1999 is commonly regarded as an excellent movie year, and just as commonly 2008 is seen as a relatively weak one. I didn’t realize how weak until I spent some time today looking over a month’s worth of HE clips from November 2006. Volver, Children of Men, The Lives of Others, Tsotsi, United 93, Babel, Pan’s Labyrinth, Little Miss Sunshine, The Queen, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada — I hereby nominate ’06 as a classic year also. The movies weren’t just better then, but this column, I regret to say, was a more engaging and inventive read.
