Just watched two more of 2006’s best films. The Queen actually isn’t great, but Hellen Mirren’s performance was easily the best of the year.

Pan’s Labyrinth has to be in the mix with Children of Men and United 93 as my best picture of 2006. Simply beautiful. I can now see how Children of Men lost the Best Cinematography oscar (although it still should’ve taken Best Editing). I’m annoyed that Ivana Baquero did not get a Best Actress nomination. I haven’t seen the other films (apart from bits of The Devil Wears Prada, but it’s hard to imagine all four of the other performances were better than the mesmerizing turn the 11 year-old spaniard put in.

I noted last year that the critics’ favored movies of 2005 was loaded with downer movies. The best you could say about some of them was that they were “hopeful”. And before you say “critics always like downer movies”, that’s not always the case. It wasn’t in 2004 or 2003 or most years.

2006 looks like more of the same.