The year's officially over, so I thought I would share my "Top Tens" and "Best Of" lists. Of course, since I live outside of New York and L.A., I've not had a chance to see several movies that were on so many critics' year-end lists. Instead, I've made multiple lists -- some short, some long -- of my favorites from 2006. After all, how can we call something "Best Of" when we haven't surveyed all there is out there?
Ten Favorite Independent Films - Features and Shorts Contest - Sunrise Tippeconnie, Dance Party USA - Aaron Katz, Five More Minutes - Dena DeCola and Karin E. Wandner, I Am A Sex Addict - Caveh Zahedi, Iraq in Fragments - James Longley, LOL - Joe Swanberg, Mutual Appreciation - Andrew Bujalski, The Puffy Chair - The Duplass Brothers, Some Analog Lines - David Lowery, War - Jake Mahaffy
Favorite Studio Film: A Scanner Darkly - Richard Linklater
Favorite Foreign Film: L'Enfant - The Dardenne Brothers, Pan's Labrinth - Guillermo Del Toro
Other Honorable Mentions: An Inconvenient Truth, Half Nelson, Brothers of the Head, A Family Finds Entertainment, Head Trauma
Three Noteworthy Disappointments The Departed, Little Miss Sunshine, A Prairie Home Companion
An Incomplete List of 2006 Films I'm Eager To See Borat, Children of Men, Inland Empire, Kurt Cobain: About a Son, Letters from Iwo Jima, Old Joy, Pan's Labyrinth, Three Times
Favorite Non-Contemporary DVD Releases: Jackal of Nahueltoro - Miguel Littin - Terra Entertainment Punishment Park - Peter Watkins - New Yorker Seven Samurai (remaster) - Akira Kurasawa - Criterion Six Moral Tales Box Set - Eric Rohmer - Criterion Star Spangled to Death - Ken Jacobs Wanda - Barbara Loden - Parlour Pictures Yi Yi - Edward Yang - Criterion
Most exciting development in DVD for 2007: Criterion's Eclipse label
Best Moviegoing Experience I Had in 2006: Seeing Yi Yi for the first time.