Lists, 12/29.

"The term 'independent film' has hovered on the edge of meaninglessness for many years," writes Salon's Andrew O'Hehir, "and 2006 might be the year it finally fell off the cliff." The two-page introduction to his annotated list smartly maps the lay of the land at the moment. Is all well in Indiewood? Depends on where you've set up shop. His #1, by the way, is Pan's Labyrinth; the surprise is his #2: Agnes and His Brothers.

"Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris's Little Miss Sunshine was far from 2006's worst film, but it was the most depressing," writes Steve Erickson at Gay City News. "If 'Indie' has come to mean regurgitating 80s Hollywood comedies like National Lampoon's Vacation, and cosmetic attempts at edge like having an old man snort heroin and read porn, it's better off dying. To be sure, other films offered more promising models of what American independent cinema can accomplish, but most of them struggled to find an audience, and all but the very best suffered from a small-scale, anecdotal focus. There are many Raymond Carvers among our filmmakers, but I'm waiting for a Thomas Pynchon." His #1: A Scanner Darkly.

indieWIRE rolls out another big batch of lists, this time polling industry insiders and bloggers. "We also encouraged participants to consider adding a sidebar of a few favorite undistributed films, to help us when we determine the participants in our next Undiscovered Gems series."

ST VanAirsdale posts the first part of his "Top 10 of Top 10 Lists of 2006," guaranteeing hate mail and appreciative snickers alike from across the 'sphere. One who snickers: David Carr.

Jia Zhangke, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Pedro Costa. Girish posts his top ten.

They have faces now, too. The Lumi�re Reader's Tim Wong praises ten.

"You want the best new movie of 2006?" asks Vince Keenan. "Fine. Fabien Bielinsky's El Aura bewitched me when I saw it and haunts me still. A heist film, a character study, a brilliantly directed exploration of isolation mental and physical, self-imposed and otherwise. It's one of a kind."

"[I]t wasn't much of a year for the medium or its message," sighs Sam Adams. "In a decade of year-ending, I've never had a harder time compiling a list of films I was genuinely enthusiastic about." But he's got one, and The Death of Mr Lazarescu tops it. Also in the Philadelphia City Paper: Cindy Fuchs finds that " war stories - documentaries and features - made for some of the most gripping, provocative and outraged offerings of 2006." Her #1: Cavite.

At SF360, Susan Gerhard introduces a series of "observations, appreciations, thoughts and complaints on film" from members of the Bay Area film community: Danny Plotnick, Rod Armstrong, Max Goldberg, Marcus Hu, Justin Juul, Sam Green, Michael Fox, Gary Meyer, Sean Uyehara, Joel Shepard, B Ruby Rich, James T Hong, Joel Bachar, Caveh Zahedi and Susan herself.

Eye Weekly presents a "2006 List to end all lists" - and top tens from Jason Anderson, Adam Nayman and Kieran Grant.

"This critic's been carping for decades about feel-good cinema, how lousy it makes me feel, and this year I got the misery I begged for," writes Gerald Peary in the Boston Phoenix. "In 2006, director after director signed in with downer bummer movies, yet I felt no uplift at all. These were EMPTY downer bummer movies, depressing and tortured tales signifying nothing, specious at the core, vacuous at the unhappy endings. Yuck!" He did like at least ten, though, starting with Flags of Our Fathers.

The film critics groups keep announcing and Movie City News keeps tabulating the results.

"Wild Blue Yonder is part of a new wave of independently produced, idea-driven science-fiction films. These lo-fi sci-fi movies aren't, in Hollywood parlance, 'toyetic,' and they won't be playing at a theater near you." At Wired News, Jason Silverman presents "four you probably missed in 2006."

At Twitch, Peter Martin lists his top ten viewing experiences.

Jette Kernion and Chris Ullrich unveil their top tens at Cinematical, where Erik Davis picks his favorite trailers.

Capone's #1 at AICN: Children of Men.

Bill Gibron lists "The Top Ten Films of 2006 That You've Never Heard Of" at PopMatters. Also: the top ten Criterion releases.

Mick LaSalle looks back on "ten movies that are not great but that I look back on with particularly fondness."

"MPs yesterday voted Casablanca, the 1942 movie set in the second world war, as their favourite film of all time," reports Paul Lewis in the Guardian. "There was cross-party support for the Oscar-winning epic, which received by far the largest proportion of votes in the survey."

For Variety, Ted Johnson looks back at ten predictions for the year that never panned out.

In the Washington Post, Curt Fields presents "one slightly bewildered DVD watcher's opinion on the best ones to cross his desk in 2006."

Online viewing tips, round 1. At 10 Zen Monkeys, Destiny posts "Ten Video Moments from 2006" and Lou Cabron tags the "Worst Vlogs of 2006."

Online viewing tips, round 2. Erik Davis lists ten favorite shorts at Cinematical.

And finally for today, to be named once as one of the best blogs of the year was the very definition of Modern Fabulosity; but now that Gabriel Shanks is calling the Daily the "Best Movie Blog" of 2006... in the words of one unsung lieutenant, "Well, cover me in eggs and flour and bake me for 14 minutes!"

Posted by dwhudson at December 29, 2006 6:32 AM