These shoulda, or at least coulda, been contenders: a list of movies that seem a bit underappreciated …
1. “United 93”: This painful, riveting account of the 9/11 hijackings seemed to quietly grow on movie fans as the year went by. With studied precision and remarkable restraint, nominated director Paul Greengrass tells just a few hours of the Sept. 11 story, on the airplanes and at ground control.
2. “Stranger Than Fiction”: It deserved a much bigger audience, this sweet exploration of reality through the warping lens of fictional narrative. Will Ferrell plays a Chicago “everyman” who finds out he’s merely a character in Emma Thompson’s latest novel, and about to be killed off. He fights for his “life” and a budding romance with Maggie Gyllenhaal.
3. “Notes on a Scandal”: Arguably the year’s other most perfectly scripted film, along with “The Queen.” A devastating tale of lust, envy, hatred, pride and obsession, “Notes on a Scandal” boasts the most electrifying – and electrocuting – pairing of 2006, with Judi Dench driving Cate Blanchett to the brink. Or was it vice versa?
4. “The Pursuit of Happyness”: In a different Oscar season, Will Smith would be a front-runner for his career-expanding portrayal of Chris Gardner, a lowly salesman who pulled himself up by the bus strap. Smith and his real-life son, Jaden, made for another electrifying screen duo, illustrating writer Steven Conrad’s gritty tale of a down-on-its-luck American family.
5. “Blood Diamond”: Some of us wanted to boot “Little Miss Sunshine” and reward Hollywood’s big-movie machinery for this gem of a socio-political thriller. Commanding performances by Leonardo DiCaprio, Djimon Hounsou and Jennifer Connelly made for the kind of entertaining, cause-based movie that Hollywood sometimes gets just right.
Five Golden Quotes
“I cried when I did my costume fitting. I saw the shoes lined up and the tweed skirts and the sweaters. I said, ‘I can’t do this.’ But I grew to love it. You have to allow yourself to grow older in front of the camera – you have to not fight it. Her complete lack of vanity was a comfortable place to be as a woman … It’s a mark of a huge ego.”
Helen Mirren in the New Yorker
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“I’ve never really been an awards guy … I tell my wife all the time that I’m more of a mall guy. When I walk into the King of Prussia mall on Saturday afternoon, if they don’t shut it down, then I feel like I’m slipping. That’s how I measure success – if they still have to shut down the mall, I’m doing all right.”
Will Smith in New York City to promote “The Pursuit of Happyness”
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“I’m not old enough to date. (I’m taking) my parents and my Curious George.
10-year-old Abigail Breslin
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“Idi Amin was the kind of man who came into a room and swallowed it. That was something I needed to work on, to understand how to come into and own the space the way he did.”
Forest Whitaker on NPR
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“I remembered we had that little camera, and so I made my first little movie. It was about a monster that crawls out of the toilet in a high school, takes a look around and then decides to go back in the toilet. Already certain themes are there: that it’s a lot better underground than it is up here.”
“Pan’s Labyrinth” writer-director Guillermo Del Toro in The New York Times
