With film criticism turning into entertainment news and many film critics acting as unofficial publicists for the major studios, intelligent and honest film criticism is hard to find these days. Enter Filmfreakcentral.net, a website that is among the few channels available for consistently thoughtful film criticism untainted by the corporate constraints faced by traditional media and is a site whose criticism is not simply fanboy exclamations that are often found in many internet film sites.

The 2006 Annual is written by people who have both a deep passion for film and a deep knowledge of film (a truly rare combination) and the reviews are insightful, incisive, vitriolic, subtle, substantive and hilarious – often all at once. Beyond simple film criticism, the Filmfreakcentral.net critics write their reviews with an eye that understand that movies are a mirror or a prism whose viewings inform the viewer about the world around them and are in fact a social commentary of time and place.

Always worth reading and re-reading, the reviews for the 2006 Annual are wonderful to have in a book format. It sits on my shelf next to last year’s annual.

Buy it, you won’t be disappointed.