Lists, 1/4.

Great to see Robert Davis posting again at Errata, and what an entry here: "Favorite Films Released in 2006." The "Top 3, in no particular order": Iraq in Fragments, Half Nelson and Three Times. What follows are "Some Notes Plus a Snotty Anecdote," which I didn't find snotty at all, and a couple of postscripts. One of those notes: "The world is shrinking, and cinema, it seems to me, is particularly well suited to examine the phenomenon."

Few have annotated and supplemented a list as thoroughly and breezily-yet-engagingly as Dennis Cozzalio. Good Lord.

Chris Barsanti posts a top ten, a batch of honorable mentions and winners in a dozen original categories (e.g., "Best and worst Iraq films"). His #1: Three Times.

"Everyone talks about 2006 being a lame year for movies, but I beg to differ," writes Michael Tully. Quite a rundown follows; his #1: The Death of Mr Lazarescu.

The editors and readers of Cahiers du cin�ma have voted up their lists.

Self-reliant filmmaker Paul Harrill offers "multiple lists - some short, some long - of my favorites from 2006. After all, how can we call something 'Best Of' when we haven't surveyed all there is out there?"

In an entry rounding up the best in film-related reading - itself a must-read, of course, and already sparking dozens more great suggestions in the comments - Girish proposes that blogs equip themselves with a table of contents and/or index so that their riches don't all but immediately sink "into the dark caves of the archives."

"For me, the year in film, 2006, began at the end of the old Oak Street's life with the theater's late-January run of Scorsese's The Last Waltz, an old movie about the passing of an era - which, for those sitting in the soon-to-be-former rep house, felt like the era of old movies," writes Rob Nelson in the City Pages. "And '06 might as well have ended for me with the dull bang of The Departed, Scorsese's depressingly impersonal concession to corporate marketplace demands for a minimum of style and no discernible substance, particularly not of the cinephilic variety. 'We're all on the way out,' jokes Jack Nicholson's unwatchably hammy heavy in the film's one resonant zinger. 'Act accordingly.'" His #1: Army of Shadows.

Patrick turns his Thoughts on Stuff to 2006: "I went back and forth on the number one, but a third viewing of Miami Vice put it over the top."

"In recognition of 21st-century reality, I might say that the best new film I saw in 2006 was Hou Hsiao-hsien's Caf� Lumi�re, the Taiwanese director's centenary tribute to the inimitable Japanese master, Yasujiro Ozu, albeit in his own, no less distinctive style," writes the San Diego Reader's Duncan Shepherd. "To try to tighten my grip on reality, though, I would have to say that that was the best new DVD I saw. (To tighten my grip still further, I should say the film was new in 2003.) But that's how we see things now. We program our own." Sticking to the rules, then, "the blue ribbon this year goes to Flags of Our Fathers." Letters From Iwo Jima won't open in San Diego, by the way, until January 12, so it's not eligible.

The IFC News team recalls "some of the personal bright spots and other memorable moments of the year in film we don't want overlooked."

David Bordwell's list? "Best Danish Films I Saw at the End of 2006." He explains.

Harry Knowles has a couple of films you haven't seen in his top ten, but his #1 is Pan's Labyrinth.

The Visitor offers an overview of the year in Malaysian cinema at Twitch.

Monkey Peaches posts a list of the best Chinese-language movies of the year.

Pat Graham posts a top 40 at the Chicago Reader's On Film.

"There are hundreds and hundreds of lists floating around that claim to include the ten best films of 2006," writes Peter Sobczynski at Hollywood Bitchslap. "This is the only completely correct one. Enjoy." His #1: Children of Men. Also, Erik Childress unleashes "Criticwatch 2006: The Whores of the Year."

Bradford Nordeen tops his list with Shortbus: "Oh, the film is flawed in a good many ways, but its decision to work against the grain of Hollywood's fashionable nihilism, instead creating a sexual fairytale landscape (though one not naive to its bleak surroundings), is truly compelling."

Blogcritics Magazine, "a sinister cabal of superior writers," picks the best films and DVDs of the year.

Gary Dretzka at Movie City News: "If I were to resolve to accomplish anything in 2007, it would be to wage a yearlong crusade against the mainstream media's twin obsession with meaningless awards ceremonies and celebrities who appear in public without panties or too intoxicated by booze, off-brand religions and their own fame to control their inner demons."

IndieWIRE editor Eugene Hernandez wraps 06 and looks ahead to 07, while Reverse Shot posts its annotated top ten. The staff writers have voted The Death of Mr Lazarescu to the top spot.

"[L]et's make another list!" hollers Andrew O'Hehir at Salon. "This one collects the 10 films I'm most excited about in the first half of 2007, some premiering at Sundance and some not. (OK, there are actually 11. I have the excuse that one or two may not open until later in the year.) In constructing it, I have relied on the most highly developed skills of entertainment journalism: guesswork and bullshit."

Joe Leydon parses the Golden Raspberry nominations.

Aaron Barnhart looks back at the year in TV; and talked about it on the radio recently as well.

Indiana Jones will not be alone. In the Independent, Ian Herbert and Elisa Bray scan the comebacks heading our way throughout 2007.

Dave Micevic has worked his way up to his #6 so far.

Kevin Smith recalls "The Year in Askew, Pt. 1." Via Matt Bradshaw at Cinematical.

Online browsing tip. Jeff Fusco's "Faces of 2006" in the Philadelphia Weekly.

Online fiddling around tip. At the Reeler, ST VanAirsdale presents a quiz: "I've featured 10 of 2006's most popular Top Ten list selections, followed by some of the more interchangeable hyperbole, non sequiturs, grandiosity, statements of the obvious and unimaginative prose and praise to emerge in support of last year's anointed classics." Match the critics' names with, you know, all that.

Online listening tip. Bob Mondello talks about his top ten on NPR.

Posted by dwhudson at January 4, 2007 2:54 PM