I don't go to the movies a whole lot and I haven't had my Blockbuster On-Line subscription since April, but from the movies I've seen this year there have been some very good movies. My top 10 would probably be

1. Once
2. American Gangster
3. The Bourne Ultimatum
4. Superbad
5. Sicko
6. Knocked Up
7. Live Free or Die Hard
8. Hot Fuzz
9. The Lookout
10. Paris, Je T'Aime

American Gangster is the only movie I would assume would be up for Best Picture though. Then again, I haven't seen a lot of the heavy hitters - No Country for Old Men, Into the Wild, Juno, Atonement, In the Valley of Elah, Gone Baby Gone, Michael Clayton, Eastern Promises, etc.

Oops, I forgot The Savages, which would slot in at #8 most likely. I have no problem bumping Paris, Je T'Aime except for the fact that I loved Alexander Payne's section more than any movie I've seen all year.

I just saw Little Children for the first time last night on TV. Are we supposed to hate the Kate Winslet character as much as I did?

I think this year is worlds better than last year. I didn't really like "The Last King of Scotland" at all, "Little Children" was alright, and "The Queen", "Letters from Iowa Jima" and "United 93" are all very good. Still, I think my top 6 or 7 movies this year are all better than any of those (though Pan's Labyrinth and Children of Men would fit right in).

1. No Country for Old Men
2. Eastern Promises
3. Ratatouille
4. The Darjeeling Limited
5. Into the Wild
6. Death Proof
7. Gone Baby, Gone
8. Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
9. Zodiac
10. Sunshine (the ending was awful and then transcendent)

I still haven't seen Margot at the Wedding, There Will be Blood, I'm Not There, Michael Clayton and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.

3 - I hated the Brad character far more. I have trouble hating Kate Winslet in anything.

5. I did not like the Brad character, but I got the feeling that I was supposed to not like him, but I was supposed to sympathize with Kate Winslet's character, but I just couldn't. I just really hate the type of character she played, looking down her nose at the other women and thinking that she is better than the life she chose.

6 - While she was no fan of those other mothers, I think Winslet's self-esteem was anything but high.

4 - There's a movie on your list that I thought was tremendously overrated, one of the worst films of the year. Try to guess.

Hint: I haven't seen your No. 4, 6 or 10.

7. Of course it wasn't, she felt stupid for falling into the same trap as those other women, only she was the only one smart enough to be miserable.

It's funny you should mention the good films of 2006. I was trying to remember what film won best picture.
Although I didn't see many of the films you mention from 2006, I remembered I didn't make an effort to see them (with the exception of Pan's Labyrinth which was very good).
I am really excited about the films which have been released this year or will be released.

And the Oscar goes to ...

The Departed!

Wow thanks!
I guess I was pretty underwhelmed.
Although I was in Boston earlier this year and saw the building they used as the Police headquarters.
And that was the highlight of the trip.

I tried to go through IMDB's list of films released in 2006 in the hopes of finding a film that stayed with me (beyond the ones already mentioned).
Gave up since there are some many porn titles bogging down the list.
This year I can think of four films which I enjoyed immensely and stayed with me days later:
Southland Tales
No Country for Old Men
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
Darjeeling Limited

I think that's a pretty good year.

7 - I know the answer, but I ain't sayin'... I just know there were two things that were good about it.

I am fairly certain that you didn't like "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead". I thought it was the sort of movie where the characters make a choice at the beginning and then after that everything else was preordained, constrained and manifested. The plot unfolds like clockwork, with nary an escape or deus ex machina in sight. It was a mean, nasty, nihilistic movie (explicitly so, as the diamond fence's speech points out), but it was an unqualified success in its aims. People are pretty awful sometimes.

By the way, I just got back from "I'm Not There" and I am really, really impressed. I am a huge Dylan guy, so maybe it is a given that I would love it, but Haynes managed to hit all the right historical notes while playing with the form in a distinct (and Dylanesque) way. It used references and quotes, what we already knew, what we remembered and what we assumed and reformed all of it into a compelling interpretation of what made the giant man tick. It can't even be compared to the movie of the week biopics like "Walk the Line", which only strive for mimicry and thus are usually less interesting than just listening to the music for yourself. It is nigh onto impossible to fully grasp this movie in one sitting (it had so many Dylan references that it was like a game trying to spot them all, album covers, press quotes, real interviews reenacted, legends and visual queues), but I can't wait to buy it on DVD and watch it over and over again.

14 - You are too smart.

People are pretty awful sometimes. So let's make a movie that states the obvious about it - but we'll jazz it up by putting the scenes out of sequence. Completely ordinary story and characters. If those were its aims, then yep, it was a success.

16 - The scenes weren't really out of sequence, it was like a third person close novel, they would progress each person's story (and fill in the back story) and all of the stories were intertwined.

I liked that the two characters weren't entirely bad people, they had their redeeming characteristics, but they made one awful choice. They pushed themselves into that situation by slow acts of selfishness and instability (probably in some part due to their emotionally distant dad who came up from the streets). After they reached the decision point the plot just unfolded on them. It is like original sin and punishment.

Plus, what a great cast. You buy it, you don't feel good afterwards, but movies don't have to make me happy.

I forgot the Host! That was definitely in my top 10, maybe my top 5.

I have trouble hating Kate Winslet in anything.

I don't. But I have trouble hating Kate Winslet in nothing; that made the movie problematic for me. I was able to overcome it with Titanic, but not Little Children.