1.12.2009

look under the (re)cap to see if you've won



If there is any justice in this cruel and unforgiving universe, two-thousand and eight will fade from the collective consciousness and the interval between 2007 and 2009 will heretofore be recorded as "Not 2006," 365 days of nothing happening: a time when nobody had their heart broken, lost a job, committed incest, got their a bike stolen, or all of the above.

However, Not 2006's film's still linger - some sweet, some not so sweet. Here's what we liked best of Not 2006 (aka 2008):


* Amber's top flick was Inside, which she said was a "top-notch scary splatter flick that also happens to contain a (maybe too) well-hidden socio-political backbone."



* I loved Werner Herzog's latest doc, Encounters at the End of the World, and thought it "humbly, humanly, but unblinkingly considers" the all-too-present and all-too-real notion of the end of human civilization, as well as embracing as much of "the full range of emotions it stirs up as one person can."




* Patrick says numero uno was Gus Van Sant's Milk, and for him, "[Sean] Penn is great....never once did I think 'Here's Sean Penn playing a gay man' - and the rest of the cast is terrific as well. And heavy-handed or no, I got teary during the fight against Prop 6 and the candlelight vigil even though I knew about them going in to the film."



* Pike Bishop says that Still Life was aces, and "what makes it [his] favorite film of the year is how it mixes humor, humanism, and playfully anachronistic layers of images into an enjoyably rich and complex document of the day-to-day lives of the people who are left in transition while China constructs the largest hydro-electric power plant in the world."

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