My Own Private Awards Show

Best Picture: A History of Violence
Best Actor: tie—Jeff Daniels (The Squid and the Whale) & Bill Murray – Broken Flowers
Best Actress:   Reese Witherspoon – Walk the Line
Best Supporting Actor: George Clooney—Good Night, and Good Luck
Best Supporting Actress: tie—Amy Adams (Junebug) & Maria Bello (A History of Violence)
Best Director:  David Cronenberg (A History of Violence)
Best Original Screenplay: Noah Baumbach (The Squid and the Whale)
Best Adapted Screenplay: Josh Olsen (A History of Violence)
Best Foreign Film: 2046

One Man Film Festival: Future Dystopias

Metropolis (1927)
Things to Come (1936)
Alphaville (1965)
Planet of the Apes (1968)
A Clockwork Orange (1971)
The Omega Man (1971)
THX 1138 (1971)
Soylent Green (1973)
The Road Warrior (1981)
Blade Runner (1982)
The Terminator (1984)
Robocop (1987)
12 Monkeys (1995)
Gattaca (1995)
Dark City (1998)
Code 46 (2003)

Introduction: 2006 One Man Film Festival

Now is the winter of movie lovers’ discontent. The studios, still trying to shake off their post-Oscar hangovers, dump last year’s bad decisions—Failure to Launch—into the multiplexes. Meanwhile, erstwhile distributor of indie and foreign films Wellspring Media has been swallowed whole by hype-and-cash-bloated mini-studio The Weinstein Company:

http://www.villagevoice.com/film/0609,kaufman,72356,20.html

It’s already too late to catch most of the Oscar-nominated films in theaters (how did I not see Munich?), yet still too early to see them on DVD.  

So what’s a movie fan to do? Join me here. Over the next few weeks I’ll be programming a little virtual film festival I’ve dubbed “The 2006 One Man Film Festival,” offering up a list of 10 or so exemplary films from a variety of genres, more of a sampler of the riches of cinema than a series of proverbial top 10 lists.  

One Man Film Festival: 12 Westerns

One-Man Film Festival: 12 Westerns

1. Stagecoach (1939)
2. Red River (1948)
3. The Naked Spur (1953)
4. The Searchers (1956)
5. Seven Men From Now (1956)
6. Rio Bravo (1959)
7. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
8. Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
9. The Wild Bunch (1969)
10. McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971)
11. Unforgiven (1992)
12. Dead Man (1995)

My Favorite Films of 2005

               My Favorite Films of 2005 (revised 3/5/06)

1. A History of Violence


2. Broken Flowers


3. 2046


4. Yes


5. Last Days


6. The Holy Girl


7. Pulse


8. Capote


9. Mysterious Skin


10. Millions


11. Good Night, and Good Luck


12. Brokeback Mountain


13. Crash


14. The Weather Man


15. The Squid and the Whale


16. The Constant Gardener


17. The Girl from Monday


18. Me and You and Everyone We Know


19. Grizzly Man


20. Palindromes


21. Melinda and Melinda


22. Batman Begins


23. Thumbsucker


24. Sin City


25. Junebug


26. Nobody Knows


27. Happy Endings


28. Oldboy


29. The Beat That My Heart Skipped


30. Lord of War


31. The New World


32. Cinderella Man


33. Bob Dylan: No Direction Home


34. Not on the Lips


35. Walk the Line


36. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory


37. Downfall


38. 5 x 2


39. Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist


40. The Assassination of Richard Nixon


41. Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance


42. 3-Iron


43. The Bad News Bears


44. Empire Falls


45. The Skeleton Key


46. Kingdom of Heaven


47. The Upside of Anger


48. The Family Stone


49. In Her Shoes


50. The Ice Harvest


51. The 40 Year Old Virgin


52. The Brothers Grimm


53. Four Brothers


54. Pretty Persuasion


55. Hustle & Flow


56. March of the Penguins


57. Elizabethtown


58. Tale of Two Sisters


59. Dark Water


60. The Interpreter


61. In Good Company


62. Kung Fu Hustle


63. Red Eye


64. Land of the Dead


65. Rory O’Shea Was Here


66. Off the Map


67. Winter Solstice


68. Stay


69. Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith


70. Derailed


71. Izo


72. The Island


73. Bewitched


74. Wedding Crashers


75. Sahara


76. Constantine


77. Fever Pitch


78. War of the Worlds


79. Flightplan


80. The Exorcism of Emily Rose


81. White Noise


82. Elektra


83. Fantastic Four


84. Cursed


85. Ring 2


86. The Amityville Horror