OVP: Best Picture (2006)
The Nominees Were...
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Jon Kilik, & Steve Golin, Babel
Graham King, The Departed
Clint Eastwood, Steven Spielberg, & Robert Lorenz, Letters from Iwo Jima
David T. Friendly, Peter Saraf, & Marc Turtletaub, Little Miss Sunshine
Andy Harries, Christine Langan, & Tracey Seaweed, The Queen
My Thoughts: "And so it is...." Though Closer came out two years before this movie, every time we finish up one of our 2006 Oscar series (we'll do a My Ballot tomorrow, but obviously that's personal preferences and not focused on our main Oscar theme), I have that song by Damien Rice humming through my head, as we put one last year behind us. I've found that because we're pretty thorough in getting not just the movies of a year from Oscar's fields, but I make a point of seeing most of the other pictures I intend on eventually seeing from that annum, we don't get to revisit a specific year very often after this article publishes. So with that bit of profundity out of the way, let's say goodbye to Oscar's top picks of 2006.
I sometimes get accused of not loving films that center around joyful things, an accusation I have endured since I first became a film critic in college. One of the films that I got this first levied at me for was Little Miss Sunshine, which is a crowdpleaser film that I certainly don't hate. It's hard to hate a movie like Little Miss Sunshine, which deals in pleasantries and ultimately leads to a happy ending for most involved. But it's also a movie that relies heavily on cliches, cliches that are pleasant, but cliches nonetheless, and it's not a movie that resonated with me enough to look past that. It's nice that comedy was recognized by Oscar, but it wasn't my cup-of-tea.
The Queen is my cup-of-tea (there's a British/tea joke there, but I am going to skip it since we all already made the connection) as a I love a good royalty drama. The Queen is not breaking any new ground cinematically-this is not the kind of movie that future filmmakers are going to look back on with great fondness. But it's pleasant, and it serves as a good movie to highlight a great performance-that's nothing to sneeze at. It's also quick, light, & never struggles to keep the audience entertained. In an era where movies oftentimes feel bloated or overlong, The Queen doesn't indulge such frivolity, and considering the massive biography surrounding its two real-life protagonists, there was room for such detours.
The Departed is a movie that also never feels overlong, which is a neater trick since it actually is long. It accomplishes that by fleshing out some of its side characters (particularly Jack Nicholson's crime boss), as well as giving us a story with focus. One of the bigger problems with long films is that it feels like they're editing as we go, but as Scorsese's picture approaches its conclusion, it's clear that every decision that he's made with all of his major cast has been headed toward the same spiraling finality. This makes The Departed a strong companion piece to movies like GoodFellas and The Irishman, as they make the audience wonder how much of our life is controllable & how much is fate; in a movie that has economic privilege at its core, this is a savvy observation from Marty.
Babel is also a film that wants to deal toward a conclusion, but it could be a textbook example of a director doing too much & indulging too many whims. The stories never seem to quite coalesce around each other (particularly Rinko Kikuchi's tale), and after watching movies like Traffic and Crash use this story style, it doesn't feel fresh. Combine in Gonzalez Inarritu's bizarre obsession with showing pain, suffering, & misery without any sort of respite (I say this in virtually every film review I do of his pictures, but torturing your audience is not "high drama"), and Babel becomes a movie that I'll be happy to leave behind in 2006.
The one film that feels like it's the picture I want to return to the most because I gained a newfound appreciation for it in these articles is Letters from Iwo Jima. This is an intentional rather than spiritual companion piece to another movie from Clint Eastwood (the dreadful Flags of Our Fathers), but it thankfully can stand on its own, showing us another side of a story that Americans associate with one of their most iconic wartime images. The cinematography is lovely, the direction steady, and the acting consistent-Letters from Iwo Jima is the sort of subtle work that Eastwood doesn't seem capable of today, but is a reminder of why he became such a force in American pictures.
Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes split their nominations between Comedy/Musical and Drama, so we have a full ten nominees here. Drama gave its top prize to Babel, over Bobby, The Departed, Little Chidren and The Queen, while Comedy/Musical went for Dreamgirls against Borat, The Devil Wears Prada, Little Miss Sunshine, and Thank You for Smoking one of the very rare times the Comedy/Musical winner didn't get in for Best Picture but one of its competitors did). BAFTA went with The Queen with Babel, The Departed, The Last King of Scotland, and Little Miss Sunshine as the defeated, while the PGA went for Little Miss Sunshine over Babel, The Departed, Dreamgirls, and The Queen. Sixth place was probably Dreamgirls, even if it wasn't a big favorite of Oscar's when the ballots were ultimately counted.
Films I Would Have Nominated: You'll find out tomorrow. 😉
Oscar’s Choice: In what was at the time a very tight race (unlike Best Director, this wasn't preordained), The Departed took the prize over a surging Little Miss Sunshine and an in-the-race Babel.
My Choice: The Departed, and it's not close. Behind it I'm going to just give it to The Queen over Letters from Iwo Jima, but repeat viewings might juggle that (for very dissimilar movies, they're weirdly even in terms of my respect for them), with Little Miss Sunshine and Babel following (in order).
And with that, we close 2006, though it will carry on in the comments if you so choose. Are you with Oscar & I siding with The Departed, or does someone want to go with another option in what was (despite modern assumptions) a very wide-open race? Why do you think Dreamgirls was such a miss with the Academy despite plenty of early buzz? And overall-what is your favorite movie of 2006? Share your comments below!
Also in 2006: Director, Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2006
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