Steve Reinhardt’s 2007 Movie Web Page

My Favorite Critic Andrew Sarris Top Ten Lists

Friends,

It gets to be Oscar ® time so quickly. It seems like only yesterday I was predicting the winners for last year’s awards. Another year of movie memories, celluloid dreams and “pieces of time” has come to pass. Andrew Sarris states, “anywhere from 522 to 540 new feature films were exhibited locally (in New York City) this year.” For my part, I clocked 134 viewings this year of which only 32 were for 2006 vintage releases. That leaves a rather small list from which to choose my top ten (only 6% of the available 540 movies). I have to think that I am a bit selective in my choices of how to spend both my viewing time and dollars. So my list should reflect the choices I’ve made both before as well as after seeing the films. You just can’t see them all!

Again this year I am proud to include the lists of Jack Kleinman and Andrew Sarris to round out my own. Jack, the manager of the Regal Cinemas Santa Cruz 9, and my good friend of thirty plus years has offered insights to films that I never seem to see. “A.S.” is and will always be “the” source for both cultural and academic review of the weekly fare through his column in the New York Observer.

My list this year includes smaller films that may have missed other critic’s lists including: Stranger Than Fiction and Find Me Guilty. If you haven’t seen them, get them on your NETFLIX list and I’m sure you’ll not be disappointed. I hope you enjoy my other picks and perhaps even look for them on DVD. I also hope you don’t follow to closely my Oscar ® predictions. I may not have all the answers!

Steve Reinhardt’s Top Ten for 2006

1. Stranger Than Fiction

2. Find Me Guilty

3. Little Miss Sunshine

4. Notes on a Scandal

5. Little Children

6. The Queen

7. The Painted Veil

8. The Last Kiss

9. The Groomsman

10. A Prairie Home Companion

Special Mention: The hardest film to watch this year:

An Inconvenient Truth

Click on the picture to find out more about my favorite movies of the past year.

Jack Kleinman’s Top Ten for 2006

Here's Jack’s Top 10 of 2006. He’s always good for picking selections I may have missed!

1. L'Enfant

2. Pan's Labyrinth

3. The Departed

4. Letters from Iwo Jima / Flags of Our Fathers

5. The Painted Veil

6. Neil Young: Heart of Gold

7. When the Levees Broke

8. Look Both Ways

9. Volver

10. Half Nelson

Special Mention: The Wire: Season 4. The best thing I saw in '06.

Steve Reinhardt’s Picks for the Academy Awards

Here are my picks to win the Academy Awards on February 25, 2007. These picks were made on February 20, 2007 so I can’t change them at the last minute! Historically, my guesses are only about 46% correct, so don’t bet the rent money.

My picks are in BOLD below.

Performance by an actor in a leading role

Leonardo DiCaprio - BLOOD DIAMOND

Ryan Gosling - HALF NELSON

Peter O'Toole - VENUS

Will Smith - THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

Forest Whitaker - THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND

Performance by an actor in a supporting role

Alan Arkin - LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE

Jackie Earle Haley - LITTLE CHILDREN

Djimon Hounsou - BLOOD DIAMOND

Eddie Murphy - DREAMGIRLS

Mark Wahlberg - THE DEPARTED

Performance by an actress in a leading role

Penélope Cruz - VOLVER

Judi Dench - NOTES ON A SCANDAL

Helen Mirren - THE QUEEN

Meryl Streep - THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA

Kate Winslet - LITTLE CHILDREN

Performance by an actress in a supporting role

Adriana Barraza - BABEL

Cate Blanchett - NOTES ON A SCANDAL

Abigail Breslin - LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE

Jennifer Hudson - DREAMGIRLS

Rinko Kikuchi - BABEL

Best animated feature film of the year

CARS

HAPPY FEET

MONSTER HOUSE

Achievement in art direction

DREAMGIRLS

THE GOOD SHEPHERD

PAN'S LABYRINTH

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN'S CHEST

THE PRESTIGE

Achievement in cinematography

THE BLACK DAHLIA

CHILDREN OF MEN

THE ILLUSIONIST

PAN'S LABYRINTH

THE PRESTIGE

Achievement in costume design

CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER

THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA

DREAMGIRLS

MARIE ANTOINETTE

THE QUEEN

Achievement in directing

BABEL

THE DEPARTED

LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA

THE QUEEN

UNITED 93

Best documentary feature

DELIVER US FROM EVIL

AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH

IRAQ IN FRAGMENTS

JESUS CAMP

MY COUNTRY, MY COUNTRY

Best documentary short subject

THE BLOOD OF YINGZHOU DISTRICT

RECYCLED LIFE

REHEARSING A DREAM

TWO HANDS

Achievement in film editing

BABEL

BLOOD DIAMOND

CHILDREN OF MEN

THE DEPARTED

UNITED 93

Best foreign language film of the year

AFTER THE WEDDING

DAYS OF GLORY (INDIGÈNES)

THE LIVES OF OTHERS

PAN'S LABYRINTH

WATER

Achievement in makeup

APOCALYPTO

CLICK

PAN'S LABYRINTH

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original score)

BABEL

THE GOOD GERMAN

NOTES ON A SCANDAL

PAN'S LABYRINTH

THE QUEEN

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song)

"I Need to Wake Up" - AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH

"Listen" - DREAMGIRLS

"Love You I Do" - DREAMGIRLS

"Our Town" - CARS

"Patience" - DREAMGIRLS

Best motion picture of the year

BABEL

THE DEPARTED

LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA

LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE

THE QUEEN

Best animated short film

THE DANISH POET

LIFTED

THE LITTLE MATCHGIRL

MAESTRO

NO TIME FOR NUTS

Best live action short film

BINTA AND THE GREAT IDEA (BINTA Y LA GRAN IDEA)

ÉRAMOS POCOS (ONE TOO MANY)

HELMER & SON

THE SAVIOUR

WEST BANK STORY

Achievement in sound editing

APOCALYPTO

BLOOD DIAMOND

FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS

LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN'S CHEST

Achievement in sound mixing

APOCALYPTO

BLOOD DIAMOND

DREAMGIRLS

FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN'S CHEST

Achievement in visual effects

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN'S CHEST

POSEIDON

SUPERMAN RETURNS

Adapted screenplay

BORAT CULTURAL LEARNINGS OF AMERICA FOR MAKE BENEFIT GLORIOUS NATION OF KAZAKHSTAN

CHILDREN OF MEN

THE DEPARTED

LITTLE CHILDREN

NOTES ON A SCANDAL

Original screenplay

BABEL

LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA

LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE

PAN'S LABYRINTH

THE QUEEN

Andrew Sarris Top Picks of 2006

Too Much of a Good Thing?

Plenty to Choose From in 2006

By: Andrew Sarris

Date: 1/15/2007

Movie Critic for the New York Observer

The movie year of 2006 is far from over, despite what the calendar says—at least as far as this reviewer is concerned. Anywhere from 522 to 540 new feature films were exhibited locally this year, depending on who is doing the counting and compiling. Apparently, more big movies were released in the month of December than I can ever remember. Was it a good year or a bad year for movies—or, as is usually the case, something in between? At my present rate of optical and auditory consumption, I should have a definitive answer sometime in July, but I have already resigned myself to the prospect of never seeing Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto in my lifetime.

Fortunately, modern technology makes it almost impossible for a good movie to get “lost” because of end-of-the-year mental exhaustion. So, with the proviso that I still have a great deal of catching up to do, here are my considered choices for the various 10-best categories, and one of my patented 10-worst lists under the provocative heading of “Movies Other People Liked and I Didn’t.” I am not at all deterred in dishing out my annual supply of negativity by the correspondent who informed me last year that he preferred all the films on my 10-worst list to all the films on my 10-best list. I have long ago become resigned to my fate as a reviled revisionist ever since my first column in The Village Voice in 1960 hailed Alfred Hitchcock as a major artist for Psycho, and inspired more hate mail than any Voice column had received up to that time. That clinched my job at the ever-contrarian Voice, and I have simply gone on from there. Anyway, let’s begin my year-end rituals on a positive note.

English-language films:

1. The Departed

2. Notes on a Scandal

3. A Prairie Home Companion

4. Flags of Our Fathers/Letters from Iwo Jima

5. Blood Diamond

6. Little Miss Sunshine

7. The Painted Veil

8. Find Me Guilty

9. Casino Royale

10. (tie) Flannel Pajamas

10. (tie) Come Early Morning

O.K., so I cheated by counting Clint Eastwood’s diptych on Iwo Jima as one picture, and by calling it a tie between Jeff Lipsky’s Flannel Pajamas and Joey Lauren Adams’ Come Early Morning, but after almost 50 years of making these lists, I’m entitled to operate by my own rules.

Best foreign-language films:

1. Army of Shadows

2. Volver

3. Water

4. L’Enfant

5. Sophie Scholl: The Final Days

6. Climates

7. My Brother’s Wife

8. Le Petit Lieutenant

9. The Death of Mr. Lazarescu

10. La Moustache

This year, only four nonfiction films stayed in my mind long enough to make a list.

Best Nonfiction films:

1. King Leopold’s Ghost

2. 49 Up

3. Wordplay

4. Cowboy Del Amor

You may reach Andrew Sarris via email at: asarris@observer.com.