The Best and Worst Dollar Movies of 2006

It’s the end of 2006 and time for the best and worst lists.

The Dollar Movie Reviewer has been filling notebooks and now he looks back at the Dollar Movies that made him laugh (Cars), cry (The Lake House) and wince in pain (Zoom).

Plus, there’s a bonus list of movies that, er, didn’t make any other list. That’s why I call it the “Didn’t Make any Other DollarMovieReview.net List.”

What about you, is there a Dollar Movie that should be on a list but isn’t? Be sure and comment.

DollarMovieReview.net Top Five Family Films

Cars. The best animated film in a year full of animated films. Pretty to look at and as fun as a ride in a convertible, it doesn’t quite measure up to the Pixar classics.

Over the Hedge. Smart and funny, it needled fat people (like me) a little too much.

How to Eat Fried Worms. A boy’s movie that reminds us, in Hallie Kate Eisenberg’s words that, “boys are so weird!”

The Ant Bully. Like Monster House, Ice Age, and Barnyard, it’s an imperfect animated movie that eventually rewards you.

Ice Age: The Meltdown. As slow-moving as a glacier, but the warmth of the movie helps melt the ice.

DollarMovieReview.net Top Five Film Films for Parents

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest. Thrills from the opening to the closing credits, just too intense and gruesome for young children.

Invincible. Inspiring as a session with Tony Robbins.

The Devil Wears Prada. Meryl Streep is a force of nature and Anne Hathaway is a breath of fresh air.

The Lake House. The romance and genuine chemistry between Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves see you through the muddled space-time continuum parts.

Superman Returns. A rousing reworking of the original Superman, it would be on the family list if not for a scene where Superman takes a vicious beating.

DollarMovieReview.net Bottom Five Dollar Movies

Zoom. Don’t let this Tim Allen dog bark its way into your DVD collection.

Lady in the Water. A dripping wet mess from the usually reliable M. Night Shyamalan.

Flicka. The cast can’t bring enough life to this dying horse.

Talladega Nights. I laughed, heaven help me, at this thin movie and equal-opportunity offender.

Failure to Launch. A funny movie that could have and should have been rated R.

Didn’t Make any Other DollarMovieReview.net List

Nacho Libre. You either get it or you don’t. I saw it as a goofy silent movie with plenty of slapstick to go around.

Monster House. Starts strong but wheezes to its finish.

Barnyard. Don’t get me started on the topic of male cows with udders.

Flyboys. A ‘war is hell’ movie that’s satisfying even while it’s ghastly in its depictions of death in war.

The Da Vinci Code. The pacing is steady and the acting is confident. But it never made my heart race. The central premise is offensive to Catholics and others.

The Guardian. It drags and too much time is spent in training, but the movie depicts heroism like it hasn’t been seen since John Wayne quit making movies.

Flyboys with James Franco and Jean Reno

War is Hell

There was a time when to go to war was a glorious thing and to fight and perhaps die in battle was a mark of honor. Americans probably lost much of their innocence with the Civil War when every casualty was American. But the war that set Europe on the path to cynical existentialism was WWI.

Flyboys chronicles the lives of a group of dewy young flyers who gallantly fought on the side of the French in an all-American air force squadron called the Lafayette Escadrille well before America herself entered the war.

Based on a true story, these flyers hit all the expected stereotypes. There’s the glory-seeking Nebraska farm boy; the spoiled rich kid out to prove himself; the Midwesterner trying to stay ahead of the law; the French-speaking son of a slave who has found a comfortable place in France; the faithful flyer who’s co-pilot is God; the jaded ace; etc. And there’s romance with the girlish French maiden whose family has been devastated by the fighting.

But the story unfolds mainly through the experiences of Blaine Rawlings (Spiderman’s James Franco), who leaves Texas having lost the family ranch. Franco is surrounded by a young cast of mostly unknowns who acquit themselves well. Jean Reno, the French actor of choice among American casting directors, needed more material to work with.

The best moments in Flyboys are the dogfights and there are wondrous times when the screen is filled edge to edge with fragile aircraft battling for air supremacy. Powered flight was just a little more than a decade old when the war started and the pilots easily transitioned from chivalry to the barbarism which so characterized the rest of WWI.

WWI doesn’t need any help being portrayed as a savage, regrettable moment in human history. Nine million people died in a war that few people could identify the cause of.

But the barbarism is painted a little too brightly in Flyboys. It’s my only negative in a movie that liked quite a bit. War is hell. But I don’t have to look at hell to understand or even to feel that.

Flyboys is rated PG-13 for “war action violence and some sexual content.” The rating is well earned. There are some ghastly depictions of death in Flyboys.

DMR grades Flyboys as a C+.

The Dollar Movie Review Grading System: The Dollar Movie Review grades on a curve. Movies that make choices to be course or vulgar are downgraded a full to a half grade or more. Likewise, movies that don’t gross out or offend too much can be upgraded as ‘a thanks for trying’ attaboy. Flyboys was downgraded. I would have given it B+ if they would have left out the detailed violence.

Flicka with Tim McGraw and Alison Lohman

A Grrl and Her Horse

There’s a hysterical scene in Disney’s 1997 movie George of the Jungle where two minor characters ask, ‘what is it with chicks and horses?’ Flicka, a movie concept that’s been around the track a few times over the last 60 years, tries to answer that question.

Flicka is about three kindred spirits trying to understand one another. Spirited young Katy McLaughlin (Alison Lohman) is a mustang who chafes under the iron hand of her father Rob (country singer Tim McGraw). She comes home to the family quarter horse ranch in rural Wyoming for the summer after botching her final paper of the year at boarding school and the school tells her not to return.

Before she tells her parents about her failure, Katy goes for a pre-dawn ride in the Wyoming countryside. There she comes across Flicka, a beguiling black mustang mare full of fury and fight.

Against her father’s best judgment, Flicka ends up on the family ranch and Katy works to tame the horse during nighttime visits.

During the days, a lot of anger and recriminations flair between Katy, her brother Howard (Ryan Kwanten), and their father. But the drama seems forced. Long before Nell McLaughlin (Maria Bello) tells her husband “When are you going to look at your daughter and realize she’s you?” we know that Flicka is Katy and Katy is Rob.

The movie trailer for Flicka made me think that the movie was going to be One Tree Hill on horseback. Refreshingly, it’s not. This is about a girl who falls in love with a horse, not a boy.

A lot of the drama depends on McGraw being a gigantic force of will in his family. But all McGraw’s able to pull off is a sort of general surliness. This is only his third film role, so it’s unfair to say that he’s not terribly good. Instead, let the blame fall on the casting director, director and producers for relying on McGraw to carry so much weight.

Flicka is rated PG “for some mild language.

Dollar Movie Review rates it a B-.

The Dollar Movie Review Grading System: The Dollar Movie Review grades on a curve. Movies that make choices to be course or vulgar are downgraded a full to a half grade or more. Likewise, movies that don’t gross out or offend too much can be upgraded as ‘a thanks for trying’ attaboy. Flicka was upgraded. I would have given it a C+ on its own merits. It got the upgrade because Flicka is clean and appropriate for the entire family. It's worth your time and your dollar.