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Last week I commended the BOP Staff on their list of the Best Overlooked Films of 2005, a list that included some truly obscure films that deserved far more attention than anyone gave them. But what a difference a year (and a week) makes. Today I'm looking over the "overlooked" films of 2006 and I can't decide whether to scoff or laugh. The Best Overlooked Film of 2006 is The Last King of Scotland? The movie that made over $17 million and won an Oscar for its lead actor? That can't be right.

Continuing down the list doesn't get much better. Seven of the films in this group grossed at least $17 million, and three just barely snuck into the cutoff to be considered underrated, each making around $24 million. One of those films, An Inconvenient Truth, became a nationwide phenomenon and an extremely controversial film and didn't seem to have been overlooked by anyone. Then, of course, there's Pan's Labyrinth. While at the time of voting it was still within the parameters of "overlooked" status it ended up making more than $37 million and collecting a couple of Oscars. Today it is rightfully considered a modern classic.

But where are the seriously overlooked films from 2006? The films that never even came close to cracking eight figures, much less pulling in $20 million? Where are the gems that aren't forgotten because they were never even looked at in the first place? More importantly, where are the movies that are so goddamned depressing that you'll want to rip your eyes out of their sockets just to stop the tears?

Yes, if I had cast my ballot for the 2007 Calvin Award for Best Overlooked Film, I would have packed the list with movies so depressing and disturbing that the DVDs should come with tissues and barf bags. Of the ten films on my list, only one is a comedy, and the rest fall somewhere in between tear-jerking and soul-destroying. I suppose there's a reason that audiences didn't rush out to see these movies, but it's still a shame, as all of these films are worth watching once, even if you wouldn't be able to stomach a second sitting.

At number ten is a movie that has gained an added relevance due to current events, not because of the war in Iraq or the recession, but because it is titled The Dead Girl and the title character is played by Brittany Murphy. This is an appropriate film to kick off such a depressing list, as it could just as easily have been called Death, Actually. The film examines the lives of a group of women, each of whom have been impacted by the death of a prostitute. They include a mortician who thinks that the dead girl might be her missing sister, the dead girl's best friend and the dead girl's mother. The clear scene stealer is Toni Collette as the woman who finds the girl's body, giving the best performance of the year. Murphy is also great, as are Marcia Gay Harden, Rose Byrne and Kerry Washington, in Karen Moncreiff's fantastic followup to her debut film, Blue Car.

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