Since the new A.V. Club website launched with message boards and blogs, we've finally gotten the opportunity to get to know our readers, whose feedback was previously limited to the occasional crank email. And we've come to the following conclusion: They're a lot like us, only unpaid. (Nyah-nyah!) For this reason, the results of the Inaugural A.V. Club Film Poll shouldn't come as a surprise, since virtually all of the favorites had a prominent place on our own Top 10 lists. But allow us to be surprised anyway: by the high quality of the nominated films, by the fact that many of them weren't widely distributed, so it took some work to see them, and by the thoughtfulness of the individual commentaries that follow. Perhaps I was bracing for the worst after seeing an Entertainment Weekly readers' poll that ranked Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire as the best film (in a walk) released prior to December 6; nothing against Mr. Potter, but he didn't receive so much as a single mention on any of the ballots submitted for this poll. Granted, we're working from a much smaller sample size, and we required a more active form of participation than casually marking up a web poll. But the following 11 films, chosen by our readers as the best of the year, are nothing any self-respecting cineaste should live without:
1. A History Of Violence (dir. David Cronenberg)
2. Grizzly Man (dir. Werner Herzog)
3. Brokeback Mountain (dir. Ang Lee)
4. (tie) King Kong (dir. Peter Jackson)
4. (tie) Batman Begins (dir. Christopher Nolan)
6. Oldboy (dir. Park Chan-wook)
7. The Squid And The Whale (dir. Noah Baumbach)
8. (tie) Good Night, And Good Luck (dir. George Clooney)
8. (tie) 2046 (dir. Wong Kar-wai)
10. Munich (dir. Steven Spielberg)
11. The New World (dir. Terrence Malick)
Before yielding the floor to voter comments, a few notes on the results. As you might guess from our two ties, the numbers were pretty tight throughout the poll, with only a handful of points distancing one slot from next. However, A History Of Violence was far and away the winner, outpacing the also-rans just as decisively as it did in this year's Village Voice Critics Poll. Why? Watching it for a third time last week, I would speculate that it was the one film in 2006 that functioned perfectly as art and entertainment, a gripping, concise (not to mention action-packed) piece of storytelling that also hauls a lot of thematic baggage. The weighted balloting system–a Top Five with five points for first, down to one point for fifth–meant that passion played a major role in determining where these films would ultimately place on the list. For example, Batman Begins received the highest quantity of votes outside A History Of Violence, yet it tended to rank low on people's lists, which caused it to slip into a tie for fourth. Conversely, only a handful of people voted for Terrence Malick's The New World, yet it topped all but one of the ballots that included it. I've cheated a bit by including it, since it came in at #11, but considering the film is only just now opening in select cities, it's safe to say that it would have ranked much higher had it come out earlier in the year, when more people could have seen it.
And now, on to the comments. I wasn't sure how the comments option would work out, but we received so much good material that a lot of it had to be left on the cutting-room floor. Our apologies to those who worked hard sculpting sentences that aren't included below. If you're unhappy with the way your contributions have been edited or attributed, please email us at [email protected].
On The Winners
A History Of Violence: I live in the middle of Maine, and release schedules are sparse here; in order to see Cronenberg's lastest film, I had to drive 40 minutes to Portland through darkness and thick fog. Which, really, is a trite but applicable way to describe the movie itself; nearly all the fog and darkness are metaphorical, but they still have the same effect of leaving you haunted and more than a little lost (in a good way) by the end credits. It's difficult to express how exciting it is to watch a movie as close to mainstream as this one is that doesn't telegraph its talking points, and leaves the ultimate responsibility of moral interpretation to the viewer. I'm sure there were plenty of people who walked out thinking it was a happy ending… –Zach "Marlowe" Handlen, Lewiston, ME
The opening passages of David Cronenberg's chilling A History Of Violence have a fascination much like Far From Heaven did, of an idealized small-town life that feels too good to be true. And sure enough, it is, as family diners and varsity-jacketed school bullies give way to more sinister threats when Tom Stall (played cannily by Viggo Mortensen) quickly dispatches some out-of-town stickup men. From there, Tom descends into the abyss of his past, as some gangsters show up claiming to know his true, violent identity. In the end, is he Tom Stall, or "Crazy" Joey Cusack from Philly? Or is he both? The film's most tantalizing mystery is that, even when the film is over, it's impossible to separate the two. –Paul B. Clark, Mogadore, OH
A History Of Violence: While Cronenberg's films have always been among my favorites of any year he has directed, this was certainly the easiest to recommend to my friends. Besides being a tight, economical thriller, it also provided some of the most insightful moments into violence in any film I've seen. The moment when the sheriff tells Tom's family "we protect our own around here" chillingly echoed both the Mafia and family violence in the film, an echo one immediately must extrapolate outward. Peace and democracy are based on sovereignty, and sovereignty is based on exclusion, and exclusion is based on violence. I've never seen this put forth so elegantly and subtly. –Martin Watson
A History Of Violence: David Cronenberg's deceptively simple meditation on violence and the American dream left me more shaken up than any other movie I saw this year. It's formally exacting, disturbing, thematically rich, and blessed with some wonderfully stylized acting. (That Viggo didn't walk off with Best Actor at Cannes is a crime.) Films like this are why I'm obsessed with film, basically. –Steve Carlson, Connecticut
A History Of Violence: I think of this movie as the anti-King Kong. Both films tell the story of a character who must confront a world where they don't belong, with disastrous results. Whereas Kong is ruined by Peter Jackson's obvious fanboy love of source material (not to mention indulgent budget, action sequences, and running length), David Cronenberg shapes Violence in half the running time with at least twice the resonance. –Keith DuCharme, Ames, IA
King Kong: There's this moment, about halfway (more?) through the movie, where Ann Darrow is lying asleep in Kong's arms, and Jack Driscoll shows up to rescue her. When he wakes her up, in the first few seconds before she's fully conscious, she has this exquisite look of joy and sadness, as though without being conscious of it, she realizes she's in a beautiful dream that is ultimately doomed by the very nature of its beauty. Jackson's Kong is too long, and frustratingly self-indulgent in places, but it's also tremendously exciting and a blast to watch, and when it manages to inspire in its audience the feeling that must've inspired that expression on Ann's face, all the pointless subplots in the world are forgiven. –Zack Handlen
An excellent companion piece to The New World, Grizzly Man represents the dark side of nature, specifically the way that men can lose themselves so completely to the wilderness that they forget its dangers. Director Werner Herzog clearly considers his subject, self-styled bear "specialist" Timothy Treadwell, to be nuts, but he allows the guy to damn himself through his own video footage. Grizzly Man is ultimately a movie about obsession and madness, and it tells Treadwell's story with a depth and clarity that rivals any of the year's great fiction films. –Ethan Alter, Brooklyn, NY
Grizzly Man: Werner Herzog has made a career out of finding characters on the fringe of society, and Timothy Treadwell is one of his great discoveries: a self-styled adventurer who fancied himself the protector of grizzly bears, and who journeyed to Alaska every summer for over a decade to live among them until he was mauled to death by one. Combining copious amounts of found footage shot by Treadwell himself (in which Treadwell is nothing if not a shameless self-promoter) with interviews of Treadwell's friends, Herzog paints a vivid portrait of his subject. But what makes the film great is Herzog's presence, offering his own perspective on the events and even disagreeing with Treadwell's beliefs. It's Herzog himself that keeps the film from becoming simply a tribute to a unique kindred spirit, and instead turns it into a parable about the need for proper respect for the natural order. –Paul B. Clark
Grizzly Man: This would've been fascinating enough if Herzog simply strung together Timothy Treadwell's videos and provided the occasional contextual remark. Instead, Herzog interrogates Treadwell's naïf philosophy, debating it, judging it, through voiceover and (staged?) interviews with the people who knew Treadwell. While he ultimately finds Treadwell's doe-eyed ursidaephilia lacking, he's able to find worth in his filmmaking, despite how the two are intimately connected. –Kent M. Beeson a.k.a. kza
Grizzly Man deserves the #1 spot because it impressively succeeds in portraying the many dimensions of one character while simultaneously maintaining (for the most part) an objective voice. So much of the available footage could have been strewn together in the worst possible way, but the care that Herzog put into weaving it together, and filling us in on his process, makes it tough to walk away and not pick up a sense of Treadwell's enthusiasm, inner struggles, and absolute dedication to his own cause, whether right or wrong. –Roya Naini
Oldboy: It only wants you to think that it's a kitschy revenge melodrama. True, for a while it offers up some wonderful B-movie pleasures, as people beat up other people, people beat up walls, and a guy eats an octopus. But lurking under the surface is a haunting meditation on the methods people use to deal with psychic damage, and the cost of obsession. If Atom Egoyan directed an "Asian extreme" film, it might look like this. –Steve Carlson, Connecticut
To paraphrase the late, great Wesley Willis, Oldboy is a real joybus hellride. Thrilling and nauseating, often at the same time, the film turns the dial up to 11 and keeps it there. Similarly shocking films' power often lessens with time, but Oldboy< leaves a mark. With a claw hammer. –Jack Monahan, Champaign, IL
Oldboy: There's not much I can write about this one. Basically, I left my bruised, bleeding heart in the theatre, along with about four tear-sodden napkins. –Chris, Waterloo, ON
Brokeback Mountain: Yet another meditation from Ang Lee on his favorite motif–great, lifelong, and ultimately impossible love. While it would be easy to dismiss Brokeback Mountain as liberal propaganda or "that gay cowboy movie," it's not just about the suffering of the two men at its center. It's about how societal expectations keep everyone in the film from finding true happiness, from Anne Hathaway's dad keeping her out of the business, to the betrayed horror that haunts Michelle Williams years after her marriage dissolves, to Linda Cardellini, a waitress whose love for Heath Ledger can't rescue him, and she doesn't understand why. –Stephanie Kuenn, Chicago, IL
Brokeback Mountain: The sadness in this film is an anchor. I think we all have those moments we wish would never end, and those we desire to relive. Ang Lee captures these feelings brilliantly. –Chet Mellema, Cedar Falls, IA
Brokeback Mountain: You know how straight guys love watching chicks make out with each other? This film was kind of like that for me. I wish I knew how to quit you, Jake Gyllenhaal! –Amanda, Brooklyn, NY
Batman Begins: Batman gets rebooted and everyone's stunned: there's nothing to complain about. More than that, it's a great movie that makes Batman feel relevant and timely while retaining the character's essence. Bale broods to perfection, and Nolan miraculously directs a big-budget entertainment while retaining his directorial hallmarks. Does the summer blockbuster get any better than this? –Jack Monahan
The Squid And The Whale: Think of it as The Royal Tenenbaums, painfully rooted in reality. Divorce resorts a family to nasty parental politics, chronic masturbation, and pretending to have written Pink Floyd songs. Jeff Daniels gives the best performance of the year, making you forget that, 10 years ago, you were trying to figure out if he was Dumb or Dumber. –Sonny Harding, Kennesaw, GA
Good Night, And Good Luck: A great story about one reporter's refusal to lay down and accept the nonsense our government was feeding us. It should be required viewing for all the "if you disagree with us, you hate America" neo-cons out there. It's almost scary how history is repeating itself. –Bender
Good Night, And Good Luck: This film made me sad for how our language has degraded. I would have assumed their speech was romanticized and stylized, but the embedded news clips proved it. We speak like idiots these days. I can only imagine what the generation raised on text messaging will grow up and sound like. L8R. –Aaron Gabow
On The Also-Rans
Land Of The Dead: I know I am not the only person who saw footage of Hurricane Katrina's devastation and immediately latched on to Romero's visions of apocalypse. Is there a better metaphor for 2005 than Big Daddy rising from the water, army in tow, to wreak vengeance upon the privileged and uncaring? The zombies had a better organization then us rational humans, and that's what we saw at the end of the year–a gut cry of hatred and fury, no matter what the word was from on high. The fact that Romero saw this a year ago and filmed his anger and revulsion straight offers a bit of hope as we start to question our government after acting as its zombies for far too long. The pacing is forced and the Canada fixation is obvious and immature, but Romero's rage and his actors' performances–particularly John Leguizamo as a human who realizes he is only one bite away from being a zombie–make this a movie that, like Night of the Living Dead, transcends its time to become a snapshot of its time. –Daniel Atkinson
The Devil's Rejects: It looks like a grindhouse flick, it feels like a grindhouse flick, and it probably smells like a grindhouse flick. But behind the façade of this seemingly inconsequential horror movie is the best articulation of my personal post-9/11 malaise: The crazies on both sides are in control, and the rest of us are roadkill. And yet, Rob Zombie does something amazing–he gives us the self-righteous torture the Rejects "deserve" and asks us point-blank, "Does this make you feel better?" To his credit, it doesn't. –Kent M. Beeson
Nobody Knows: How did 12-year-old Yuya Yagira win the prize at Cannes? By staying out of the way of the story. As my friend once remarked about Fargo, as distinct from other Coen brothers pictures, "No matter what happens, the characters keep acting like real people." Nobody Knows flies by that same banner, but without murder, kidnapping, and other crimes at which to jape, so we're left with the far more common, matter-of-factly assessed crimes of abandonment and selfishness–all the more poisonous because the mother shrugs off her children as the cost of doing her business. Then the kids come out of the suitcases, and have to decide how to live non-contaminated lives. –Andrew Hamlin, Seattle, WA
Broken Flowers: What distinguishes Jim Jarmusch's latest offbeat comedy is the layer of deep sadness that runs underneath the humor. Bill Murray is initially reluctant to embark on his journey to track down the mother of his supposed son, but by the end of the movie, he's desperate to find the answer, only to watch that possibility disappear perhaps forever. Like Terrence Malick, Jarmusch has an eye for detail, but where Malick is deeply in tune with man's relationship to nature, Jarmusch understands man's relationship to himself. He picks up on small character quirks that other directors often overlook, which makes him a perfect match for Murray, whose main strength as an actor is his ability to underplay. Broken Flowers had some of the biggest laughs of any movie released last year, and contained the most haunting final shot. –Ethan Alter
Tropical Malady: In which two young men, a soldier and a townie, fall in love, after which the townie disappears into the forest and turns into a shape-shifting shaman who terrorizes small communities in the form of a tiger. Got that? The story itself matters little to the effect of Apichatpong Weerasethakul's latest, a strange but somehow romantic film filled with some of the most unique visuals I've seen all year. The sweetness of the romance in the film's first half gives way to something much more primal, as the soldier hunts down the tiger/lover in the woods, and is faced with a decision: kill the tiger and release his soul, or be consumed and become a part of him forever. In a way, isn't that what true love is about? –Paul B. Clark
The portrait Herzog painted of Timothy Treadwell vs. nature in Grizzly Man was such a compelling piece of filmmaking that I couldn't deny it my #1 spot. However, it is Tropical Malady that continues to linger in my heart and soul in the year and a half since I first saw it. It is all too rare that a film explores what you give up when you fall in love with as much care and thought as it explores what you gain. Tropical Malady turns this equation into a lush, beautiful film unlike anything I've seen before. I also can't think of another movie in recent memory that rewards a second viewing with so many gifts. After my first viewing I was intrigued, but after my second, I was speechless. Anyone who didn't get it the first time is encouraged to give it another shot. –Greg Dunlap
The New World: I've only seen the shortened wide-release version, so I can't say what has been edited out of the previous cut. All I know is that the film I saw was just about perfect. As I've grown to expect from Terrence Malick, the film is so visually gorgeous, it's like having your eyes kissed by a woman with pillowy-soft lips, but that alone can't justify its presence here. What makes The New World a masterpiece is how it enables the audience to gaze through the eyes of its protagonists–first John Smith (Colin Farrell), then the unnamed Pocahontas (Q'Orianka Kilcher)–so that we see both of the film's New Worlds as if for the first time. Kilcher's performance feels so natural and affectless that I almost hope she never does another film, lest the illusion of the performance be ruined, and the spell be broken. –Paul B. Clark
Lord Of War: How did this movie slip between the cracks? Nicolas Cage's charming antihero guides laughing audiences toward a painful forehead smack that should have been far more audible, at least in the more liberal parts of the media. Also, like all of my favorites, it doesn't abandon emotional entanglements on its way to making a real point: it considers the effects of an arms dealer's actions on both the personal and global levels. –Tim Juchter
Funny Ha Ha: Technically a 2003 film, but it played in Seattle this year, so I'm counting it. An astonishing debut feature from Andrew Bujalski, it's the only film I've seen that really captures twentysomething ennui, complete with inarticulate longing and noncommittal commitments. If you've ever passive-aggressively stomped out a would-be suitor with trumped-up melancholy (or have been on the receiving end of such behavior), then it's a goddamn documentary. If, on the other hand, the prevalence of "like" and "um" in the dialogue seems like a stylistic contrivance (or you actually, y'know, got shit done in your 20s), then go somewhere else. –Kent M. Beeson
Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance: While Oldboy seemed to get all of the attention for Korean cinema, Park Chan-Wook's much more subtle first installment in his revenge trilogy may not be as cool as Guy-Beating-People-Up-With-A-Hammer-For-A-Five-Minute-Take, but the subdued buildup to the two main characters' confrontation in the river at the end packs a hell of a bigger punch than the intellectually/morally/structurally/cinematically stupid ending in Oldboy. This is a very underrated installment in what looks like a Golden Age in Korean cinema. –Brian Fullerton
Me & You & Everyone We Know: Quirky without ever being precious, Miranda July's confection is sweet and knowing, offbeat in a way that feels completely new and yet unique, and so affectionate towards its characters that it's impossible not to share her enthusiasm. Despite the just-removed-from-reality feel to the film, her frank treatment of children's sexuality feels far more on point than any other treatment of the uncomfortable subject that I've seen before. –Charles Olsky, Brooklyn, NY
Me & You & Everyone We Know: Miranda July melds performance art and classic narrative; it's not seamless, but it's not really supposed to be. Somewhere, Todd Solondz is sulking over not coming up with the idea of pooping back and forth. –Sonny Harding
Miscellaneous Disses And Kisses
Film that's so completely underrated that I wish I could include it: A Hole In My Heart. I don't understand why this was so hated–maybe because it's closer to Michael Haneke (Caché) than Lukas Moodysson (Show Me Love, Together). But then, I get the feeling that if Haneke's name were on it, people would have been more receptive. Its repellence is more or less the point; that's it's also aesthetically interesting and manages to sneak little notes of grace and beauty through the back door anyway is what's really impressive. Imperfect but angry, sad, devastating, artistically valid, and unworthy of the pillorying it received. –Steve Carlson
Overrated: Hustle & Flow is one good performance away from direct-to-video. Yes, Terrence Howard delivers an outstanding performance. And DJ Qualls is always a welcome presence. But this guy is the nicest pimp ever, not to mention way ineffective. He actually feels bad about making Taryn Manning blow a guy for a microphone. Come on, he's a pimp! That's what he's supposed to do! Pimps do not have hearts of gold! And oh how convenient, the whore he's suddenly "always" been in love with can magically sing? Someday, this will be exhibit A in a women's studies/communication-arts survey course on the Madonna/whore complex in popular culture. Whoomp that trick, indeed. –Stephanie Kuenn
The Emperor's New Clothes Award goes to Crash. Sure, there are some individual scenes here that are excellent (Sandra Bullock's best in memory), but what aspires to edgy provocation ends up as abrasive and condescending. Piling racial epithets to the heavens in the now de rigeur "everyone is connected" style ensemble piece is a lazy way of making dim theatergoers feel like they've just seen something profound, apparently. People who want to see a film where strangers affect each others' lives should rent Magnolia. And the mirror monologue from Spike Lee's 25th Hour alone is far better than the whole of Crash. Like American Beauty, I think this film is likely to be re-appraised as not quite the great movie it wants to be. –Jack Monahan