Sure, I'm an easy mark for this sort of thing, but a more intensely visceral filmgoing experience of this type is one that I would be hard-pressed to remember. The problem with becoming a full-time film fan is that it's far easier to get numbed to the effects of most movies; the ones that really grab you by the throat, therefore, tend to stand out. More importantly, I guess, it is the bleak stories that tend to shine the most light, and few have gone darker and colder than this.

The movie has more than its share of slips and maybe it's a little too easy, anyway, to make a thriller about a child molestor getting tortured by a child... but I'll remember Haley for a very long time, and the icky feeling in our stomach when I realized we couldn't decide if I was with the child, or the molestor.

death is the road to awe

I have more than a passing interest in getting the West out from under its puritanical rock, but what strikes me most about Shortbus is that it's an argument for more intelligent use of sexuality in film almost by exclusion, because after those first ten minutes, the sex barely seems to register any more. It's all about the characters. (Even when the characters are singing the Star Spangled Banner into each others' anuses.)

What do you do with an animated film that involves a toddler reaching for a man's crotch during bathtime, that same little girl beating a criminal to death, and fails to stick its own landing so conclusivel that you have to wonder if the last five minutes were made by someone else? Put it at #6 on the year, apparently, and think about it a lot, and its strange, sad spell.

Somewhere buried in this workmanlike quest across the U.K. in a future in which we have destroyed ourselves, is the smallest fragment of hope - not the big chunky hope that says we'll figure a way out of this mess no matter what, but the small one saying that no matter what happens, what we did will have meant something.

Why the World Needs Superman

This is not a happy ending. Watching Ofelia construct the nightmare world of the Labyrinth to organize and understand the nightmare world of her evil stepfather becomes a testament to the power of choice and faith. The lynchpin line is given to a smaller character: when the fascist Captain asks the doctor why the doctor disobeyed him, the doctor merely replies "someone like you would never understand." Choice, hope and wonder are the true keys to the labyrinth.

It's rare that I've had so much fun in a movie, had my heart broken so many times, or remembered why I love my life so much. This movie is a gift to all who see it. At the screening at TIFF we jumped to our feet and gave Penelope the most enthusiastic standing ovation I've ever been a party to, and every single moment of it was earned.

I suppose this was the beginning of the end for my regular film reviewing - the first review in five years I just couldn't write, where whatever negligible skill is at my command completely failed to be able to convey what this film did to me, or for me. I've tried writing it a couple dozen times since September, and I just can't. Lake of Fire is too personal to me, kept me on the verge of tears or throwing up for too long, is to easy-handed and penetrating a look at the futility inside not just the abortion debate, but religious belief and partisan politics, and maybe, being human altogether. How can we call ourselves men when we hold women at the barrel of a gun?

Honourable Mention

Brick - So close to being in the list. Booted out at the very tail end of the year, in fact; such ignominy. And admittedly, Brick was a package I liked a bit more than an execution... but what a package. One of the most enjoyable cinematic experiences I had all year was just watching Joseph Gordon-Levitt spit Chandlerisms into a blistering California sun. Cinema from the gods!

More Honourables

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story, Rescue Dawn, Hinokio, Walking to Werner, Venus, Deliver Us From Evil, Ten Canoes (non-subtitled version)

Best Director: Guillermo del Toro

I haven't given out a Best Director nod before, but I thought it was appropriate this year. Watching del Toro ascend from craftsman to master (or in this case, maestro) was the great cinematic pleasure of 2006. Give this man a cheque and let him do whatever he wants.

Worst Film of 2006: The Da Vinci Code

Notably, I walked out of more films this year than I ever have in my life. But of all the ones I stayed through, Da Vinci Code was the only one that made me sad to be a human. This allows it to beat even X3: The Last Stand, which made me sad to be a mutant.

Best Original Score: The Lady in the Water (James Newton Howard)

The film almost got an Honourable for being the "mess I enjoyed the most," but I think most of my emotional engagement with the picture was due to Howard's soulful fairy tale score, which weaves meaning behind the myopia of Shyamalan's torturous script. Howard has now won Best Score for most of the years of Tederick.com's existence. I guess he's my favourite composer...?

And the rest...

Discovery of the year: A Nos Amours (Maurice Pialat, 1980)

Best DVD: A flat-out tie between the 2006 Criterion editions of Dazed and Confused and Seven Samurai. Honestly I've been trying to pick for months. I just can't. Don't make me pick!

Movie to grow a boner: the first 30 minutes of Cashback; the massage scene in L'Intouchable (also wins "Best Use of an Oiled Butt")

The "Holy Fucking Hannah" Award for blindness-inducing hotness: Dany Verissimo in Banlieue 13

The "Holy Fucking Hannah" Award for blindness-inducing hotness in men: Daniel Craig in Casino Royale (who would also win "Best performance by a male actor to rejuvenate a dead film franchise, make a script significantly better than it could otherwise have been, and bitchslap his way into our wildest homoerotic fantasies)

Best title: Bugmaster (Why? Because he's the motherfucking Bugmaster, that's why.) Honourable mention: Sheitan (SHEITAN!!)

Best use of the anus on screen: Tie between Taxidermia and Borat

Movie that made me quit film reviewing: Catch A Fire

Been there, done that: Fuck

Best public service announcement: An Inconvenient Truth

Only Canadian film I didn't walk out of this year: Paper Moon Affair

Biggest disappointment involving a woman felating a canine: Sleeping Dogs Lie

Biggest disappointment involving a man felating a donkey: Clerks II

Biggest disappointment not involving fellatio: Miami Vice (wait... was there fellatio in that?)

Most anticipated film of 2007: Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (where's the trailer, Gore? Where's the fucking trailer?)

Catch you on the flip...