Victim's Gold Stars: In Control

Only two categories and the top two of the top ten to go- hopefully this'll be completed by the weekend.

BEST DIRECTOR

I was going to do a little individual commentary for each one, but as I pondered this, I realized that each and every one of these directors are here because they were fiercely committed to a vision- very different visions, but committed to them all the same, stamping their own personalities and styles firmly on their respective films- these, each and every one, are auteurs, creating unique and surprising films in and out of systems that squash creativity, not bending to expectation, and producing films that inspired and entertained in different, but equally commendable ways.

Victim's Gold Stars: Lookin' Good

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

Lance Acord

Eric Gautier

Frank Griebe

Pin Bing Lee

Emmanuel Lubezki

Victim's Gold Stars: Walls and Ceilings

Here are Victim's Gold Stars choices for Best Production Design/Art Direction:

K.K. Barrett & Veronique Melery

Simon Bowles

Jim Clay & Jeffrey Kirkland

Jeannine Oppewall

Jan Roelfs

Coming next: #5 on the Top Ten Countdown; and the awards for Editing and Supporting Actress.

Victim's Gold Stars: Dress Sense

I'm not too big on costume (I could care less about what I wear, anyway) and yet it's so integral to movies; and so, here are 2006's five best at dressing their actors up. With specialized graphics!

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

Victim's Gold Stars: #7: I Want Cake!

THE TOP TEN: #7: Marie Antoinette

The sensory delights of Marie Antoinette may appeal to our most basic desires, but they are not to be underestimated. What Sofia Coppola has created in this delicious confection is a mental recreation of what it would have been like to be the infamous queen, or at the very least what it would feel like if a 21st Century American girl (like, say, Kirsten Dunst) found herself living in the Palace of Versailles at the end of the 1700s. The easiest complaint to level at Marie Antoinette is that it lacks historical accuracy, but Coppola is not trying to recite a history lesson- read a book, for gods sake. What Coppola does so wonderfully in Marie Antoinette is focus intently on all the qualities that film is designed for- the popping '80s soundtrack, the flashing montages of shoes, and cake, and gambling, the ravishing pastels colours of a dazzling array of desserts. Marie Antoinette is a feast for the eyes, the ears, and god help me if it didn't get my taste buds salivating as well. But Marie Antoinette is not a Kirsten Dunst teenage film transplanted into the 18th Century. Coppola may play dodgeball with the facts but the script is superbly tailored so that, just as the world of the queen herself came knocking on her ornamental door, life comes crashing down around this fictional interpretation too, a warning that perhaps all this confection is too much distraction. Even if it does taste fantastic.