The Year Endeth, The Lists Begineth

I can't sleep.

Every year my old school buddy, Erum, and I swap our top ten movies of the year in time honoured movie geek style. And so the time is upon us to perform this ancient ritual once again.

Unlike previous years I haven't kept any particular record of what I've seen in 2006 so I had to do a bit of research into what's come out. In doing that I realised that there have been a few movies that might have made it on to the list had I seen them, but for numerous reasons, none of them good, they've waylaid me somewhere along the line. For the record then here are the top ten movies I've missed this year in order of wanting to have seen them:

1. Little Miss Sunshine
2. United 93
3. Snakes On A Plane
   
4. Capote
5. Casino Royale
   
6. Volver,
   
7. The Prestige
8. Syriana,
   
9. Good Night And Good Luck
10. Clerks 2

Most years we also try to pick only movies we've seen at the cinema but if that were the case X-Men 3 would make it onto the list by default and that would be a BAD thing. So I'm having to pick in a post-modern stylee from all forms of media.

Of the 32 odd movies from this year that I've figured out I've seen 7 were sequels and 2 were remakes and one was The Break Up. That probably says more about the kind of shit I'm prepared to sit through than anything. The list is basically the movies I've enjoyed the most. What makes a movie I enjoy is a questionable blend of being either very good, very odd or very very bad. But not X-Men 3 bad or Pirates 2 bad. They share a unique badness usually associated with plagues, sores, boils and magot infested genitalia.

So here goes, the winners are:

1. Sympathy For Lady Vengeance (sheer class in every aspect)
   
2. The Proposition (as above but with facial hair and much slower)
   
3. V For Vendetta (they blow up parliament - that's a good thing)
   
4. Lucky Number Slevin (wildly entertaining hocum)
   
5. Fearless (peace and love and shit kicking)
   
6. Stranger Than Fiction (I really do like Will Ferrell in this)
   
7. A Scanner Darkly (if you've read the book)
   
8. Saw 3 (because it follows a hideous path to the bitter end)
   
9. Final Destination 3 (for the nail gun bit)
   
10. Superman Returns (but only the first two hours, the last bit resides in the disappointments pile)
    

And you can keep your complaints to yourselves or post your own lists on the comments thingy. These are my choices and therefore highly questionable in their own right. And I should know, I have a degree in this crap.

Honourable mentions go to:

1. Shortbus (for being wonderfully weird)
2. Silent Hill (for not sucking as much as I thought it would)
3. Slither (for all the glorious, gooey mess - I could also have said that about Shortbus)
   

Disappointments (i.e should have been good but were actually a bit shit) are:

1. Cache (where was the big deal huh?)
   
2. Munich (it was just DULL)
   
3. The New World (The Thin Red Line only tedious and with pantaloons)

And last but not least the worst. Not as in so bad they're good but as in so bad I'd rather eat my own vomit encrusted shit than ever have to endure them again, let alone admit to any of you lot that I've seen them in the first place. So let's carve up a crusty one:

1. Pirates Of The Caribbean 2 [whatever the bit in brackets is] (how to turn an average idea from a good movie into a stinking dungheap of mediocrity. No FUCKING EXCUSES after such a good lead in)
2. The Omen (what's with the sickly antichrist, that kid couldn't take over a paper run let alone the world, all those concerned in making it will be spending some time in hell, those who watched it already have)
3. Broken Flowers (except for the hot naked lady it was about as interesting as watching paint dry and I've become quite an authority on that subject this year)
4. X-Men 3 (wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong WRONG. HOW COULD YOU, YOU USELESS MOTHERFUCKERS????????????? YOU HAD IT ALL. YOU HAD IT ALL AND YOU WENT AND PISSED IT UP THE WALL. AAARRRRRGGHHHHHHH.....)
5. The Break Up (would have been better had it ended like War of the Roses with both of them DEAD)
6. The last half an hour of Superman Returns (so, like, stop when the movie gets REALLY FUCKING BORING)
7. Aeon Flux (I don't even think I would have enjoyed this when I was 14)
8. The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things (utterly loathsome self-indulgent garbage)
9. Underworld 2 (please stop making this crap, it's not big, it's not good and it's sure as fuck not clever)
10. The Hills Have Eyes (I was beginning to wish the cannibals had got to me)

Anything else was either just ok (like Deja Vu) or I just can't remember.

Night folks, and sorry about all the swearing.