My 2006 Oscar Ballot

Yesterday we finished our twenty-part series about the 2006 Oscar race.  Every one of our 20 OVP categories I saw all of the nominees, and you can find links at the bottom of this article if you're just catching up.  Today, though, it's my turn to take a look at the overall list, finishing up 2006 by saying who I would've nominated in every Oscar category.  As you might've caught on, I "got" Oscar's leanings in 2006 but ultimately think that he missed the mark in what wasn't a wildly thrilling year.  There were, however, some truly great movies that the Academy inexplicably skipped, and we're getting into those below.  Obviously I can't see every film from 2006 (though, like I said, I have seen every Oscar-nominated narrative, feature-length movie of that year), so this isn't all-encompassing, but I did make a point of seeking out most of the major precursor films from this year as well as the ones I caught due to interest.  Here's where I landed:

Picture

Casino Royale

Children of Men

The Departed

The Devil Wears Prada

Inside Man

The Painted Veil

Pan's Labyrinth

A Prairie Home Companion

United 93

Volver

Gold: As long as I live I will never understand why Children of Men wasn't instantly hailed as a masterpiece.  I sat in that theater for it, which I only saw because a friend requested, and was gobsmacked as to how good it was.  One of the best pictures of the decade, and one of the easiest Best Picture calls I've ever made.

Silver: Behind it would be Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth.  I sometimes struggle with del Toro's indulgent filmmaker style, a strange combination of the macabre & the whimsical, but this comes alive in Pan's Labyrinth, a perfect marriage of the two (and such a pretty film).

Bronze: I'm going to give this slightly to United 93, a movie that totally blew me away the first time I saw it.  Greengrass's approach to a story everyone knows the ending toward is so calculated, with such little fat, that you still find yourself rooting against a finale you know is coming.

Director

Alfonso Cuaron (Children of Men)

Guillermo del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth)

Paul Greengrass (United 93)

Spike Lee (Inside Man)

Martin Scorsese (The Departed)

Gold: Cuaron is so good so often that it's easy to take for granted his skill as a director.  But no one should take a movie as good as Children of Men for granted.  His ability to quickly define a reconstructed modern-day, then show us a miracle in the form of the oldest story in mankind (a pregnant woman bringing life into the world), is a revelation.

Silver: As I mentioned above, I can't get past what Paul Greengrass does in United 93.  A filmmaker that sometimes leans a bit too heavily into masculine energy, United 93 feels like a narrative film that doesn't need the documentary-style rhythm that other pictures of this nature might have borrowed from to underline the "it's a true story" approach.

Bronze: Martin Scorsese finally won an Oscar for a movie that might not be his greatest, but is certainly a correct film to give a statue for directing.  He brings such a specific vision to this project, giving us an epic that is actually leading toward a fated conclusion.

Actor

Daniel Craig (Casino Royale)

Leonardo DiCaprio (The Departed)

Ryan Gosling (Half Nelson)

Clive Owen (Children of Men)

Denzel Washington (Inside Man)

Gold: Okay, you're going to need to adjust to Children of Men winning a lot of gold medals here, as that's what it deserves.  It's particularly deserving when it comes to leading man Clive Owen, who brings an everyday schmo attitude to a man who doesn't fit the hero mold, even if others have seen that in him his whole, increasingly empty life.

Silver: Leonardo DiCaprio's best work for Scorsese?  I tend to think so, as he not only totally overshadows his other leading man (sorry Matt, this isn't your day), but brings a haziness to this part (particularly his struggles with his financial station) that other actors would have forced into clarity (and potentially ruined the story).

Bronze: Daniel Craig's work in Casino Royale was the kind of jaw-dropping game-changer that the increasingly stale Bond franchise needed to stay afloat.  It wasn't just that he brought a brutish sense of reality into his 007, but he also does it with a natural style that makes him the clear heir to Connery (and at least here, perhaps surpassing him?).

Actress

Penelope Cruz (Volver)

Judi Dench (Notes on a Scandal)

Helen Mirren (The Queen)

Meryl Streep (The Devil Wears Prada)

Kate Winslet (Little Children)

Gold: I guess if I'm going to copy Oscar's lineup verbatim (for the first, and perhaps only(?!?) time in an acting race) I might as well do it completely.  Helen Mirren keeps her Elizabeth elusive, unknowable, a descendant of divine will who can't quite comprehend the situation she's found herself in...but is smart enough to know it requires finesse.

Silver: Meryl Streep's defining roles when we write the epitaph of her career might be Sophie Zawistowski & Miranda Priestley, both women who centered their existence around sacrifice (albeit very different sacrifices).  Streep redefined her career with Miranda, bringing this "boss bitch" persona full throttle to a new generation ready to obsess over her.

Bronze: If Mirren is reaching the apex of her career & Streep reinventing hers, Penelope Cruz was finally defining hers.  After years of being put in girlfriend/celebrity roles, Cruz landed a complicated, brilliant opportunity with Pedro Almodovar and took it.  We consider Cruz a great actress today mostly because she was just so good in Volver that we had to readjust our expectations.

Supporting Actor

Michael Caine (Children of Men)

Jackie Earle Haley (Little Children)

Jack Nicholson (The Departed)

Stanley Tucci (The Devil Wears Prada)

Mark Wahlberg (The Departed)

Gold: I blame the critics a bit for not noticing Children of Men until it was too late for awards season to react.  It's entirely on Oscar, though, that Jack Nicholson, one of their truly beloved actors, gives one of the best performances of his late career in The Departed (their Best Picture!) and they still skipped over him.

Silver: Michael Caine, another Oscar perennial, is in a similar boat.  Caine is splendid as a hippie who still has faith in the world (that his friend Theo doesn't), but knows that he is too old to get to see the ending of this tale.

Bronze: In about ten minutes, Mark Wahlberg not only steals every scene that he's in, but he also gives us a complete creation, a live wire cop who feels authentic to a Boston Police Department.  This couldn't be a bigger departure from Dirk Diggler, but it's his best performance since then (and sadly he's never approached this level in the years after).

Supporting Actress

Claire-Hope Ashitay (Children of Men)

Adriana Barraza (Babel)

Emily Blunt (The Devil Wears Prada)

Jennifer Hudson (Dreamgirls)

Meryl Streep (A Prairie Home Companion)

Gold: One could hardly look at Emily Blunt's career and think "unused potential"-she's been a legitimate movie star for a decade now, and has succeeded in virtually every genre.  That said, I've never seen her better or so totally committed to a role as she is in The Devil Wears Prada-the kind of scene-stealing that basically invented this category.

Silver: Close behind her is Jennifer Hudson, who some might consider category fraud, but I think that's only because she makes Dreamgirls about her through her music.  I mean, honestly-who is going to be able to compete with Effie White when Jennifer Hudson is using the whole piano to bring her to life.

Bronze: Adriana Barraza is the saving grace in Babel, not just by having the best & most compelling storyline, but also by not bothering with the framing device, and giving us a complete, heartbreaking tale of one woman caught in an impossible situation.

Adapted Screenplay

Children of Men

The Departed

The Devil Wears Prada

The Painted Veil

A Prairie Home Companion

Gold: Quickly investing in world-building, followed by a sprawling journey-tale that brings us through the lives of two individuals thrown together by chance, Children of Men is well-plotted & filled with throwaway lines that seem to define the meaning of life in the process.

Silver: Richly-dialogued (look at all of those great one-liners from Mark Wahlberg), I cannot stop thinking about the genius of how The Departed leads to such a thrilling, knowledgeable conclusion.  That requires a skilled artist behind the typewriter.

Bronze: Robert Altman's films are, of course, a product of the actors as much as the writers.  But A Prairie Home Companion, which is under-appreciated in my estimation, tells a story about how life moves on, even when we're not ready for it.

Original Screenplay

Inside Man

The Lives of Others

Pan's Labyrinth

The Queen

Volver

Gold: On the surface, Inside Man reads as mostly a commercial play from Spike Lee, him using a larger budget & a bunch of A-list actors to get the easy payday.  But Spike Lee films are never about just what they seem, and Inside Man with its commentary on criminal justice & economic equity, is crackling with smart dialogue.

Silver: You couldn't find a more polar opposite film to Inside Man if you tried than Pan's Labyrinth, proving the difficulty of awards lists like this, but both films understand their audience, and are a complete vision.  Del Toro's picture leans heavily & with great relish into its fairy tale motif.

Bronze: We'll finish this trio off with another director who is never satisfied with just what's on the page, Pedro Almodovar.  Volver is at once a story of great atrocity & terrific fun (there's some heavy subject matter between the flashy costumes & throwaway comedy)-you need a skilled screenwriter to balance such a tale out.

Animated Feature Film

Cars

Happy Feet

Monster House

Gold: A truly weak year, and so I'm going to rip off Oscar's lineup wholesale (and I did, in fact, seek out additional screenings to see if there was a missing gem in 2006-there isn't).  The best of this bunch is Monster House, which uses a rather rudimentary animation style to its benefit, giving us a story of growing up (and the loneliness that can ensue in a life disregarded) without a lot of frills or detours.

Silver: Happy Feet is such a strange movie for George Miller to have an Oscar for, but the film's message of environmentalism and Robin Williams adding his signature brand of humor (that played so well in animation) make up for some of its struggles with the script.

Bronze: Like I said above, this isn't a great year for animation (I'm open to bump this in the comments, but I did see a few other pictures and they didn't stack up).  Cars is not necessarily a bad film, it's just bad by Pixar standards.  That said, it's easily the prettiest of these films, a dusty retreat that gets lost in the numerous sequels & spinoffs to the franchise it lost.

Sound Mixing

Children of Men

Inside Man

Pan's Labyrinth

A Prairie Home Companion

United 93

Gold: The sounds of a world starting to collapse in on itself are mesmerizing in Children of Men...the way that you can hear nature starting to peak out from every angle, reclaiming what is its from the background.

Silver: Gorgeous score work along with excellent sound structure, Pan's Labyrinth totally amps up the fantasy element through solid aural cues.

Bronze: Obviously a film that is reliant on Sound Editing more than mixing, United 93 manages to still use its sound design in early scenes leading up to the attacks to underscore the tension & urgency of the day, making it that much scarier when we get to hear some of the more familiar beats inputted by the editors.

Sound Editing

Children of Men

Letters from Iwo Jima

Pan's Labyrinth

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

United 93

Gold: The entire sequence with the car crash is spectacular, but it's not just the sound editing in that sequence that gets Children of Men this medal.  It's also the way that it inputs subtler sound editing cues, like the early explosion or the way that it can make a world dying on-itself into a place still brimming with people in rare crowd scenes.

Silver: The entire late plane crash sequence in United 93 is mesmerizing-the way that they work (on what I have to assume was a relatively tight budget for an action film) to make every pop, click, and noise feel real is what makes the film so compelling.

Bronze: The sounds of Pan's Labyrinth feel (appropriately) plucked from another world, which works marvelously against the more realistic jolt of bullets & battle scenes that juxtapose against our young protagonist's reality.

Original Score

The Black Dahlia

Inside Man

Little Children

The Painted Veil

Pan's Labyrinth

Gold: The melodic cues of Pan's Labyrinth are impossible to forget-that stray piano against a solo violin, giving us an edgy, just-out-of-reach fairy tale that has harsh consequences for all involved.

Silver: Mark Isham is working within the long tradition of enigmatic scores that have littered neo-noirs for decades.  The bells that double upon the piano are my favorite part, hinting at the way the film "doubles" up our look at this unknowable Black Dahlia.

Bronze: I know that Thomas Newman isn't for everyone, and there are times when even I have had too much of this clear disciple of John Williams.  But I feel like his fast tempos in Little Children, the way that he gives a domestic drama a specific feel, are exactly what the movie needs to underline the simmering tensions in suburbia.

Original Song

"I Need to Wake Up," (An Inconvenient Truth)

"Ju Hua Tai," (Curse of the Golden Flower)

"Listen," (Dreamgirls)

"Love You I Do," (Dreamgirls)

"You Know My Name," (Casino Royale)

Gold: It's hard to listen to Melissa Etheridge's "I Need to Wake Up" and not bemoan the lost years of Trump & McConnell that have pushed the climate to the brink (though we pray not over it)-her rock star prowess gives us a desperate, strong energy that such an issue deserves.

Silver: Chris Cornell's Bond theme was not well received at the time, but I liked the rock take that "You Know My Name" brings to a new chapter of Bond-it definitely still hints at John Barry, but it is bringing Bond into a new century.

Bronze: "Love You I Do" is my favorite of the new songs from Dreamgirls, not just because it's Jennifer Hudson on fire, but also because it gives the movie some of the "on the big screen" energy that it needs-we see an expansion of the style of 1960's music the movie is embodying.

Art Direction

Children of Men

Curse of the Golden Flower

Marie Antoinette

Pan's Labyrinth

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

Gold: One of the best tricks in Children of Men is the way that London and its countryside blend the modern with the technological with the dilapidated.  Look at how in a world without a future how certain things (luxuries, conveniences) are prioritized over building & growth.

Silver: Pan's Labyrinth looks so much like a 17th Century oil painting, as if the art directors have gone through a stuffy old museum & found a landscape that will spring to life from the shadows.  Totally immersive, brilliant work-it's iconic for a reason.

Bronze: Sometimes "most art direction" comes across as an insult-films that have too much going on don't give your eyes enough of a respite.  But that's not needed when you're in the golden splendor of Curse of the Golden Flower, which is intended to be an over-the-top experience.

Cinematography

The Black Dahlia

Children of Men

Inside Man

Letters from Iwo Jima

Pan's Labyrinth

Gold: I told you you'd get a lot of gold medals for Children of Men.  But honestly, how do you pick something else?  Lubezki's camera is so crucial to the way this story unfolds in the background, and when it comes to the centerstage (the scene in the car), it upends our expectations of what is going to happen in this universe.

Silver: The way that Pan's Labyrinth's glowing blue and overwhelming white light permeates throughout the film gives it a distinctive feel.  Every film feeds into del Toro's Grimm motif, but still with modern flares and action happening in each corner of the movie.

Bronze: Obviously there is an homage in The Black Dahlia to the neo-noir films from the 1970's that came before it, but the movie's camera sometimes does the heaviest lifting when it comes to the story.  Look at the way we see a mangled shot of Elizabeth Short...and then pull away to different action instead of going toward this woman-the cinematographer knows that Short isn't even the headliner in her own story.

Costume

Curse of the Golden Flower

The Devil Wears Prada

Marie Antoinette

The Painted Veil

Pan's Labyrinth

Gold: With period dramas, you sometimes just have to yell "uncle" because what they're doing is on such a level that it doesn't matter that you might not want to give it the trophy.  But Marie Antoinette is not such a movie-it adds modern flares, idiosyncrasies, and a ton of character into every over-the-top gown.

Silver: "You're not going to Paris" wouldn't be such a threat were it not for the cascade of couture on display in The Devil Wears Prada, with every outfit immaculately & effortlessly chosen to convey this fashion world (and how it's completely out-of-reach to mere mortals).

Bronze: Some might have gotten distracted by the gigantic golden bodice worn by Gong Li throughout the movie, but while this is an impressive character touch (my vote for the best single costume of the year), the entire team of Curse of the Golden Flower is bedecked with grand headdresses & arresting beauty.

Film Editing

Children of Men

The Departed

Inside Man

Pan's Labyrinth

United 93

Gold: I mean, at this point you know this song, but if you think I'm going to look at Children of Men, with its breakneck pacing, from-scratch modern-day world, and excellent use of long takes to heighten the suspense, and not give it the gold, you are sadly mistaken.

Silver: This is honestly a great list of contenders, and in a different year I'd have been very proud to give United 93 this trophy.  Like CoM, it's an exhilarating thrill ride in terms of the way it approaches a heavy, real-life topic, and I know I've said it above, but taking a story you know the ending to and making it feel new is a tough trick.

Bronze: Thelma Schoonmaker is a wizard, and the way that she can make Scorsese's films not only feel short (when they never are), but also like they are filled with a specific vision that leans heavily into action sequences and deliberate dialogue breaks, is nothing short of spectacular in The Departed.

Makeup & Hairstyling

Children of Men

Curse of the Golden Flower

Pan's Labyrinth

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

X-Men: The Last Stand

Gold: Pan's Labyrinth not only gets my gold medal by the biggest margin in this article, it'd honestly make my Top 10 favorite makeup jobs of all time if I were to rank such things (someday, hopefully!).  Absolutely mind-boggling recreations & elevated monster looks.

Silver: You'd be forgiven for thinking that the best things about Pirates are the effects, but there's tons of additional barnacles, wounds, and scrapes to abound & add realistic texture to this Disney sequel.

Bronze: Every one of these My Ballots I make a point of underlining not all makeup needs to be about making someone ugly.  Curse of the Golden Flower takes already gorgeous movie stars and elevates their looks to that of the gods, totally radiant & matching the gaudy grandeur of the sets & costumes.

Visual Effects

Children of Men

Pan's Labyrinth

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

Poseidon

Superman Returns

Gold: A total game-changer in the world of Visual Effects, Davy Jones and his Dead Man's Chest army of barnacled crewmen are one of those moments where a sequel takes some truly splendid original effects and just builds upon them in ways where every inch of the massive budget is on-display.

Silver: Pan's Labyrinth is obviously a movie that puts makeup in the forefront, but its special effects are not to be denied, particularly the single character design of Pan himself, and the different levels of realism between the fairy tale world & the war-torn country.

Bronze: Children of Men's effects work is proof that good visual work doesn't have to be showy to be splendid.  The way that Cuaron approaches this world, oftentimes giving us a universe where humans have continued evolving, but also let other aspects crumble (what's the point without a future?) is so specific & totally adds to the scary "it could happen" aspects of the picture.

Also in 2006: Picture, Director, Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2006

Other My Oscar Ballots: 2004, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2019

OVP: Picture (2006)

OVP: Best Picture (2006)

The Nominees Were...

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Jon Kilik, & Steve Golin, Babel

Graham King, The Departed

Clint Eastwood, Steven Spielberg, & Robert Lorenz, Letters from Iwo Jima

David T. Friendly, Peter Saraf, & Marc Turtletaub, Little Miss Sunshine

Andy Harries, Christine Langan, & Tracey Seaweed, The Queen

My Thoughts: "And so it is...."  Though Closer came out two years before this movie, every time we finish up one of our 2006 Oscar series (we'll do a My Ballot tomorrow, but obviously that's personal preferences and not focused on our main Oscar theme), I have that song by Damien Rice humming through my head, as we put one last year behind us.  I've found that because we're pretty thorough in getting not just the movies of a year from Oscar's fields, but I make a point of seeing most of the other pictures I intend on eventually seeing from that annum, we don't get to revisit a specific year very often after this article publishes.  So with that bit of profundity out of the way, let's say goodbye to Oscar's top picks of 2006.

I sometimes get accused of not loving films that center around joyful things, an accusation I have endured since I first became a film critic in college.  One of the films that I got this first levied at me for was Little Miss Sunshine, which is a crowdpleaser film that I certainly don't hate.  It's hard to hate a movie like Little Miss Sunshine, which deals in pleasantries and ultimately leads to a happy ending for most involved.  But it's also a movie that relies heavily on cliches, cliches that are pleasant, but cliches nonetheless, and it's not a movie that resonated with me enough to look past that.  It's nice that comedy was recognized by Oscar, but it wasn't my cup-of-tea.

The Queen is my cup-of-tea (there's a British/tea joke there, but I am going to skip it since we all already made the connection) as a I love a good royalty drama.  The Queen is not breaking any new ground cinematically-this is not the kind of movie that future filmmakers are going to look back on with great fondness.  But it's pleasant, and it serves as a good movie to highlight a great performance-that's nothing to sneeze at.  It's also quick, light, & never struggles to keep the audience entertained.  In an era where movies oftentimes feel bloated or overlong, The Queen doesn't indulge such frivolity, and considering the massive biography surrounding its two real-life protagonists, there was room for such detours.

The Departed is a movie that also never feels overlong, which is a neater trick since it actually is long.  It accomplishes that by fleshing out some of its side characters (particularly Jack Nicholson's crime boss), as well as giving us a story with focus.  One of the bigger problems with long films is that it feels like they're editing as we go, but as Scorsese's picture approaches its conclusion, it's clear that every decision that he's made with all of his major cast has been headed toward the same spiraling finality.  This makes The Departed a strong companion piece to movies like GoodFellas and The Irishman, as they make the audience wonder how much of our life is controllable & how much is fate; in a movie that has economic privilege at its core, this is a savvy observation from Marty.

Babel is also a film that wants to deal toward a conclusion, but it could be a textbook example of a director doing too much & indulging too many whims.  The stories never seem to quite coalesce around each other (particularly Rinko Kikuchi's tale), and after watching movies like Traffic and Crash use this story style, it doesn't feel fresh.  Combine in Gonzalez Inarritu's bizarre obsession with showing pain, suffering, & misery without any sort of respite (I say this in virtually every film review I do of his pictures, but torturing your audience is not "high drama"), and Babel becomes a movie that I'll be happy to leave behind in 2006.

The one film that feels like it's the picture I want to return to the most because I gained a newfound appreciation for it in these articles is Letters from Iwo Jima.  This is an intentional rather than spiritual companion piece to another movie from Clint Eastwood (the dreadful Flags of Our Fathers), but it thankfully can stand on its own, showing us another side of a story that Americans associate with one of their most iconic wartime images.  The cinematography is lovely, the direction steady, and the acting consistent-Letters from Iwo Jima is the sort of subtle work that Eastwood doesn't seem capable of today, but is a reminder of why he became such a force in American pictures.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes split their nominations between Comedy/Musical and Drama, so we have a full ten nominees here.  Drama gave its top prize to Babel, over Bobby, The Departed, Little Chidren and The Queen, while Comedy/Musical went for Dreamgirls against Borat, The Devil Wears Prada, Little Miss Sunshine, and Thank You for Smoking one of the very rare times the Comedy/Musical winner didn't get in for Best Picture but one of its competitors did).  BAFTA went with The Queen with Babel, The Departed, The Last King of Scotland, and Little Miss Sunshine as the defeated, while the PGA went for Little Miss Sunshine over Babel, The Departed, Dreamgirls, and The Queen.  Sixth place was probably Dreamgirls, even if it wasn't a big favorite of Oscar's when the ballots were ultimately counted.

Films I Would Have Nominated: You'll find out tomorrow. 😉

Oscar’s Choice: In what was at the time a very tight race (unlike Best Director, this wasn't preordained), The Departed took the prize over a surging Little Miss Sunshine and an in-the-race Babel.

My Choice: The Departed, and it's not close.  Behind it I'm going to just give it to The Queen over Letters from Iwo Jima, but repeat viewings might juggle that (for very dissimilar movies, they're weirdly even in terms of my respect for them), with Little Miss Sunshine and Babel following (in order).

And with that, we close 2006, though it will carry on in the comments if you so choose.  Are you with Oscar & I siding with The Departed, or does someone want to go with another option in what was (despite modern assumptions) a very wide-open race?  Why do you think Dreamgirls was such a miss with the Academy despite plenty of early buzz?  And overall-what is your favorite movie of 2006?  Share your comments below!

Also in 2006: Director, Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2006

Past Best Picture Contests: 2004, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2019

OVP: Director (2006)

OVP: Best Director (2006)

The Nominees Were...

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Babel

Martin Scorsese, The Departed

Clint Eastwood, Letters from Iwo Jima

Stephen Frears, The Queen

Paul Greengras, United 93

My Thoughts: We are cruising to a conclusion this week!  Though we had a brief hiatus for a few weeks, we have been pushing full-steam through 2006 and we are going to finish up our season with both Director & Picture (and our new feature, the My Oscar Ballot category).  At this point, you'd think we'd have talked about these movies so much I'd have run out of things to say, but weirdly one of these movies it feels like Oscar under-loved (despite such a high-profile citation), so we're going to start with the only movie that didn't get a Best Picture nomination, United 93.

I remember at the time that there was conversation over whether it was too soon to make a movie about 9/11, some five years after the fact (we will have similar criticisms to both the Trump administration and the pandemic, though both are going to have a plethora of movies in the next decade).  Twenty years after-the-fact, though, it's easier to dismiss some of the controversy (art is a reflection of society-no subjects are off limits), and to instead focus on the genius here.  Greengrass does the near impossible with his quick editing & sharp direction-he makes a story we all know the ending to feel like a proper thriller.  Carefully-constructed, with obvious commentary about the political situation as a result of 9/11 but also one that feels invested in telling stories with non-famous actors, Greengrass gives us a brilliant, all-too-real thriller.

But Greengrass didn't win the Oscar-that instead went to Martin Scorsese.  Scorsese's win was so inevitable in 2006 that it's hard to even think of it in retrospect without the clear "obligation" (Scorsese didn't just win this for The Departed-he won it because the Academy had learned a lesson after skipping Hitchcock & Kubrick).  That said, The Departed is a terrific movie, one that unfolds with sly economic commentary, solid mirroring in its story structure, & never reads as a particularly long movie (even though it is).  Scorsese's excellence lies in the way that he clearly has a tunnel vision in a sprawling story, bringing two men to their ultimate collision (and destinies).

Scorsese had two years earlier lost his Oscar to Clint Eastwood, who in a different year might've been looking at a third Best Director trophy.  Eastwood's reputation in recent years has been sullied not just by his political views, but also that he seems to keep making the same movie over-and-over, his libertarian belief system seeping into every tale.  This is what makes the straight-forward approach of Letters from Iwo Jima so compelling-after his "rah rah America" failure with the dreadful Flags of Our Fathers, he brings a more human compassion to the story of the "other side" of a conflict (Eastwood being American & a former Army veteran, though not of World War II), and also an artistic sensibility to the cinematography.  I really liked Letters from Iwo Jima, more than I have any Eastwood since then, and it's a good reminder of the vision that he's capable of if he can keep some of his baser political tendencies at bay.

I also quite liked The Queen, though this isn't on-the-surface as much a "director's film" as the first three movies we profiled here.  Stephen Frears' takes a relatively off-hand approach with his actors, letting the story & their performances tell-the-tale.  This is the correct approach for The Queen, it's worth noting-a movie that has a lot of specific vision wouldn't allow Helen Mirren's work to puncture the story in some of the later moments of the movie, and Frears deserves credit for not heavily telegraphing the movie's inevitable conclusion.  That said, this is not a movie that feels like it has so much great direction as it does "the right amount of direction" and while that's fair, this isn't really a category meant for "didn't screw up the movie."

But it's worth remembering that a director can screw up a movie, which is what happens in Babel.  The movie is too convoluted & its messages too broad to really work (it doesn't have the thriller-like synergy of Traffic, the best of this style of picture), but Gonzalez Inarritu's tendency toward pain & anguish, even when it doesn't serve his movie, makes the picture overbearing.  Every angle of Babel is suffering, and when that happens where you don't have light with the dark, your larger points aren't underlined.  Yes, some parts of life are just bad, but art is supposed to be reflexive of the whole human experience, at least when you want to make a profound statement, and just watching people suffer for a couple of hours is less a movie & more a lesson in patience.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes started the Marty train with a win for The Departed, over Clint (for both Letters and Flags), Frears, & Gonzalez Inarritu.  The BAFTA's threw a curveball in giving the trophy to Greengrass (Scorsese already had a trio of BAFTA's for his work on GoodFellas, it's worth noting) over Gonzalez Inarritu, Frears, Scorsese, & Jonathan Dayton/Valerie Faris (Little Miss Sunshine).  The BAFTA Awards went with Scorsese for their win, here over Dayton/Faris, Frears, Gonzalez Inarritu, & Bill Condon (Dreamgirls).  At the time Condon was the logical sixth place, which isn't a bad argument, but considering how Dreamgirls underperformed with Oscar, I think Dayton/Faris might've been closer than him.

Directors I Would Have Nominated: On Thursday, we will be doing our My Ballot, and since that's close enough to this conversation that you might actually remember some of these spoilers, we're going to skip this...let's just say that I'll definitely be introducing some names that none of the precursors mentioned all season.
Oscar's Choice: Scorsese's coronation might've been unanimous-you get the sense even Clint Eastwood was rooting for him.

My Choice: I am going to buck that trend, though, and give this statue to Paul Greengrass.  I love living in a world where Marty has an Oscar, but the OVP is about picking the best of the five nominees in a vacuum, and in that case I think what Greengrass does is slightly more impressive.  Behind these two, I'd give Eastwood the bronze, then Frears & Gonzalez Inarritu.

Those were my thoughts-how about yours?  Are you all Team Marty or does someone want to stand with me supporting Greengrass?  Do you think this will end up being Clint's last stand with the Oscars, or does he have another nomination in him?  And was it Condon or Dayton/Faris who was just out-of-reach in sixth place?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

Also in 2006: Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2006

Past Best Director Contests: 2004, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2019

OVP: Actress (2006)

OVP: Best Actress (2006)

The Nominees Were...

Penelope Cruz, Volver

Judi Dench, Notes on a Scandal

Helen Mirren, The Queen

Meryl Streep, The Devil Wears Prada

Kate Winslet, Little Children

My Thoughts: On Wednesday, we talked a bit about how weak-sauce the Best Actor field was-one of the worst lineups that Oscar has ever pulled together, and definitely one of the dullest.  The Best Actress field in 2006, though, pulls together (for my money) one of the best that Oscar has come up with.  The rare field to host five winners (though two had to wait a few years to get their statue), and has a quintet of women at the top of their games.  Sadly (but in true Oscar fashion) most of the films that are cited here are not films we saw a lot of in terms of nominations in other categories, so we'll segway into this field with one of the few performances that did.

Helen Mirren won the Oscar in 2006-this is not a spoiler alert, but it does sort of ruin the climax of this article, so I generally don't mention this in the write-ups.  I say it here because this victory has been chalked up in retrospect as the kind of win that happened inevitably-a storied actor at the top of her game getting into an Academy-friendly biopic.  What gets lost in that (not inaccurate) description is that Mirren is glorious in The Queen.  She gives to Elizabeth II (before The Crown tried to three-dimensionalize her) a sense of detachment combined with duty & authenticity.  It would be easy for Mirren to play Elizabeth in private as some broken figure during a moment of national tragedy, but that's not what she does.  Her Queen remains elusive, unknowable, even in her private moments someone who has spent so much time not revealing herself that she sometimes struggles to know where duty ends & Elizabeth begins.  A true triumph from a world-class actor, and the rare case of an overdue performer getting in for some bravura work.

Meryl Streep had been hunting for her third trophy for several decades by the time Prada rolled around, and the "overdue" drum had been beating to give her a statue since at least Bridges of Madison County.  Had it not been for Mirren, it's probable that she would've won it here.  Streep's work here is some of the best of a career that is defined by being "the best."  Miranda Priestly would also be easy to humanize, a woman of immense power who has had to sacrifice much of herself to get where she is, but Streep doesn't play her that way.  Miranda is not a saint, she's not perfect or even a hero, but she is a woman who knows what it takes to succeed, for the good or the bad, and Streep gets that.  It's a small part (she's in less than a third of the film...Dench & Cruz are double that), but she lands every second with a brilliant iconography-Streep has not been this good since.

Judi Dench has made a career out of playing a similar breed of aging British woman-sometimes with money, sometimes without, but a pleasant scene-stealer who is there to please your aunt.  Notes on a Scandal is the closest that Dench has (since becoming a bonafide movie star) come to playing against type, which is a risk (sometimes such things fall flat), but here she nails her part.  Dench is jaw-dropping as a closeted lesbian in lust with a flawed younger teacher, and totally nails every inch of this sociopath.  As an audience we're taught to understand how deep Dench's malevolence goes pretty early on, but it's still a juxtaposition to have sweet Judi Dench tear apart an unknowing Blanchett's life simply for not conforming to her twisted fantasy.  The final scene, in particular, with the cool lies & lack of perspective, totally sell the movie.

It's hard to believe, but at one point it was a question mark as to how good of an actress Penelope Cruz was.  Between the mixed views on Vanilla Sky (which I will be watching later this month, but haven't seen yet) and the press's preoccupation with her love life (specifically dating Tom Cruise), Cruz felt before 2006 to be an actress that was more for the tabloids than the Oscars.  With Volver, she quickly proved herself to be a proper actress, playing the complicated role of Raimunda (a woman with secrets who is being "haunted" by her mother), flawlessly.  Cruz is so good at combining Almodovar's cheeky sense of humor with his propensity for dark plots, and has marvelous chemistry with the cascade of women in the cast.

Kate Winslet was not, in 2006, someone that we were wondering if she could act (this has never really been a question mark in Winslet's storied career).  But in 2006 we were wondering what direction her career would take as she played yet another earth goddess-style figure, ready to be worshiped by Patrick Wilson.  Turns out, this was still essential viewing.  Winslet brings a specific kind of bored energy to her Sara, someone who knows that she can seduce a man, but wants to test exactly how he'll make her feel, as she's walled up so much of her true self.  Little Children is not an easy film to love, but Todd Field's ability with actors is shown best with Winslet's work here, as he lets his actor's natural strengths shift the way we view the character.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes separate their nominations between Drama and Musical/Comedy, so we have ten women nominated for these awards.  The Drama categories gave it up to Mirren, with all save for Streep among the nominees (in her place, Maggie Gyllenhaal in Sherrybaby), while Streep won Comedy/Musical over Annette Bening (Running with Scissors), Beyonce (Dreamgirls), Toni Collette (Little Miss Sunshine), & Renee Zellweger (Miss Potter).  SAG & the Globe went with an exact replica of the Oscar race, both winners & nominees.  Gyllenhaal was probably sixth, but as someone who lived through this year, it was one of those seasons where no one was taking down this Top 5...

Actors I Would Have Nominated: ...and with good reason.  I will reveal my final ballot next week, but the only name that is remotely in contention to take out one of these top five is Naomi Watts in The Painted Veil (a great portrayal of a complicated, thawing woman), and she'd be going for fifth place at best.

Oscar’s Choice: In a different year Streep might have won a third or we would've gotten an early coronation for Penelope Cruz, but in 2006, there was no beating Helen Mirren.

My Choice: I know this will shock the collective internet, but I'm also going to agree with Oscar here. Streep (my silver) gives an iconic turn, but I feel like Mirren ultimately has layers in her performance that go unnoticed until we rewatch.  It's a close race though, with Cruz, Dench, & Winslet bringing up the back.  The rare year where Oscar could have picked anyone & it would've been one of the decade's better decisions.

Those are my thoughts, but now I want to hear yours!  Are you with the collective awards run (including me), or will you go with Miranda Priestley & her legions of memes?  Who's another actor like Judi Dench we want to see play against type as a villain?  And has there ever been such a lock-step Oscar field?  Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Also in 2006: Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2006

Past Best Actress Contests: 2004, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2019