The year in movies
December 24, 2006
BY RICHARD ROEPER Sun-Times Columnist
Al Gore was bigger box office than Lindsay Lohan.
Jackie Earle Haley got better reviews than Billy Bob Thornton.
Borat lapped Jack Black.
And Larry King liked everything.
2006: Year in Review
'06 TOP 10s
Top box office earners:
1. "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," $423,315,812, opened July 7
2. "Cars," $244,082,982, June 9
3. "X-Men: The Last Stand," $234,362,462, May 26
4. "The Da Vinci Code," $217,536,138, May 19
5. "Superman Returns," $200,081,192, June 28
6. "Ice Age: The Meltdown," $195,330,621, March 31
7. "Over the Hedge," $155,019,340, May 19
8. "Happy Feet," $149,244,791, Nov. 17
9. "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby," $148,213,377, Aug. 4
10. "Casino Royale," $137,501,384, Nov. 17
Source: Nielsen EDI
(Data from Jan. 1 to Dec. 17, 2006, U.S. and Canada only.)
These are just some of the headlines from The Year in Movies: 2006 (This Time Its Personal).
Time once again for the Roeper Report on the good, the bad and the ugly at the movies for the last 12 months.
Dont snore, Gore a bore no more
If Al Gore had been as funny, articulate, passionate and accessible on the campaign trail as he was in An Inconvenient Truth, hed be well into his second term as president right now. The notion of Gore starring in a documentary about the environment sounded about as exciting as Karaoke Night at Dick Cheneys house, but the provocative and controversial film scored nearly $24 million at the box office, more than various big-budget features starring Lindsay Lohan, Uma Thurman, Bruce Willis, Scarlett Johansson, Josh Hartnett and Samuel L. Jackson, among many others.
Saw that one coming down Broadway, Paul
Observing that George Clooney had a movie called The Good German around the same time his pal Matt Damon was starring in The Good Shepherd, David Letterman noted that their next project together would be The Good German Shepherd. Hey now!
King of all blurbs
The long-delayed All the Kings Men was finally released to critical disdain and nationwide apathy, grossing just $7 million despite a cast that included Sean Penn, Anthony Hopkins, Jude Law, Kate Winslet and James Gandolfini. Still, the ever quote-friendly Larry King claimed, Sean Penn gives the performance of a lifetime.
I guess thats true if youve never seen Penns work in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Dead Man Walking, Mystic River and 21 Grams not to mention his performance as Sam in the School of Terror episode of Barnaby Jones in 1979.
The Sumner of our discontent
Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone parted ways with Tom Cruise in very public fashion, saying Cruises recent conduct has not been acceptable to Paramount. Apparently Redstone is less concerned with the on- and off-camera conduct of the maniacs in the Jackass movies, e.g., Steve-O, who literally urinated on the red carpet at the world premiere of Jackass: Number Two.
Box off-hissssss
After months and months of Internet hype followed by weeks and weeks of old media desperately piggybacking on the Internet hype, resulting in the first catchphrase to get tired before a movies release, Snakes on a Plane finally hit theaters.
And we all found out it was just another B-movie featuring CGI critters stalking and munching on humans, and we all felt kinda duped by the whole Internet-hype thing.
Tardiness and Party-ness will not be tolerated
Fed up with Lindsay Lohans behavior on the set of Georgia Rules, Morgan Creek Productions CEO James G. Robinson sent an extraordinary letter of reprimand to Lohan a letter that mysteriously made its way to the media. It read, in part: You and your representatives have told us that your various late arrivals and absences from the set have been the result of illness; today we were told it was heat exhaustion. We are well aware that your ongoing all-night partying is the real reason for your so-called exhaustion. We refuse to accept excuses for your behavior.
Note to James G. Robinson: Sir, you rock.
After the Colon: A Dopey Subtitle
In 2006, we saw the usual plethora of unnecessary, uninspired and uninteresting sequels, with a few pleasant surprises thrown in. (I actually thought the third entries in the Mission: Impossible and X-Men franchises were the strongest yet.) The only thing unusual about this years roster was the inordinate number of really stupid subtitles after the colon, including:
The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
Underworld: Evolution
Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties
Jackass: Number Two (OK, thats kinda funny)
Lots of folks liked em; I didnt
These mediocre films each grossed more than $60 million: Click, Failure to Launch, Nacho Libre, You, Me, and Dupree, RV, Step Up, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, Flushed Away, The Shaggy Dog.
I liked em, and I think you would, too
Add the box office take of all these excellent films some of which admittedly were never intended for mass release and you wont reach $60 million: The Last Kiss, Dave Chappelles Block Party, Bobby, The Night Listener, Catch a Fire, For Your Consideration, Little Children, The Last King of Scotland.
A couple of stiff performances literally
The unspeakably gorgeous Paula Patton had extended scenes as a corpse in two movies perhaps a first in the history of cinema. In Deja Vu, Denzel Washington and a coroner linger over Pattons charred body and comment on her beauty. In Idlewild, Pattons character is dead and laid out in a funeral home, but that doesnt stop her heartbroken boyfriend from singing a ballad to her.
Whats their major naivete?
After Borat was released and became a huge hit, two fraternity brothers from South Carolina filed a lawsuit claiming they had been plied with booze and then duped into making ignorant, sexist and racist comments. Uh-huh.
The lawsuit is pending, but in December a judge rejected the lads effort to block the DVD release of the movie.
The headline on CNN.com, and Im not kidding: Judge to Borat frat boys: No suit for you
Two left feet?
The Media Matters for America Web site noted that a Philadelphia talk show host and a Fox News Channel personality were among those ripping the animated film Happy Feet for having a leftist pro-environment message. Radio host Glenn Beck said Happy Feet was propaganda, while Cavuto said he found the film offensive because the environmental message was shove[d] in a kids movie.
A Syracuse University professor injected some much-needed perspective into the discussion when he debated Beck on CNN and said, Of the 50,000 things affecting Americas youth today, I dont think the penguin movie is on that 50,000.
Meanwhile, as the Sun-Times reported, an Illinois company that manufacturers plastic six-pack rings also objected to Happy Feet, claiming it was misleading and irresponsible for the filmmakers to place a penguin character in danger due to a six-pack ring around his throat. The manufacturer explained that six-pack rings are in fact photodegradable, which means theyd disintegrate within days.
As of this writing, we have not heard from organizations pointing out that penguins dont really sing and dance, nor are they likely to talk.
A skin-tastic list
Mr. Skin, who is to movie nudity what Kenneth Jennings was to Jeopardy, released his annual list of the best nude moments of the year, led by Salma Hayeks skinny-dipping scene in the little-seen Ask the Dust. Other actors making the cut included Gretchen Mol (The Notorious Bettie Page), Jennifer Aniston (The Break-Up) and Kyra Sedgwick (Loverboy), as well as a number of actresses youve never heard of, e.g., Barbara Nedeljakova (Hostel) and Lauren Lee Smith (Lie With Me).
Somehow, the nude wrestling match from Borat and Terry Bradshaws full backal nudity in Failure to Launch didnt make the cut. Apparently Mr. Skin has something against hairiness, lumpiness and sagginess.
From the Museum of Hard to Believe
Youre supposed to suspend your disbelief at the movies and just go with it. In 2006, we were asked to buy into the notion of Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet as lonely women pining for love (The Holiday), Jennifer Aniston as a housemaid (Friends With Money), Matthew McConaughey as a thirtysomething bachelor who still lives with his mom and dad (Failure to Launch), Will Smith as a homeless man (The Pursuit of Happyness), Beyonce Knowles as a singer of limited range (Dreamgirls), Keri Felicity Russell as a gun-toting secret agent (Mission: Impossible III), and perhaps most unbelievable of all Matt Damon in The Good Shepherd as a government agent whos so dedicated to his work he almost forgets hes married to Angelina Jolie.
A year to remember
It was a good year for:
Maggie Gyllenhaal (World Trade Center, Sherrybaby, Stranger Than Fiction, Monster House)
Cate Blanchett (Notes on a Scandal, The Good German, Babel)
Will Ferrell (Stranger Than Fiction, Talladega Nights)
A year to forget
It was a bad year for:
Robin Williams (RV, Man of the Year, Night at the Museum)
Jack Black (Nacho Libre, Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny, The Holiday)
Robert Downey Jr. (A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, Fur, The Shaggy Dog)
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