The Infamous Grottino Awards for the year 2006!

[Szlia]

6 friends, one city, one year of movies, 6 Top 20, a luncheon in an italian restaurant and results for the world to behold (obviously, some movies released in the US in 2006 reached our fair city in 2007 and some stuff from 2005 arrived in 2006):

1 The New World
2 The Prestige
3 Black Book (Verhoeven's latest: released in April in the US)
4 Offside (straight from Iran, Panahi's latest: limited release in March in the US)
5 Lady Chaterley (French movie: no release planed in the US)
6 The Departed
7 Il Caimano (Moretti's latest: no release planed in the US)
8 Miami Vice
9 The Black Dahlia
10 Scoop
11 Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
tie with Volver (Almodovar's latest: got released in the US in 2006)
13 Casino Royale
14 Inside Man
15 The Queen
16 Children of Men
17 Shortbus
18 Vers le Sud (French movie: got released in New York in 2006)
tie with Zidane: un portrait du XXIème siècle (long feature experimental film following Zidane during a whole game: no release planed in the US)
20 Batalla en el cielo (Mexican movie: got a limitted release in the US last february).

Special: Shara (it would have ended in the final top 20, but we decided to ban it because even if it was a first release in our city, it's a movie from 2003)

So now, you know!

[Vorph]

Miami Vice and Black Dahlia in six people's top 20 lists? Wow. Vice was decent but certainly nothing special, and Black Dahlia... for a fan of Ellroy's book it should be the single most disappointing movie of all time and I can't see how anyone who never read the book could suffer through the acting of Scarlett Johansson and Fiona Shaw long enough to actually enjoy it. Maybe they watched a dubbed version, heh.

[Szlia]

The only movie that was in all 6 of the lists was The Prestige. Only 3 people had Miami Vice (but 2 very high up) and 4 had The Black Dahlia (3 average one low).

Miami Vice did not make my list because I feel there are too many flaws in the movie. But if the bad is pretty bad in Miami Vice (the ugly ugly final fight, the horrible discourse), the good is sometimes pretty brilliant, so I imagine some decided the good far outweighted the bad.

As far as The Black Dahlia goes, I must say that after Femme Fatale I did not find in me the motivation to even go see it, but I am pretty sure they all saw the original version.

[Vorph]

I liked Femme Fatale, if that gives you any idea of just how bad Black Dahlia was. As a DePalma/Ellroy fanboi I wanted to love the movie too (I believe my review here was pretty forgiving while I was still in denial about just how godawful it was, but after watching it again, I'd give it a 3/10 at most). I can only hope Joe Carnahan gets it right when he makes White Jazz in a couple years.

[Mir]

When I saw Miami Vice and Black Dhalia on the list I realized it was irrelevant as the oscars and the golden globes. In fact, these guys should probobly pick the winners for those.