The good: Notes on a Scandal is probably the best film I saw in 2006... at minimum, it holds the finest performance of the year (Judi Dench as the delightfully evil, aging high school teacher Barbara Covett). While most movies that use a character's narration to thread the film together have little effect, Covett's VO is crucial. You thought Dan was a Bummer? Just wait until you witness Dench's character slide from mere sarcasm into pure darkness. As good as watching Liz Taylor in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? The bad: The Joy of Life, a documentary about suicide on the Golden Gate Bridge (no, not the one that documents poor souls taking the dreaded leap), starts out promising and then commits a sort of suicide of its own. Roughly in three acts, the first is a steady but long reading of a butch diary over beautiful, ghostly static shots of San Francisco. You sort of hanker down and settle into this running narration, mainly because you assume there's a pay-off in the end. It's foreign, terribly personal, and vulnerable, which is another reason you listen in. The second act is a VO film analysis. The third act is a report of the filmmaker's study of the bridge's history of attracting jumpers, told in a manner 180 degrees different than the opening narration - both in tone and content. This Sundance pic from '05 wasn't "ugly," just bad. I ended up feeling really ripped away from what what I was promised in the open. Not a great ride. The ugly: Children of Men. While based on an intriguing premise, the film version never really goes anywhere. A looooooong chase and many deaths throughout a bleak landscape (impressive art direction) of the not-so-distant future UK. There were a few nice touches: Clive Owen's un-masculine flip-flops, the un-American-ness of it all, and the odd jarring moments of action were nicely handled. Otherwise, save it for a rental.
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