essays closely examining and contemplating Pan’s Labyrinth’s highly ambiguous final scenes.  There are at least three plausible explanations for what we see, and I think each of them could yield worthwhile discussion.

Ivana Baquero as Ofelia in Pan's Labyrinth.

Tomorrow, I’ll be proposing the last of these 2006 ideas (with no promises that I’ll necessarily be getting to any of them…).  But I’m wide open to other suggestions.  Any ideas for 2006 movies, books, short stories, poems, songs, paintings, or other cultural artifacts that might inspire a good 21 Essays series?

© 2012 Lee Price

2006 and My Love

2006 blogging, part 3 of 5

My Love

In these long breaks between the signature 21 Essays series, I’m experimenting with a new feature focused on possibilities for future series.  I’ll spin the roulette wheel to pick a year (or set of years) and then brainstorm on some potential essay topics.  This time the wheel spins, gradually slows, then clicks to a stop, pointing at:  2006. 

So here’s my third 2006 series possibility:  21 essays on My Love, an animated short by Aleksandr Petrov.

Petrov has developed an instantly recognizable style that he achieves by painting his images upon glass, primarily using his fingers to smear the paint.  Prior to My Love, this approach yielded masterpieces like The Cow and The Old Man and the Sea.  Although I love all three, I think I could benefit from a crash course in his work to completely appreciate them.  That’s why I’d welcome an opportunity to do 21 essays on My Love.  It could be my crash course.

The one thing that’s certain about My Love is that the images are non-stop gorgeous (just check out the image captures below).  They flow naturally from reality to dream to nightmare with momentary glimpses of perfect clarity among the swirl of life.  The visual effect is dazzling but I suspect there’s more to this movie than meets the eye—plot points that get lost in translation.  Until I know more, some of the incidents in My Love can feel more random than organic.

If I were to dive into these depths, I would first read the original source material.  The movie is based on Ivan Shmelyov’s 1927 novel A Love Story.  And it appears that Shmelyov’s book itself is a spin on Ivan Turgenev’s First Love.  I’d happily read them both.  Combine that with a study of Petrov’s extraordinary artistic technique, and I’d be ready to write some essays.

Painting on glass images from My Love by Aleksandr Petrov.

Over the next two days, I’ll be proposing some more 2006 ideas (with no promises that I’ll necessarily be getting to any of them…).  But I’m wide open to other suggestions.  Any ideas for 2006 movies, books, short stories, poems, songs, paintings, or other cultural artifacts that might inspire a good 21 Essays series?

© 2012 Lee Price

2006, John Berryman, and the Devil

2006 blogging, part 2 of 5

Stuck Between Stations

In these long breaks between the signature 21 Essays series, I’m experimenting with a new feature focused on possibilities for future series.  I’ll spin the roulette wheel to pick a year (or set of years) and then brainstorm on some potential essay topics.  This time the wheel spins, gradually slows, then clicks to a stop, pointing at:  2006. 

So here’s my second 2006 series possibility:  21 essays on “Stuck Between Stations,” a song from the album Boys and Girls in America by The Hold Steady.

When the entire band kicks in after the break, with Craig Finn singing “We drink/We dry up/Then we crumble into dust,” The Hold Steady breaks all records for intensity.  Bands don’t get tighter than this.  That’s why I love this song.

But where do you get 21 essays from a simple rock song?  Well, it’s not just the pounding commitment of the band, but the off-the-chart intelligence of the lyrics, too.  Weaving together Jack Kerouac allusions with the suicide of poet John Berryman, the lyrics spark with images that deserve attention.  And more than most songs, this one is anchored to a place:  The Washington Avenue Bridge in Minneapolis where John Berryman leaped to his death.

On the Road by Kerouac, John Berryman talking to the devil, teenage angst, and the Golden Gophers…  that’s more than enough to explore.  And I love the way the band looks so ordinary, like people you might pass any day on the street, never suspecting that on a good night they’re possibly the hardest-rocking band in America.

Over the next three days, I’ll be proposing some more 2006 ideas (with no promises that I’ll necessarily be getting to any of them…).  But I’m wide open to other suggestions.  Any ideas for 2006 movies, books, short stories, poems, songs, paintings, or other cultural artifacts that might inspire a good 21 Essays series?

© 2012 Lee Price

2006 and the Benedictines

2006 Blogging, Part 1 of 5
The Cloister Walk

In these long breaks between the signature 21 Essays series, I’m experimenting with a new feature focused on possibilities for future series.  I’ll spin the roulette wheel to pick a year (or set of years) and then brainstorm on some potential essay topics.  This time the wheel spins, gradually slows, then clicks to a stop, pointing at:  2006. 

So here’s my first 2006 series possibility:  21 essays on The Cloister Walk, a thoughtful and deeply personal meditation on monastic life by poet Kathleen Norris.

As a Benedictine oblate, Norris provides a borderline insider’s perspective of the monastery life.  But even as she fully immerses herself in the rhythms of the Benedictine life, her thoughts keeping turning outward as she reflects on her marriage, her Protestant commitments, her work as a successful essayist and poet, and her ongoing struggles with faith.  Most importantly, she expresses how normal all this is.  Oblates are associated with a monastic community but they maintain full lives outside the monastery, free to pursue career and the challenges of married life.  While a Christian commitment is required, Catholicism is optional.  And as for struggling with faith, that’s just a normal part of the path even for the saintliest of the monks and nuns.

Throughout, Norris foremost remains a poet.  “Anyone with a sacramental understanding of our world knows that it’s the small things that count,” she writes.  Like religion, like poetry—the small observations open onto the largest vistas.  Writing of her growing friendships with Benedictines, her cloistered friends start to sound like a community of unusually gentle poets.

Norris isn’t about to supplant Thomas Merton in my affections—Merton’s position as my primary spiritual go-to mentor is pretty unassailable—but she walks a similar path.  I think I could find much to blog about in The Cloister Walk, maybe using Norris’ probing thoughts to examine my own career, married life, and spiritual struggles.

"A Private View of a Monastery," a print
from the Illustrated London News, 1883.

Over the next four days, I’ll be proposing some more 2006 ideas (with no promises that I’ll necessarily be getting to any of them…).  But I’m wide open to other suggestions.  Any ideas for 2006 movies, books, short stories, poems, songs, paintings, or other cultural artifacts that might inspire a good 21 Essays series?

© 2012 Lee Price