Erik Moe Art & Design

Having recently posted my picks for best documentaries of 2006 over at About.com, I feel the need to praise some fiction. Either my memory is shot or it wasn’t a great year for Hollywood/Indiewood, so I’m keeping this list short:

1. The Science of Sleep - A delightful portrayal of the life of an artist struggling in the “real world” of work. I wonder why this one appealed to me. Fun stop motion animation and imaginative art/machines. Irresistible acting from Gael Garcia Bernal, Charlotte Gainsbourg. Directed by Michel Gondry.
2. Little Miss Sunshine - I really wasn’t all that excited by this film’s child beauty pageant premise going in, so I probably wouldn’t have gone to see it if it hadn’t been playing at the much-loved, cheap, and retro Riverview Theater when I went home to Minneapolis. Little Miss Sunshine really made me laugh out loud a few times and despite its absurdity and quirky Wes Anderson-esque family, it felt true to life. Directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris.

That’s it. I’ve mentally processed about three hundred top ten lists in the past month, and don’t feel like I’m missing anything here. There was plenty I didn’t see since I spent much of my viewing time on nonfiction, but I don’t see any prominent films that come close to these. Most of what I saw this year was just O.K. That includes Borat. You may, of course, disagree in the comments.