2006 Goaties: Best Sound and Sound Effects

Throughout Inland Empire there's an unsettling bass tone, a sort of vibration that gets inside the fillings in your teeth and makes it uncomfortable to sit back in your seat. Not that the rest of the film doesn't achieve the same goals, but still: the sound is brilliant, both when it's there—I whimpered at the end when Laura Dern confronts... but never mind about that—and when it's not. Throw in Angelo Badalamenti's almost non-score (was there music, or just notes? does it matter?), and you have—well, you have a David Lynch movie, and the most inventive sound design of the year.

And a million miles away from Inland Empire, even if it's set in the same city, is Crank with its riotously funny and effective sound effects. Ever wondered what it would sound like to stick your hand in a waffle iron (or a sewing machine)? Wonder no more. From the wet pop at the end of the, um, the Chinatown scene, to that crazy cellphone that sounded like it was drowning, Crank's sound team went overboard (in keeping with the rest of the film). And always is the slurping, muffled thumping of Statham's heart, which affects all other sounds in the film: when it slows down, the world slows too, becoming muffled and out-of-sync.