2 posts tagged “qotd”

What are your top 5 movies/DVDs of 2006?

I tried putting them in order of preference, but gave up and put them in alphabetical order:

1. Brick - Raymond Chandler goes to high school.  The best indie film I saw this year.

2. Casino Royale.  - Is it out of the question for Daniel Craig to get a Best Actor nomination? 

3. The Departed - Filmmaking at a level that makes every other movie around look like Amateur Night.  The only thing keeping it from greatness - the completely random ending.

4. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest - Why did so many critics hate this?  It's full of wonders, packed with entertainment, a terrific popcorn film.

5.  The Prestige - I love it when a movie messes with my mind.

Worthy also rans - Cars, Little Miss Sunshine, Stranger Than Fiction, Talladega Nights, Thank You For Smoking, Inside Man.

Worst movie I saw in a theater - Nacho Libre.   A comedy with no laughs can only make you squirm.  (Reminds me - I've been puzzled by those Citi credit card ads with some European guy racking up points.  I just discovered why they're so unfunny and make no sense - they were directed by Jared "Napoleon Dynamite/Nacho Libre" Hess.)

Most disappointing movie - Superman Returns.  Bryan Singer is one of the best directors of SFX action sequence.  But the human drama was botched - the movie was built around the Superman-Lois relationship, but was set up so that nothing could happen in that relationship.  If you've got time, I've got 6 or 7 other complaints about this film.

Have you ever Googled your own name? How did you feel about the results?
Submitted by elen.

The most interesting results were the ones for Dr. Frank C. Baxter, best known as the star of a series of 1950's educational films from Bell Science Labs.  I well remember seeing Hemo the Magnificent  and Our Mr. Sun in school as a boy, with the bald, bespectacled Dr. Baxter (sometimes called "Dr. Research") looking every inch the serious scientist.  Which is why it was a surprise to learn that he wasn't; he was an English professor at USC.  This series, and an Emmy-winning TV series on Shakespeare, were apparently enough to get Dr. B a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.  But what really surprised me about those films is that some of them were directed by none other than Frank Capra.