2006's Oscar Nominees

decade-old spoilers i guess

All better than any of the nominees ...

Borat
The Case of the Grinning Cat
Children of Men
Dave Chappelle's Block Party
The Death of Mr. Lazarescu
L'Enfant
Inland Empire
Jackass: Number Two
Miami Vice
A Prairie Home Companion

probably Marie Antoinette on that list too

Well, technically Iwo Jima is probably /as/ good as some of those titles.

pan's labyrinth
volver
casino royale
brick

one of the worst of Oscar years

WhatI had in this list:

Clean (Olivier Assayas)
Children of Men (Cuaron)
Miami Vice (Michael Mann)
Pan’s Labyrinth (Guillermo del Toro)
Battle in Heaven (Carlos Reygadas)
Marie Antoinette (Sofia Coppola)
The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (Cristi Puig)
L’Enfant (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne)
Inside Man (Spike Lee)
Volver (Pedro Almodovar)

Children of Men, Pan's Labyrinth and Marie Antoinette not being nominated is idiotic.

PL was highly unlikely given it's in Spanish

it's too bad the Academy hadn't expanded the best pic field yet so they could have included...uh...A Good Year, Flags of Our Fathers, Miss Potter, The Prestige, and Dreamgirls.

PL was a substantial crossover hit. I saw it in a fairly packed multiplex cinema, already a few weeks into its run.

i think it's no more than alright, but i can't think of many foreign language movies that've been nommed for Best Picture? i could well be wrong

lol was Passion of the Christ?

Apocalypto was 2006 i think

One of that year's actual BP nominees was foreign language!

duh forgot which WWII Eastwood was which, fair point

Of course, that movie had Eastwood behind it. But the decade's only other foreign nominee, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon had a crossover appeal similar to PL, I think.

fair enough on those grounds PL could easily have had a nod

A significant chunk of Babel is foreign language too, fwiw.

Only one non-English language film has been nominated since they expanded the field: Amour.

i can't decide if The Queen is a reasonable film that i'm sour on because of politics but i don't care tbh. Mirren is good in it iirc

CTHD was a huge hit, it was the culmination of all the goodwill towards HK/Chinese action cinema over the previous decade, though of course it was a bit watered down and the story was turned more into a tragic gauzy tale which made it super AA palatable. having said that i think it's still extremely good though.

The Queen is perfectly watchable as far as these things go. At the very least, it's inclusion here is less laughable than Little Miss Sunshine.

I rate Children of Men but didn't expect so much love here.

The Departed from the choices.

Inland Empire and Half Nelson are other favs - the latter a total comfort watch, the former the opposite.

for semi-faux Wuxia i think Crouching Tiger is fine and possibly - possibly - a better movie than the glossy big budget Hong Kong movies like House of Flying Daggers that slipstreamed it.

Sympathy for Lady Vengeance was also darn good though the SK release was '05.

Babel is classic here-today-gone-forever BP nominee. But we still gotta deal with Iñnaritu.

but we deal with his movies for only a few months each

he occupies the time of some of our best actors when they could be doing other things! never forget the Iñnaritu opportunity cost.

At the time, I recall most of the bets were on Babel winning this one. Had that only happened and we might've been spared Birdman and The Revenant's Oscar runs.

This set of nominees has to be the worst-aged of the decade.

2003 and 2004 both give it a run.

Had Dreamgirls taken the Iwo Jima slot, as expected, then we'd really be talking.

and what would we say?

"And I am telling you ..."

I've only seen one of these movies and it was bad

The movies competing at Cannes that year, fwiw...

Babel by Alejandro González Iñárritu
The Caiman by Nanni Moretti
Charlie Says by Nicole Garcia
Chronicle of an Escape by Israel Adrián Caetano
Climates by Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Colossal Youth by Pedro Costa
Days of Glory by Rachid Bouchareb
The Family Friend by Paolo Sorrentino
Fast Food Nation by Richard Linklater
Flanders by Bruno Dumont
Lights in the Dusk by Aki Kaurismäki
Marie Antoinette by Sofia Coppola
Pan's Labyrinth by Guillermo del Toro
Red Road by Andrea Arnold
The Right of the Weakest by Lucas Belvaux
Southland Tales by Richard Kelly
Summer Palace by Lou Ye
Volver by Pedro Almodóvar
When I Was a Singer by Xavier Giannoli
The Wind That Shakes the Barley by Ken Loach

that's a long list of movies a lot better than babel. also, babel.

Haven't seen Iwo Jima but would take the last shot of the departed over any of the rest

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I almost always find something to vote for in these things, but I only saw #2 and #4, and while #2 was better, not enough enthusiasm to actually vote for it.

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