I really hate that Beyonce "to the left, to the left" song.

... and while we're on the topic of things I hate, let's talk about some things that I really don't hate. Everybody has top ten lists at this time of year, and nobody especially cares, but I LOVE them. Like, passionately. So I wanted to throw together a self-serious, totally masturbatory Kevin Manganaro Top Ten Movies of 2006 List. I mean, I REALLY-really love movies, so this seemed like a good way to endorse some shit to the 4-5 people who read this blog. So here goes. Enjoy. Or not. Sorry.

10) Little Children
Todd Fields' dissection of self-destructive suburbia contains not only a provocative look at what it means to be safe in contemporary America but also a knock-it-out-of-the-park performance from Kate Winslet as an adulterous mom. Thoughtful, adventurous stuff.

9) An Inconvenient Truth
The scariest horror movie of the year. Also, since when it Al Gore (a) hot and (b) really touching? Should be mandatory viewing.

8) Come Early Morning
Ashley Judd is perfection as Lucy, a trampy, boozy Southern small-towner with daddy issues in the debut feature from ex-Kevin Smith muse Joey Lauren Adams. It takes a real filmmaking talent to handle Lucy's depressiong and redemption so subtly and with so much compassion. Also, extra points for a subplot about a jukebox.

7) The Queen
Helen Mirren's unprecedented netting of every precursor award was kind of to be expected: She's the Queen, and she rules. Using just a few days in the life of this woman, Peter Morgan's insightful script gives us her whole life crystallized. On a personal note, as someone who finds the whole notion of a monarchy ridiculous and insulting, I was shocked at how convincingly this film makes the case for enduring, unbending, permanent insitutions. Bloody good.

6) Babel
I can't imagine a film that could be a more potent antidote to the ignorant, mean-spirited foreign policy in place in this country right now than this expansive, powerful drama. A stylish international cast does wonders with the material, particularly Rinko Kikuchi as a deaf-mute Japanese teenager on the make for anonymous sex. After two previous dour, self-flaggelating (and lazy) collaborations, director Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu and screenwriter Guillermo Ariaga have struck an awesome balance between the cynical and the heartfelt.

5) Little Miss Sunshine
Priceless. Just... totally priceless.

4) Dreamgirls
I will babble on and on to anyone who will listen about how much I love this movie. It's powerful and superbly performed, but its best asset is undoubtedly the speed and precision with which it tells the well-trod rise-and-fall story. To the untrained eye, director-writer-demigod Bill Condon is just zipping along, offering Cliffs Notes of the plot. But as one marinates in the film, you see that this deceptively simple framework offers sophisticated hints about a whole industry and a whole generation of African American performers who confronted professional compromise.

3) Marie Antoinette
The year's most unjustly derided film is a cooly passionate trip into the head of one of history's most unjustly derided figures. We've all seen plenty of historical biopics that offer some insight into well-known figures and their well-known actions, but this is that rare film that lets you inside another person's head. Their concerns, for two hours, are yours. Their world, for two hours, is yours. With this lovely period head trip, Sofia Coppolla asserts herself as the premiere filmmaker of her generation.

2) The Departed
Martin Scorsese's violent, beautiful, erotic, and thoroughly entertaining cops-and-robbers flick has bragging rights on not only the best performance of Leonardo DiCaprio's career but also on the year's brashest, most tone-perfect screenplay. Mark Wahlberg : The Departed :: Frances McDormand : Fargo. Sharp, idiosyncratic characterizations from a perfectly-assembled cast.

1) A Prairie Home Companion
Even before the passing of Robert Altman (the greatest director in the history of American filmmaking), this movie had made me think about life and death, about what it means to appreciate your life while you're living it. The graceful, supremely generous way that that Altman and this magical cast treat the bittersweet moments of a fictional radio show finale are memorable, inspirationally human, and, like Altman himself, totally original. It's not every movie that holds a rosy mirror up to your life. It takes the work of a master to do that.

OK, that's all. I've been self-indulgent enough. This post is insanely long. I should probably be prosecuted. Have a good MLK day, all.

KEVIN.