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Michael Smith's Favorite Films of 2006 / The Tulsa World

Before we get to the 10 best films of 2006, consider these five as alternates. Excellent films all, they deserve more than honorable mention.

Flags of Our Fathers
An intelligent look at the meaning of heroism, Clint Eastwood's film is a handsome, heartfelt story of a battle that changed World War II. The director's companion piece, "Letters From Iwo Jima" -- the battle told from the Japanese perspective -- that was originally scheduled for 2007 release has been bumped up due to the flagging box office for "Fathers," and it's already won a couple of critics' groups Best Picture awards. That film hasn't been released in Tulsa, but "Flags of our Fathers" stands on its own.

For Your Consideration
There's hardly a ritual more deserving of bashing than that of Academy Awards hype in a world of rampant Internet prognosticators and publicity machines run amok. Christopher Guest ("Best in Show") and his band of merry men and women (Catherine O'Hara and Fred Willard are sensational) hilariously skewer everything from out-of-touch producers to vacuous infotainment shows.

Thank You For Smoking
Drawn from a best-selling novel by Christopher Buckley and written and directed for the screen by precocious freshman filmmaker Jason Reitman, "Smoking" is that rare satire that dares to be politically incorrect, piercingly insightful and caustically funny throughout. In a media-saturated Age of Spin, hustling lobbyists are the reigning princes of darkness, and Nick Naylor (Aaron Eckhart) is a star, the glib national spokesman for the tobacco industry and a man who takes great pride in the fact that his job "requires a moral flexibility that goes beyond most people."

Cars
Pixar animators hit the highway -- historic Route 66, to be specific -- in this antic cartoon comedy about a hot-shot racing car marooned in sleepy little Radiator Springs and forced to slow down, reconsider his fast-track life and stop to smell the gas fumes. Tulsa writer and Route 66 guru Michael Wallis provides the voice of the sheriff and served as Pixar's guide along the Mother Road.

Stranger Than Fiction
This wonderfully high-concept head trip about changing one's life path is the kind of film that keeps percolating in your own noggin, conjuring up all manner of possibilities. Will Ferrell shows a new depth and humanity as an IRS auditor sleepwalking through life until a voice in his head wakes him up to a world of possibilities.

At times comic, touching and full of Big Questions with unusual answers, director Marc Forster and debut film scripter Zach Helm have fun toying with one man's existence. This meta-mad conundrum asks audiences to take a leap of faith for its clever love story -- Maggie Gyllenhaal is perfect as a sexy baker -- and you shouldn't think twice.

Preston Jones' Best Films of 2006 / Oklahoma Gazette

1. "United 93," dir. Paul Greengrass
Riveting and raw, "United 93" accomplished what seemed nearly impossible to many: humanizing and dramatizing one of our country's most wrenching tragedies without once slipping into sentimentality or insincerity. An expertly mounted fusion of documentary technique and fictional conjecture, it's a disquieting experience that holds you in a vice grip until its breathless, inevitable climax. This doesn't unfold like a film, it plays like a searing collective memory.

2. "Borat: Cultural Learnings of American for Make Benefit Glorious
Nation of Kazakhstan," dir. Larry Charles
No mainstream comedy was funnier — or more satirically devastating — than Sacha Baron Cohen's full-bore assault on the American way of life. While Borat Sagdiyev became horribly over-exposed in no time flat, his endless parade of PR whoring couldn't diminish the side-splitting prowess of this fakeumentary which peeled back the colors that don't run to reveal some of the less savory traits of those living in the U.S. and A. Very nice!

3. "Pan’s Labyrinth," dir. Guillermo del Toro
A masterful synthesis of gruesome reality and limitless imagination, "Pan's Labyrinth" is a bedtime story for grown-ups; forget the smug pomposity of M. Night Shyamalan's farragoes — Guillermo del Toro is Hollywood's dreamweaver par excellence. Deftly mixing eerily tangible set pieces with a genuinely unnerving performance from Sergio Lopez, del Toro surveys the war-torn lands of post-Franco Spain with heart and humanity.

4. "Shut Up & Sing," dir. Barbara Kopple & Cecilia Peck
Ravaged by red-staters for speaking their minds, the Dixie Chicks found themselves adrift with an eroding fanbase and an uncertain future. Instead of calling it a day, Natalie Maines, Emily Robison and Martie Maguire dug deep and re-connected with their passion. Far more than a portrait of a band in crisis, "Shut Up & Sing" is a penetrating, poignant examination of the fall-out from free speech.

5. "The Departed," dir. Martin Scorsese
Bullet-hard and drenched in sanguine kinetics, Martin Scorsese's Westernization of the HK cult classic "Infernal Affairs" feels like an overdue homecoming; with period pics and Dylan docs out of his system, Scorsese fires on all cylinders to plumb the lives and lies of these sons of Boston — Jack Nicholson's live-wire portrayal of evil incarnate elevates everyone's game and the sly final shot feels like floating on air.

6. "Little Miss Sunshine," dir. Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris
7. "Casino Royale," dir. Martin Campbell
8. "Notes on a Scandal," dir. Richard Eyre
9. "The Proposition," dir. John Hillcoat
10. "The Queen," dir. Stephen Frears

Phil Bacharach's Best Films of 2006 / Oklahoma Gazette

1. “United 93,” dir. Paul Greengrass

Brilliant, searing and gutsy, “United 93” is also that rarest of films: An amazing experience. To helm the first theatrical film to fictionalize aspects of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, director-writer Paul Greengrass set out on a daunting mission. He would handle the most sensitive of material while resisting the temptation to sentimentalize or whitewash. The movie that resulted is nothing short of electrifying. Greengrass employs a cast of unknowns and a no-frills, documentary-like visual style to offer a possible account of the hijacked United Airlines flight that crashed in rural Pennsylvania, killing everyone on board. Filmgoers stayed away from “United 93,” understandably hesitant to revisit the horrors of 9-11, but this is an extraordinary work that vividly captures a monumental time in our nation’s history. If “United 93” does not shake you to your core, check your pulse.

2. “Little Miss Sunshine,” dir. Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris

Independent cinema needs another comedy about a dysfunctional family the way Mel Gibson needs another swig of bourbon. Even so, “Little Miss Sunshine” is eons above standard indie fare. The feature-length directorial debut of husband-wife team Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, the film was the belle of this year’s Sundance Film Festival, and for good reason. Screenwriter Michael Arndt taps the time-tested on-the-road genre, but nothing is rote about this cliché-free blending of drama, comedy and sharp-toothed satire. It helps to have a stellar cast, of course, and the movie has one, with Greg Kinnear, Steve Carrell, Toni Collette and young Abigail Breslin as particular standouts. Alternately poignant and hilarious, “Little Miss Sunshine” is a wry and wise examination of our societal obsession with winning -- and all the ways in which families inadvertently screw us up.

3. “The Departed,” dir. Martin Scorsese

It took a remake of the 2002 Hong Kong flick “Infernal Affairs” for Martin Scorsese to make his best film since 1990’s “Goodfellas,” but “The Departed” is quintessential Scorsese – a gritty action-thriller spilling over with so much ferocious urgency, it practically induces vertigo. Leonardo DiCaprio shines as a Boston cop who infiltrates the crew of mob boss Frank Costello, played by a scenery-chewing Jack Nicholson. Matt Damon is every bit DiCaprio’s equal as a slick Massachusetts state detective with a secret allegiance to Costello. Against this maze of doppelgangers and doublecrosses, “The Departed” crackles with overcaffeinated energy and violence. Stylistically, the movie is as sharp and unnerving as the edge of a stiletto, but Scorsese never sacrifices a labyrinthine plotline for the sake of cheap thrills. It’s a thrill-fest, alright, but each and every one is earned.

4. “Pan’s Labyrinth,” dir. Guillermo del Toro

It’s tempting to summarize “Pan’s Labyrinth” as a Grimm fairytale for adults, but that doesn’t begin to do justice to this unique fantasy. Set in Spain after the end of Franco’s civil war, the story follows the travails of young Ofelia (Ivana Baquero). Life is hard for the girl. Her mother is in the midst of a complicated pregnancy and her stepfather, a sadistic military captain, is intent on starving out the few rebels who remain hidden in nearby mountains. Then magic intrudes in the form of a faun-like creature that tells Ofelia she is actually the princess of the underworld; he assigns her a series of mythological tasks to return to her rightful kingdom. Luring moviegoers into the purely fantastical, writer-director Guillermo del Toro unfurls a haunting masterpiece in which dreamscapes and heartbreaks are inexorably bound.

5. “Borat: Cultural Learnings of American for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan,” dir. Larry Charles

Not only did this monstrously outrageous prank of a movie produce more laughs than anything I’ve seen since “There’s Something About Mary” in 1998, but Sacha Baron Cohen, the twisted genius behind it, has almost certainly set an industry record for most lawsuits stemming from a comedy. As the titular character, Cohen portrays a blithely bigoted Kazakh journalist traveling across America. It’s a paper-thin premise for a movie, but Cohen -- who introduced the shtick on his HBO series, “Da Ali G Show” -- possesses a mesmerizing fearlessness. He is also riotously funny. In his encounters with unsuspecting folks who range from a bloodthirsty rodeo organizer to drunken frat dudes, Cohen exposes some eye-popping ugliness just below the surface of Everyday America. But this is no sociological experiment; Cohen is out to draw laughs, not blood.

6. “Little Children,” dir. Todd Field
7. “Water,” dir. Deepa Mehta
8. “Shut Up & Sing,” dir. Barbara Kopple & Cecilia Peck
9. “Stranger Than Fiction,” dir. Marc Forster
10. “The Prestige,” dir. Christopher Nolan

Doug Bentin's Best Films of the Year / Oklahoma Gazette

The summer blockbusters may have left most of our blocks unbusted, but the end of the year has sent some pretty damn good movies our way. Looking over 2006’s offerings, here are the best films I saw.

“The Departed,” dir. Martin Scorsese

Scorsese, having crept away from the crime film ghetto for a few years, returned in a big way this year with a movie that showcases everything, except Robert DeNiro, that has made his name a pair of cineaste’s household words. Nobody removes the operatic romanticism of street crime to show us the worms under the rocks like Scorsese, and the fact that he can make these characters appealing without making them likable is remarkable. Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg, Alec Baldwin, Ray Winstone—if the Dallas Cowboys had this much testosterone, they’d end the season 16-0. Violent, funny, terrifying, “The Departed” is bewitching. It’s the snake and we’re the birds. Thankfully, Scorsese provides the pane of glass that separates us.

“Notes on a Scandal,” dir. Richard Eyre

You know you’re watching a pack of rabid sociopaths while you watch “The Departed,” and they can scare the hell out of you, but the icky derangement of the English school teacher played by the brilliant Judi Dench in “Notes on a Scandal” creeps in on little cat feet—make that “little bitch feet”—and you find yourself slyly checking out the women in the audience just to make sure that none of them are smiling too broadly. Not to say that the film isn’t supposed to be funny—it’s wildly funny in that patented Brit way of finding humor in the most tragic situations. Cate Blanchett costars as the new art teacher on whom Dench’s spinster develops a crush. You won’t find two better performances in any film this year. Seek this one out.

“The Queen,” dir. Stephen Frears

Bette Davis once said that the Brits produced the best actors, but American gave the best actresses to the world. Maybe then—not now. Helen Mirren stars as the present Queen Elizabeth facing a royal crisis on the death of Princess Diana. She thinks the royal family should grieve, or not grieve, as they always have—in private—while the new Prime Minister Tony Blair believes that the country wants a show of grief. Cue the news cameras and tabloid reporters. Like “Notes on a Scandal,” this film finds dark humor in a happening that is mostly melodramatic, if not a little tragic. Mirren is just so good doing what the greatest Brit actors have done repeatedly—holding it all in until it has to gush out. Think of Peter O’Toole in “Lawrence of Arabia” or Paul Scofield in “A Man For All Seasons.” It’s just a shame that Mirren had to deliver this performance the same year Judi Dench gave us “Notes on a Scandal.” Tie, anyone?

“Lady Vengeance,” dir. Park Chan-wook

Here’s my ringer. Every reviewer gets to praise one film at the end of the year that very few people have seen, and “Lady Vengeance” is mine. Directed by Park Chan-wook, this is the third part of his Vengeance Trilogy. “Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance” and “Oldboy” came first, and this is the story of a woman who willingly goes to jail for a murder she didn’t commit in order to protect someone dear to her. On her release, she uses the services of the women she was kind to behind bars to go after the real killer. Beautifully photographed and artfully edited, this Korean thriller is funny and dangerous. It’s an art film and a white-knuckler both at once. Available now on DVD, this is one fans of real movies need to see.

“Pan’s Labyrinth,” dir. Guillermo del Toro

American fans of genre films know Mexican director Guillermo del Toro for thrillers like “Mimic,” “Blade II,” and “Hellboy,” but those willing to dig a little deeper—i.e., read subtitles—may know his superb Spanish-language ghost story “The Devil’s Backbone.” Know it or not, you should see this new one. Set during the Spanish Civil War, it’s about a young girl who may have found a way to slip into a darker version of Alice’s Wonderland. Or who may just need fantasy as a way of escaping from the horrors of her life. It’s beautiful and grim at the same time, hopeful and tragic. If you despair of ever seeing a film fantasy that was made with adults in mind, give this one a shot.

“Blood Diamond,” dir. Edward Zwick
“Flags of Our Fathers,” dir. Clint Eastwood
“Thank You For Smoking,” dir. Jason Reitman
“Hollywoodland,” dir. Allen Coulter
“Casino Royale,” dir. Martin Campbell

And let me give a special nod to a picture I liked a lot although very few of my colleagues have had much nice to say about it. It’s Terry Zwigoff’s “Art School Confidential.” Give it a try.

Kathryn Jenson White's Best Films of 2006 / Oklahoma Gazette

1. “Pan’s Labyrinth,” dir. Guillermo del Toro
My 3-D theory of the qualities of really good films — dark, disturbing and difficult — finds full realization in del Toro’s magical mystery tour of the human heart in both its most inspiring creative purity and its most dispiriting destructive corruption. The story is of a young girl seeking escape from the horrors of her personal life under the control of a stepfather who is a sadistic captain in Franco’s army. Her reality is mirrored in that of 1940s Spain and a guerrilla movement attempting to defeat Franco’s fascist forces. Ofelia seeks refuge from life’s horrors in the rich world of a child’s imagination as defined and fueled by fairy and folk tales. The film stuns with its vicious violence and recognition of the evil of which men are capable. It uplifts with its visual beauty and its equal recognition of the redemptive and restorative powers of love, art and the imagination.

2. “United 93,” dir. Paul Greengrass
To all those who have said this film came too soon after the horrific, based-on-reality story it depicts and that they could not/would not see it, I say, ‘You are wrong.’ Everyone should see this film. Greengrass takes a beautifully spare, almost documentary approach to exploring what happened on the 9/11 plane on which passengers nobly struggled to overcome their terror and stop the madmen in the cockpit from carrying out their hateful plan of destruction. The film pays heart-wrenching tribute to the human spirit. As the passengers rush the cockpit, no one watching can escape the piercing pain of the inevitable or the aching empathy of watching ordinary people respond with complete humanness in all its complexity to an extraordinary situation.

3. “The Departed,” dir. Martin Scorsese
With amazing performances from Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio and Jack Nicholson as well as a rich, complex supporting cast, Scorsese’s film shows a master at work. This compellingly complicated, convoluted story of betrayal looks at love both noble and selfish and loyalty both admirable and misplaced. Based on the 2002 “Infernal Affairs,” a Hong Kong film directed by Andrew Lau and Alan Mak, Scorsese’s re-visioning is as American as they come. Scorsese has moved from New York to Boston and expanded his cinematic world to include the family of law enforcement as well as the family of organized crime. The mob boy undercover as cop and the cop undercover as mob boy mirror each other in always surprising but never unbelievable ways. Nicholson is no cartoon joker as the baddest of the bad mob bosses; he’s flat-out scary.

4. “The Queen,” dir. Stephen Frears
Helen Mirren’s astonishing performance as Queen Elizabeth II elevates a fairly simple little character study of a film to something much more significant. As a grace note, it also makes human the seemingly cardboard figure who occupies the British throne. The queen of England owes Mirren big time; her husband, Prince Phillip, not so much. Using the death of Princess Diana in September 1977 as its fixed point, the film wanders around big political issues like governing as opposed to ruling and big personal ones like responding as a human rather than as an office or position or type. The stupidities of traditional behavior that no longer has relevance and the way slavish adherence to ideas can limit our abilities to be fully human are major concerns here. Frears takes them on boldly but not brashly.

4. “Little Miss Sunshine,” dir. Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris
Who could not love Olive, the embodiment of the hopes and dreams we all have as children, the unspoiled innocent who believes, sincerely, the adult line about hard work leading to inevitable success, dreaming all that you can be and the rest of the hogwash generated by the American Dream-inspirational/motivational industry complex? Who could not equally love her dysfunctional family representing all the oddities of human behavior and absurdity of human interaction? A stellar ensemble of actors led by Abigail Breslin as Olive and including Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette, Alan Arkin, Paul Dano and Steve Carell delivers unto us a family with flaws and follies with which we can all identify. One part theater of the absurd, one part slapstick comedy and two parts sincerely touching human story, “Little Miss Sunshine” is truly illuminating.

5. “Shut Up and Sing,” dir. Barbara Kopple
6. “Little Children,” dir. Todd Field
7. “Half Nelson,” dir. Ryan Fleck
8. “Volver,” dir. Pedro Almodóvar
9. “Notes on a Scandal,” dir. Richard Eyre
10. “Casino Royale,” dir. Martin Campbell

Gene Triplett's Best Movies of 2006 / The Oklahoman

Four-star quality movies seemed few and far between in 2006, but there were enough gifted filmmakers getting the green light to make a foray to the multiplex worth the effort on a fairly frequent basis. Some of their works have yet to arrive in Oklahoma City, but patience will be rewarded. Ten of the best reasons for spending precious hours in the dark this year eating expensive stale popcorn soaked in fake butter were as follows:

1. "The Departed” — Martin Scorsese directs a high-caliber cast in this gripping, gritty crime drama of a good cop (Leonardo DiCaprio) working undercover within Boston's Irish-American mafia and a bad cop (Matt Damon) serving as the mob's mole in the upper ranks of the Massachusetts State Police, each seeking to discover the other's identity. Jack Nicholson's over-the-edge performance as the criminal mastermind who runs both their lives will make him a wanted man in the Oscar race, while Scorsese may be up for a long overdue payoff as well.

2. "Little Miss Sunshine” — A hopelessly dysfunctional family of oddballs discover the true definitions of winning and losing when their little girl is tapped as a pageant contestant, and they all rally behind her in a hilariously disastrous cross-country rush to get her to the contest on time. Uniformly excellent and engaging performances from an incredible ensemble cast (Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette, Steve Carrell, Alan Arkin) make this heart-grabbing comedy-drama from first-time feature directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris the most pleasant sleeper surprise of the year.

3. "Little Children” — Director Todd Field goes "In the Bedroom” again, this time for an intimate examination of desperate housewives and husbands and one pathetically doomed sex offender who lives uneasily among them in this complex and absorbing psychological study of illicit sex, dirty secrets and silent suffering in suburbia. Deftly adapted by Field and Tom Perrotta from Perrotta's novel, it is seamlessly acted by a choice ensemble cast including Kate Winslett, Patrick Wilson, Jennifer Connelly and Jackie Earle Haley.

4. "The Queen” — Helen Mirren is majestic as Queen Elizabeth II, bravely weathering the storm of negative opinion that erupts when the proudly private royal family refuses to put on a public display of mourning over the death of Diana. Michael Sheen is also stalwart as Prime Minister Tony Blair, conjuring all his diplomatic skills to persuade Her Majesty that compromise is essential to the future of Buckingham Palace's residents. Stephen Frears' solid direction from Peter Morgan's smart script puts this film and its regal leading lady in line for some Oscar crowns.

5. "The Last King of Scotland” — As Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, Forest Whitaker is a raging, sweaty force of nature amid a harrowing historical thriller that's as blistering as the African heat. Under the direction of Kevin MacDonald, working from yet another royal writing exercise from "The Queen's” Peter Morgan (and Jeremy Brock), Whitaker plumbs the frightening depths of this playfully eccentric, murderous monster with fiery brilliance and courage. Another best-acting crown is due here, and the "King,” no doubt, will rule.

6. "World Trade Center” — Instead of the politically loaded, epic conspiracy tale many expected from Oliver Stone, the director's dramatization of 9/11 is an intimate, inspirational and deeply moving true story of courage, survival and heroism, told from the perspectives of two Port Authority Police officers (Nicolas Cage, Michael Pena) who were trapped beneath the rubble, the rescuers who risked everything to save them, and the families who waited in agony at home. Eschewing his usual operatic camera work and over-the-top storytelling, Stone points his lens where there was light on one of America's darkest days.

7. "The Prestige” — Writer-director Christopher Nolan ("Memento,” "Batman Begins”) pulls some awe-inspiring narrative and visual sleight-of-hand in this tale of two magicians (Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale) locked in a bitter war for supremacy on the stages of Victorian-era London. Steeped in the shadowy atmospherics of the gaslight period, Nolan and co-writing brother Jonathan's story of obsession, deceit and jealousy thoroughly mesmerizes and doesn't miss a suspenseful trick. And watch out for David Bowie, who makes one of the most electrifying entrances of the year as real-life mad scientist Nikola Tesla.

8. "Miss Potter” — Renee Zellweger sparkles in this biopic of Beatrix Potter, the early 20th century author and painter who created "The Tale of Peter Rabbit” and some of the best-selling children's books of all time in an era when young women of the British upper class were expected to "marry well” and make a home. As told by director Chris Noonan and screenwriter Richard Maltby Jr., Potter's story is as enchanting as her animal tales, from her family-defying romance with a young publisher (Ewan McGregor) to her preservation efforts in England's Lake District, which fill the screen in breathtaking, painterly fashion. Potter's drawings frequently come to animated life, enhancing this irresistible charmer even more.

9. "Pan's Labyrinth” — Writer-director Guillermo del Toro fashions a grim yet wondrous fairy tale of young Ofelia (a hypnotic Ivana Baquero), who endures the brutal realities of post-war Spain's fascist regime and the unspeakable cruelties of her stepfather (Sergi Lopez) by escaping into a dark dreamworld of her own. The violence is often shocking, but the grotesque creatures and surreal effects conjured in Ofelia's private fable are visually arresting, and the devastating denouement in this war between innocence and evil leaves a lastingly haunting impression.

10. "Superman Returns” — Director Bryan Singer's towering take on the Man of Steel purposely plays just like a sequel to Richard Donner's 1978 original, from the swooping opening credits and high-gloss production to Brandon Routh's uncanny resemblance to the late Christopher Reeve, nailing the voice, mild mannerisms and heroic demeanor with super-human accuracy. And all of that is fine, since the Donner-Reeve collaboration was the only entry in the series to get it right. Once again, you'll believe a man can fly.

George Lang's Best Movies of 2006 / The Oklahoman

In 2006, cinematic triumphs were less obvious than they were the previous year. The best films were ones that succeeded against odds and expectations. The chorus of "are we ready?” hand-wringing by political and social pundits over "United 93” gave way to a film that defied preconceptions. Similarly, the online movement to defame Daniel Craig on the eve of his first appearance as James Bond was proved to be premature and painfully inaccurate. This was also a year when, more than ever, finding great films often meant treading far from the multiplex and hoping against all odds that great but unheralded films would even have a one-week stand in town.

The following list of great 2006 films splits neatly down the middle between easy-to-find, undeniably great mainstream releases and films that almost required a spelunking excursion to see.

1. "United 93” — Paul Greengrass' towering achievement in cinema verite not only respected the memories of those who died Sept. 11, 2001, but captured the confusion and horror of that day in an uncompromising and harrowing real-time account. Greengrass ("Bloody Sunday,” "The Bourne Supremacy”) made "United 93” with New York stage actors and an impressive cast of airline, military and air traffic control personnel who contribute to the film's stark realism. It is "the impossible documentary,” a flawlessly executed story that could pass for nonfiction if not for the horrible knowledge that such a film could never have been made.

2. "Casino Royale” — By jettisoning the techno frippery of the franchise's past several entries, boiling the character down to his original essence, actually bothering to tell a compelling spy story and following through with the inspired casting of Daniel Craig as James Bond, "Casino Royale” became the first 007 film in more than three decades that truly mattered. Craig is phenomenal, infusing the role with raw wit and energy, and Eva Green as Vesper Lynd was the anti-"Bond girl,” an intellectual match for the spy who loved her.

3. "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan” — It made sense that Sacha Baron Cohen chose "Curb Your Enthusiasm” director Larry Charles to helm this brutally funny, taboo-incinerating "mockumentary” about a deeply racist and disarmingly genial Kazakhstani TV reporter's disastrous American odyssey. Like "Curb,” "Borat” is so painful to watch because it cuts so close to people's most unseemly attitudes. Even the most jaded viewer will watch through splayed fingers — a sociological horror film.

4. "Superman Returns” — An epic reclamation project that thoroughly restored luster to the Man of Steel, Bryan Singer's "Superman Returns” succeeded as an homage to Richard Donner's "Superman: the Movie” and as a throwback to a time when summer blockbusters had to tell good stories, not just inundate audiences with visual spectacle. Looking as if he were engineered in a lab from Christopher Reeve's DNA, Brandon Routh captured the mythical burden of Superman and the light humor of his terrestrial alter-ego, and Singer directed with an honest affection for the hero and with genuine belief that the world needs Superman.

5. "The Last King of Scotland” — No other 2006 performance was as searingly believable as Forest Whitaker's portrayal of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in "The Last King of Scotland.” In this historical fiction told through the eyes of an idealistic young Scottish doctor (James McAvoy) who becomes Amin's most trusted confidant, Whitaker exudes the charisma that brought Amin to power and the psychotic bloodlust that sustained him. In "The Last King of Scotland,” he is the best friend who will give you everything, then turn on a dime and kill you to get it all back.

6. "Pan's Labyrinth” — Guillermo del Toro's unsettling fantasy "Pan's Labyrinth (El Laberinto del Fauno)” returns the fairy tale to the adult realm in the story about a young Spanish girl who, after her widowed mother marries a fascist military officer, disappears into a frightening but mesmerizing netherworld. Del Toro's visuals are the essence of the most baroque nightmares, and "Pan's Labyrinth” is impossible to shake.

7. "Thank You for Smoking” — Writer-director Jason Reitman's debut improves on Christopher Buckley's comic novel about Nick Naylor, an unapologetically ruthless and rhetorically gifted spokesman for Big Tobacco. Aaron Eckhart's career-defining performance as Naylor could carry the film even if he weren't so ably abetted by fine performances from Maria Bello, David Koech-ner and a surprisingly great cameo from Rob Lowe as an egocentric, Asia-obsessed film producer.

8. "Little Children” — For his follow-up to "In the Bedroom,” director Todd Field delved into black-comic suburban malaise for "Little Children,” a film that makes "Desperate Housewives” look like "Spongebob Squarepants.” At turns darkly funny and just plain disturbing, the melodrama of infidelity and dark urges showcases the luminous talent of Kate Winslet as frustrated and straying housewife Sarah Pierce. But it also features a star turn by former child actor Jackie Earle Haley as convicted sex offender Ronald James McGorvey, a character whose inner repugnance surfaces to topple every furtive attempt at normalcy.

9. "Venus” — Peter O'Toole delivers his best performance in years as Maurice, an elderly actor who would still be a playboy if his corporeal self wasn't failing him. It is a brave, beautiful role in which a man at the end of his life invests the last of his taste and libido in a young woman (Jodie Whittaker) who scarcely deserves his ministrations yet benefits greatly from his attention and experience.

10. "Notes on a Scandal” — Screenwriter/playwright Patrick Marber ("Closer”) is a master at feel-bad morality tales, and "Notes on a Scandal” takes Lifetime TV movie material — a spinster blackmails a young teacher caught having sex with one of her students — and transforms it into a story worthy of Greek tragedy. Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench offer intense performances in a film that hurdles toward human disaster and then becomes ever bleaker.

Matthew Price's Best Movies of 2006 / The Oklahoman

New faces on familiar heroes headlined 2006's top movies. Others of the year's top films found themselves in Mexico, in Uganda and even in the head of a mystery writer.

1. "Superman Returns” — Bryan Singer's respectful tribute to the Man of Steel was 2006's best endeavor. With a perfectly cast Brandon Routh, "Superman” soared with an exciting, engaging storyline that worked on a number of levels. Superman takes on new poignance in today's unsafe world, as he returns from space after seeking his home planet. Mixing spiritual allegory, cultural context and thrilling action, "Superman Returns” is a modern blockbuster that isn't afraid to respect the past.

2. "Casino Royale” — Despite complaints about the "blond Bond,” Daniel Craig proved a bulldog of a special agent in "Casino Royale,” an adaptation of the first 007 novel by Ian Fleming. "Casino Royale” takes a look at James Bond's first mission as a 00 agent and gives insight into how he becomes the cool, calculating superspy. Eschewing high-tech gadgetry for the most part, Craig's Bond brings the series closer in line with Fleming's original character, yet updates it for a post-Cold War society.

3. "The Last King of Scotland” — "The Last King of Scotland” follows the rule of Uganda's Idi Amin, through the eyes of a (fictional) Scottish doctor who becomes a close confidant of the dictator. Both brutal and charming, Amin manages to excite and terrorize his subjects. "King of Scotland” is recommended viewing for those interested in a portrayal of political power gone awry. Forest Whitaker, as Amin, delivers an Oscar-worthy performance.

4. "Volver” — Pedro Almodovar's "Volver” features a strong performance from Penelope Cruz as Raimunda. With echoes of "Vertigo,” Raimunda returns to her home village to find her aged aunt Paula speaking of Raimunda's deceased mother, Irene, as if she is still alive. When Paula dies shortly after, Irene begins appearing to other members of the family. The earthy, vibrant film showcases mothers and daughters and their relationships throughout their lives. The film does have some telenovela-style melodrama, but excellent performances throughout keep the movie entirely engaging. The title "Volver,” meaning "to return,” works on a number of levels.

5. "Pan's Labyrinth” — Directed by Guillermo del Toro ("Hellboy”), "Pan's Labrynth” is a visually sumptuous fantasy with the backdrop of the Spanish Civil War. Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) has gone with her pregnant mother to live on a rural military outpost commanded by her cruel stepfather (Sergi Lopez). She escapes her surroundings by delving into a fantasy world, where she must face monsters to claim her true heritage.

6. "Babel” — The latest from director Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu demands a lot from its audience but pays off in great performances, particularly from newcomer Rinko Kikuchi. Unfolding like a puzzle, the intertwined tales feature a young woman shot in Morocco, her children in Mexico, and a young Chinese girl dealing with her mother's death.

7. "Stranger Than Fiction” — Will Ferrell is IRS agent Harold Crick, who begins hearing the voice of a narrator describing his daily events. Harold discovers he's a character in someone else's story — and he must move quickly to avoid his own death.

8. "Hollywoodland” — Adrien Brody plays a private investigator looking into the death of TV's Superman, George Reeves (Ben Affleck), in this period piece. Affleck provides a nuanced performance as an actor who finds himself unable to escape his circumstances. Diane Lane is excellent as Toni Mannix, Reeves' older girlfriend who is married to a high-ranking movie executive.

9. "Little Miss Sunshine” — A quirky look into a dysfunctional family, whose youngest is set to compete in California's "Little Miss Sunshine” pageant. Greg Kinnear is true to form as a slightly slimy self-help guru, who could use some self-help himself. Steve Carrell turns in an understated performance as a near-suicidal professor who is "the nation's foremost authority on Proust.” It builds slowly but inescapably toward an embarrassing but hilarious climax.

10. "Little Children” — An outstanding performance by Kate Winslet highlights this adaptation of the Tom Perotta novel. As a sleepy neighborhood sparks with anger at a sex offender moving in, the quiet desperation of a suburban mother, played by Winslet, pushes her into an affair with an attractive stay-at-home dad (Patrick Wilson). Director Todd Field reveals uncomfortable truths about each character in this social drama; many viewers may also find uncomfortable reflections of themselves.

"The Good Shepherd," dir. Robert DeNiro (Oklahoma Gazette)

In fictionalizing the early days of the Central Intelligence Agency, “The Good Shepherd” dares comparison to a slew of great espionage flicks from past decades. To me, however, the movie it most aspires to be isn’t about spies at all, “The Godfather.” That isn’t to say that “The Good Shepherd” is a masterpiece, but its epic tale of secrets, deception and divided loyalties bears the sweep and depth of Francis Ford Coppola’s 1972 classic.

No wonder, then, that “The Good Shepherd” is co-produced by Coppola and directed by Robert DeNiro, who earned an Oscar for 1974’s “Godfather, Part II” in 1974. Hey, if you’ve got to model yourself after something, it might as well be the best.

The provocateur protagonist of “Good Shepherd,” Edward Wilson (Matt Damon), is the quintessential CIA spook. A buttoned-up Yale man and member of its elite Skull and Bones secret society, he is recruited in 1940 to help build a secret foreign intelligence operation in anticipation of the United States’ entry into World War II. Edward’s laconic, guarded nature makes him ideal for the job. He accepts the government’s offer, especially after he is forced into a shotgun marriage with a society girl (Angelina Jolie) he barely knows.

Edward goes to work, first in London, where he learns the spy trade from a scholarly British agent (Michael Gambon), and later in post-war Berlin. Spanning from the dawn of the Cold War to the 1961 Bay of Pigs fiasco, Edward’s experiences provide a tableau for “The Good Shepherd’s” sharp and involving history of American espionage. DeNiro captures a pitch-perfect tone, from Robert Richardson’s solemn cinematography to a languorous pace that allows this universe of secrets and lies to percolate with intrigue.

Light and shadow are revealed through small details. A character’s seemingly innocuous comment or action can later take on critical meanings; alert moviegoers are likely to find themselves sizing up character right along with Edward. Despite the film’s lengthy running time (167 minutes), the screenplay by Eric Roth (“Munich”) has precious little flab.

Perhaps DeNiro’s considerable acting chops helped spur great performances. Whatever the reason, “The Good Shepherd” uses its star-studded cast to great effect. Jolie, Gambon, DeNiro and John Turturro are memorable in supporting roles, and Tammy Blanchard is heartbreaking as Edward’s college sweetheart.

But this is Matt Damon’s movie all the way. Quiet but with eyes flashing intelligence, he is devastating as a man who sacrifices a personal life for one without trust or intimacy. In fact, the picture’s success at breathing life into Edward Wilson proves to be a double-edged sword. It is difficult for a story to follow a reserved, emotionally remote protagonist without becoming reserved and emotionally remote in the process.

That’s the thing with ambitious projects: Sometimes you stumble. “The Good Shepherd,” whatever its missteps, has ambition to spare. Epic in scope and provocative in execution, the movie is a compelling examination of Cold War-era espionage. The Cold War is over, but the saga of Edward Wilson feels curiously relevant today, in the wake of faulty CIA intelligence on WMDs and questions about where interrogation ends and torture begins.

"The History Boys," dir. Nicholas Hytner (Oklahoma Gazette)

Caveat, cinephile: While you will find much to admire in Nicholas Hytner’s film version of Alan Bennett’s many-award-winning 2004 play, “The History Boys,” you might well, as do I, also find that with which to take exception.

First, that to admire. One of England’s most popular playwrights, Bennett is a writer of wit and emotional insight. The themes in this story of a diverse group of boys at a Yorkshire grammar school working for admission to Cambridge or Oxford are unimpeachable in their wisdom.

In teachers Hector (Richard Griffiths) and Irwin (Stephen Campbell Moore), Bennett sets up two opposing approaches to education and comes down heavily on the side of learning for learning’s sake. He scorns the idea of education as a mere means to the end of career success or financial security.

Middle-aged Hector, a portly, impassioned spouter of poetry and lover of lines from melodramatic films, sees learning in the arts and humanities as a never-ending process of life enrichment and character development.

Younger, thinner, hipper Irwin sees education as a tool to achieve goals, the most immediate of which here is acceptance at either Cambridge or Oxford. Irwin teaches strategy, how to spin what one knows and manipulate responses in entrance interviews and on exams to make of oneself a product one of the two prestigious schools will want. What one knows doesn’t matter as much as how one can use it to advance in life.

Hytner also directed the original play, and his filmed version of it is funny and touching and clever almost without pause. Most of the film’s cast comes from that stage production. Griffiths won an Olivier, the British equivalent of a Tony, for his performance. Although their characters are all clearly types — the thick-headed athletic one, the selfish handsome one, the sensitive gay artistic one, etc. — the actors are appealing and, for the most part, believable.

Now, the exception. Set in the homoerotic context of the British all-male grammar school tradition, “The History Boys” explores the sexual tensions inherent in boyish crushes on teachers and the difficulties to which denial of one’s sexuality can lead. No problem.

However, Hector daily takes a different one of his beloved pupils for a ride on the back of his motorbike so he can fondle the boy’s genitals. Problem. A teacher touching a 17- or even 18-year-old student sexually, no matter how vital a life force that teacher represents, just isn’t acceptable. If Hector were a straight man and the student a female, all would be outraged.

Irwin, too, struggles mightily with the desire to have a sexual relationship with a pupil. Problem. In a stagy final scene looking forward to what the boys become as men, the openly gay student explains that now a grammar-school teacher himself, he daily fights the urge to touch his boys. PROBLEM. Suggesting gay men struggle with unceasing desire for young boys feeds a dangerous stereotype unfairly linking homosexuality with pedophilia.

Bennett has expressed in various places his conflicted feelings about his sexual orientation. They show here, and they do harm.

Oklahoma Film Critics Circle Announces 2006 Awards

The Oklahoma Film Critics Circle has announced its annual awards for the best and worst in film for 2006.

“This year saw Oklahoma’s film critics for the first time working as a group in deciding awards on a statewide level,” said Kathryn Jenson White, film critic for the Oklahoma Gazette and founding president of the critics’ organization. “We created OFCC in February 2006 so that we could work together to promote film and increase the visibility of Oklahoma’s film viewing community among filmmakers and studios. The film critics of Oklahoma see all the major films of any given year and write hundreds of reviews of them as individuals. They also choose their best-of-the-year films for their individual media outlets. These awards represent our consensus.”

Representing print outlets in Oklahoma with consistently active film critics — the Oklahoma Gazette, The Oklahoman, the Tulsa World, Urban Tulsa Weekly, The Norman Transcript and The Edmond Sun — OFCC has 12 voting members.

“The voting was intense in this our first year,” Jenson White said. “While Martin Scorsese’s ‘The Departed’ and Paul Greengrass’ ‘United 93’ were clear favorites, the tally for the rest of the films we nominated for our Top 10 list included many great films just under those that got the most votes. The performance categories were particularly strong in 2006, with only two votes separating Helen Mirren’s amazing depiction of Queen Elizabeth II in “The Queen” from Judi Dench’s wonderful turn in ‘Notes on a Scandal.’ The Best First Feature category was also hotly contested, with the film that came in second to ‘Little Miss Sunshine,’ ‘Thank You for Smoking,’ gathering passionate support.”

While 2006 ended as a strong year for fine films and outstanding performances, the news wasn’t all good. OFCC critics named 27 films as contenders for Obvious Worst Film of the Year and another 25 for Not-So-Obvious Worst Film of the Year.

“As professional moviegoers, we can’t choose to see just the films we want to, of course, so all our members see many failed films,” Jenson White said. “And although we agree on many films, all of us also have individualized tastes. While ‘Borat’ made our Top 10 list, several of our voting members placed it on one of their worst film nomination slates. ‘Superman Returns’ and ‘Shut Up and Sing’ had champions, but not quite enough votes to make the best list. The Not-So-Obvious Worst Film category contains films that, like this year’s choice, ‘Bobby,’ tried nobly but failed, and films that had many good qualities but some element a critic considered a fatal flaw.”

Not all of 2006’s films opened in Oklahoma before voting for the year’s best took place, although studios provided press screenings and DVDs of many of their films so critics could assess and consider them for year-end awards.

“One of our goals with these awards is to help studios understand that enough Oklahomans love good film to make it worth their while to open films here,” Jenson White said. “We aren’t a major market, but we have a dedicated group of cinephiles in the state who hunger to see the best films made each year.”

OKLAHOMA FILM CRITICS CIRCLE 2006 FILM AWARDS

Top 10 Movies
“Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan”
“Casino Royale”
“The Departed”
“Half Nelson”
“The Last King of Scotland”
“Little Children”
“Little Miss Sunshine”
“Pan’s Labyrinth”
“The Queen”
“United 93”

Best Film
“United 93,” dir. Paul Greengrass

Best Director
“Martin Scorsese, “The Departed”

Best First Film
“Little Miss Sunshine,” dir. Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris

Obviously Worst Film
“Basic Instinct 2,” dir. Michael Caton-Jones

Not So Obviously Worst Film
“Bobby,” dir. Emilio Estevez

Best Actor
Forest Whitaker, “The Last King of Scotland”

Best Actress
Helen Mirren, “The Queen”

Best Supporting Actor
Jackie Earle Haley, “Little Children”

Best Supporting Actress
Cate Blanchett, “Notes on a Scandal”

Breakout Performance
Jennifer Hudson, “Dreamgirls”

Best Documentary
“An Inconvenient Truth,” dir. Davis Guggenheim

Best Foreign Film
“Pan’s Labyrinth,” dir. Guillermo del Toro

Best Animated Feature
“Cars,” dir. John Lasseter and Joe Ranft

CONTACT:
Kathryn Jenson White
President
Oklahoma Film Critics Circle
405.820.3438 (cell)
405.366.1696

"The Pursuit of Happyness," dir. Gabrielle Muccino (Oklahoma Gazette)

Gabriele Muccino’s “The Pursuit of Happyness” so trumpets its uplifting message that whatever subtlety this story of a man’s triumph over adversity might have had gets drowned out in the fanfare. In fact, the title of this teachy/preachy film might just as well have been “The Happyness of Positive Thinking” or “Happyness of Closing the Sale” or even “Chris Gardner’s Pluck,” a nod to the American-dream writing machine who gave repeated fictional voice to what Norman Vincent Peale and Zig Ziglar later made marketable as a commodity: inspirational stories of those who grab the brass ring because of their hard work, faith and determination.

The Italian Muccino directs his first English-language film with a plodding literalism that proves, as it has in many such films, that too much solemn inspiration leads to the expiration of a film’s aesthetic spirit. In an attempt to lighten the lesson’s otherwise unremittingly leaden load of “I think I can, I think I can,” Muccino weaves a running joke involving hippies throughout the plot, but the humor is tone deaf. Equally inharmonious is the film’s self-referentially cute final moment.

Will Smith stars as Chris Gardner, a very wealthy San Francisco stockbroker whose rags-to- riches story — like that phrase — has cliché written all over it. The story is true, however, or at least has the Stephen Colbert-coined quality of “truthiness,” as close as Hollywood generally comes to what really happened under the rubric of “Inspired by a true story” or “Based on a true story.”

In the scripted version of Gardner’s life, we meet him as he is bottoming out financially in ’80s San Francisco — bad years for the economy as Reagan reigned and his trickle down theory led to an economic drought for many in the working and middle classes. Gardner’s wife (Thandie Newton), fed up with the salesman’s failure to support the family, leaves him and their 5-year-old son (Jaden Christopher Syre Smith, Will Smith’s son). Gardner asks a man driving a very expensive red sports car what he does for a living. The man tells him he has found the Holy Hot Wheels by being a knight of the stock market.

Gardner undertakes a grueling six-month quest (an unpaid internship at Dean Witter Reynolds) to become a true knight. Along the way he slays the dragons of homelessness and jousts with despair. Because he is pure of heart — spoiler alert (just kidding) — he succeeds.

How close the film’s story is to Gardner’s actual experience is, of course, irrelevant. How close watching this film is to reading the advice in a Franklin Covey planner isn’t. Both the Smiths and Newton deliver solid, believable performances that result in a few true emotional moments. The social commentary on how close many in America are to homelessness rings just as true today as it did during the morning in America years.

Gardner’s real-life achievement is undeniably impressive. Combined, however, these grace notes don’t come together in a stirring symphony of the triumph of the human spirit. If Muccino had turned down the trumpets, they might well have done.

“Déjà Vu,” dir. Tony Scott (Oklahoma Gazette)

Past Mistakes

Living in the past tends to work out better in art than in real life. In moviedom, time travel has long been irresistible, a literal pastime ripe with the stuff of great stories – tragedy and romance, fate and existential crisis. As such, it’s all the more baffling that the action-thriller “Déjà Vu” manages to seem so bloodless.

Denzel Washington stars as Doug Carlin, a sharp-eyed Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) agent looking into the bombing of a New Orleans ferryboat. In the course of his investigation, Doug discovers that the corpse of a woman, Claire Kuchever (Paula Patton), has been found washed ashore in a neighboring parish. The body, covered in burns and the residue of explosives, appears to be one of the ferry victims.

Trouble is, Claire’s body was found an hour before the explosion. Doug concludes that the woman’s killer must be the bomber, and that solving Claire’s murder will lead him to the terrorist.

From this tantalizing mystery, “Déjà Vu” disappears down a rabbit hole of strained ideas. Doug is enlisted by an FBI agent (Val Kilmer) to help scan video recorded from a cockamamie device that can show everything in a specified location, and from multiple angles. The only drawback is that the data, ostensibly integrated from satellites, can only reveal what has occurred four days earlier. It isn’t long before Doug learns that the real explanation for what he’s seeing involves string theory, wormholes and the like.

Despite its sci-fi leanings, the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced “Déjà Vu” is grounded in modern-day American disaster. The New Orleans location, of course, reveals a Katrina-ravaged metropolis, while the ferry explosion recalls the World Trade Center attack as well as the Oklahoma City federal building bombing. Oklahoma City, in fact, is referenced by Doug and his colleagues as a kind of shorthand for a shared tragedy -- sort of what Chinatown was to the 1974 detective film of the same name.

“Déjà Vu” must have looked great on paper, an action-thriller with a kick of mind-bending time travel. Alas, time-travel flicks invariably suffer from gaping lapses in logic. The successful ones (think “12 Monkeys” or even “Back to the Future”) overcome such handicaps by highlighting the romanticism of the exercise. But “Déjà Vu” fails to muster much humanity. Tony Scott’s direction is muscular but soulless. Like a speck of dirt on a white glove, the movie’s slickness makes it easier to spot the plot holes, none of which can really be discussed here without spoilers.

Inspired moments are compromised when the story can’t withstand even mild scrutiny. No one can deny the giddy fun of a chase involving an ATF agent and the phantom image of a car from four days earlier -- but it makes no sense, not even in the convoluted ground rules set up by “Déjà Vu.”

Still, truly bodacious movies deserve some praise. Mainstream Hollywood movies are not exactly renowned for taking risks, and so a flick willing to do so -- however flawed -- is worth an attaboy or two.

"Stranger Than Fiction," dir. Marc Forster (Oklahoma Gazette)

Literary Device

Recently a friend of mine was reading a bedtime story to his four-year-old daughter when she blindsided him with a question. Did the characters in the story, she demanded to know, realize they were in a book?

Good question. My friend was stumped.

That sort of query likely inspired novice screenwriter Zach Helm to pen “Stranger Than Fiction,” which imagines what would happen if a flesh-and-blood man discovered that he was in a work of literature.

At first blush, one might assume the movie is the creation of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” “Adaptation”) Hollywood’s reigning master of absurdity. But this film plays more like Kaufman Lite. While Helm and director Marc Forster (“Finding Neverland”) have devised a plot that M.C. Escher would have loved, “Stranger Than Fiction” is more interested in tugging heartstrings than blowing minds.

Will Ferrell finally graduates from raucous comedy to quirky leading man as IRS agent Harold Crick, a painfully straight arrow who leads a painfully solitary existence. As an omniscient female narrator tells us, Harold eats alone, washes the dishes alone and sleeps alone. In the morning, he counts brushstrokes while brushing his teeth.

Soon we learn that this narrator also happens to be audible to Harold Crick. The internal voice starts to drive him batty, especially when he is sent to audit a free-spirited baker, Ana Pascal (Maggie Gyllenhaal), to whom he is strongly attracted.

The voiceover strikes an ominous tone after Harold resets his wristwatch and asks a stranger for the correct time. “Little did he know,” intones the narrator, “that this seemingly innocuous act would result in his imminent death.”

Afraid he has somehow been ensnared by fiction, Harold seeks help from a literary professor (Dustin Hoffman). The professor advises that Harold’s best hope for self-preservation might be to try ensuring that his story is a comedy. There’s only one hitch; Harold is trapped in tragedy. His author, Kay Eiffel (Emma Thompson) is renowned for killing off her main characters. Fortunately for Harold, she is paralyzed by writer’s block, unsure of how to snuff out her newest protagonist.

Ferrell gets to flex his acting chops here, playing a character so perversely guarded that even his apartment is an exercise in drabness. The entire cast shines. Thompson is terrifically neurotic as the chain-smoking novelist, and Gyllenhaal and Hoffman are typically excellent. Only Queen Latifah seems wasted in a pointless role as Kay’s assistant.

“Stranger Than Fiction” poses rarified questions about fiction, but in the end it’s a genuinely sentimental tale that revels in the pleasures of the real world. As Harold resolves to live the life he’s always wanted, “Stranger Than Fiction” finds much to love -- timeless literature, Fender Stratocasters and, in one memorable scene, milk and cookies. Such joys receive an ample boost from a stellar post-punk soundtrack that features Spoon and the Jam.

The movie also celebrates great storytelling. For all its winking postmodernist vibe, “Stranger Than Fiction” is a real crowd-pleaser. It toys with art and reality, but ultimately acknowledges that both realms have very different responsibilities.