Darrel's Dozen -- top films of 2006

It hasn't been a bad year. If it's easy to put together a top films list, then there hasn't been much to choose from. This year my list overflows. Although all of these films are certainly worth seeing, what the year lacked is a few films that just plain knock your socks off. That means that the grade for the year is a respectable B-.

Here are my "dozen" films for 2006:

1. Tsotsi - the powerful story of a South African gangster who life is changed when he steals a car with a baby in it. Winner of last year's Best Foreign Language Oscar.
2. Lion in the House - four hour doc on a children's cancer ward. Heartbreaking. Life affirming. Played at Sundance, then went to PBS. I hope they show it again and again.
3. Letters From Iwo Jima - Eastwood sets a new standard for war movies.
4. Little Miss Sunshine - a VW bus with no clutch filled with a family of broken people careening out of control
5. Volver - one of the most entertaining and interesting approaches to death (and, by extension, life) that has made it to film in recent years
6. A double feature: The War Tapes & My Country, My Country - there may be other docs on life in Iraq that belong in this double feature. The life of GIs in one, the life of an Iraqi doctor in the other.
7. Death of Mr. Lazarescu - a man's descent into the hell of medical care (or medical nobody cares)
8. Another double feature: Sweet Land & The Secret Life of Words - A pair of love stories that I feel blessed to have seen, because they have such little distribution -- and because they are so good.
9. Sophie Scholl: The Final Days - bravery and commitment in the face of death
10. Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada - revenge, grace, rebirth
11. Pan's Labyrinth - finding immortality by remember who you are
12. Babel - the world-wide connection of events and of people

Even though I have more than twelve films in my dozen, I still have half a dozen films that I'd like to have included (in no particular order): Joyeux Noel, The Proposition, Thank You for Smoking, The Departed, An Inconvenient Truth, and Children of Men.

Favorite discoveries or revisits from past years:

A Time for Burning
Hiroshima Mon Amour
Walkabout
Boys of Baraka
What's Eating Gilbert Grape?

Favorite performances of the year:

Actress: Judy Dench in Notes on a Scandal
Actor: Leonardo DiCaprio in The Departed
Ensemble: Little Miss Sunshine