Best Of 2007, Filmleaf Members' Lists

(Draft version.)

BEST U.S.
There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson)
No Country for Old Men (Joel, Ethan Coen)
Zodiac (David Fincher)
Into the Wild (Sean Penn)
I'm Not There (Todd Haynes)
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Julian Schnabel)
Michael Clayton (Tony Gilroy)
The Darjeeling Limited (Wes Anderson)
The Namesake (Mira Nair)
The Savages (Tamara Jenkins)
Lars and the Real Girl (Craig Gillespie)
The Lookout (Scott Frank)

BEST FOREIGN
Once (John Carney)
Regular Lovers (Philippe Garrel)
Lady Chatterley (Pascale Ferran)
The Lives of Others (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck)
Bamako (Abderrahmane Sissako)
Flanders (Bruno Dumont)
Offside (Jafar Panahi)
Control (Anton Corbijn)
Dans Paris (Christophe Honor�)
This Is England (David MacDonald)
La Vie en Rose (La Mome) (Olivier Dahan)

SHORTLISTED
Away from Her (Sarah Polley)
The Bourne Ultimatum (Paul Greengrass)
Juno (Jason Reitman)
Superbad (Greg Mottola)
Persepolis (Vincent Paronnaud, Marjane Satrapi)
Grindhouse (Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez)
Gone Baby Gone (Ben Affleck)
Sweeney Todd (Tim Burton)

BEST DOCUMENTARIES
Sicko (Michael Moore)
No End in Sight (Charles Ferguson)
Nanking (Bill Guttentag, Dan Sturman)
Into Great Silence (Philip Gr�ning)
An Unreasonable Man (Henriette Mantel, Steve Skrovan)
Billy the Kid (Jennifer Venditti)
Kurt Cobain About a Son (AJ Schnack)
Murch (Edie, David Ichioka)
UNRELEASED:
Trumbo (Peter Askin)
NOT SEEN:
This Film Is Not Yet Ratedd (Kirby Dick)
51 Birch Street (Doug Block)
Lake of Fire (Tony Kaye)

BEST UNRELEASED
Still Life (Jia Zhan-0ke)
Along the Ridge (Anche libero va bene, Kim Rossi Stewart)
Daratt (Mahamat-Saleh Haroun)
Silent Light (Carlos Reygadas)

OVERRATED (BUT STILL GOOD)
Ratatouille (Brad Bird)
Black Book (Paul Verhoeven)
Eastern Promises (David Cronenberg)
4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days (2008 release) (Cristian Mungiu.)
Syndromes and a Century (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (Sidney Lumet)

Perhaps some of this is helpful:
FLANDERS was officially released (5/18/07) whereas PARANOID PARK and 4 MONTHS will be released in the US in January and March of 2008. Other documentaries you might include under "Documentaries Not Seen" if indeed you haven't seen them are: LAKE OF FIRE, WEST OF THE TRACKS and MY KID COULD PAINT THAT.

Thanks. So I should just put Flanders in Best Foreign and hold Paranoid Park for 2008.

I have not seen those other documentaries. Lake of Fire has been mentioned a lot, but I don't know about the others. My Kid Could Paint That didn't sound like something that would interest me, but you never know.

Hey Chris ... nice lists ... none too surprising given your great taste ... although calling Ratatouille overrated made me cringe a little. That said, it didn't make me wanna puke as much as Into the Wild did but hey, to each his own.

Sorry folks but I'm going to make you go elsewhere to catch my year end lists ... I've announced my annual Mouton d'Or nominations on my site and I really want you to check em out there simply because I have an actual gold sheep to show off!

www.blacksheepreviews.com

Mouton,

Thanks for complimenting my taste.. And I did go right to your site (which isn't the first time by any means) to look at your selections. NOw. . .If you consider Into the Wild cringe-worthy, how come Vedder's music is in your best music list? You have a lot of categories there, but for me, that would be too limiting, too tricky to fill them in logically when there are so many different kinds of movies and pigeonholing can be destructive or misleading For instance, is The Darjeeling Limited really a "popcorn flick"? Is the enormously ambitious I'm Not There a "Little Movie That Could" like the small Once or Lars and the Real Girl? I'm glad to see your rating Lars highly as I have, though.

"Worst Movie" for me is a tough category--I couldn't do that, and my only equivalent in negativity is "Most Overrated.". That to me is what comes to seem worst, because I see a lot of movies, lately more every year, but still always avoid anything I think will be tasteless, boring, or inept--i.e., "bad." "Most disliked" would make some sense, but who wants to know? I can only come to dislike (somewhat, sometimes) films that everybody raves about when I think others are better. Hence my negative category is "Most Overrated." I know some think it trashy or a mess, but I find Across the Universe enjoyable and full of imagination and I think a lot of other people do; it's far above the trash level necessary (to my mind) to justify inclusion in the category "Worst." I'll grant you Alpha Dog is a bit of a mess. It still has some interesting young actors and colorful sequences, far above the category of trash. Besides, I like Joe Carnahan too much to want to embarrass him with such a designation. Didn't see the others.

Now Best Supporting Actor--to me, some category problems here too. (I can't comment on the cinematography and music categories, offhand). Definitely Wilkinson in Michael Clayton and Hal Holbrook in Into the Wild (again, if that made you "want to puke," why even talk about it, let alone find a best actor in it? not logical). But I cannot possibly consider Casey Affleck in Jesse James or Javier Bardem in No Country "supporting actors," nor is Hoffman, who most people think walks away with Charlie Wilson, a "supporting actor" in that either. Maybe that's just me; I abhor over-categorization. However there are cases when an actor is clearly supporting. George Clooney absolutely dominates Michael Clayton, so Tom Wilkinson is secondary, but important and excellent (ditto Swinton). Now I guess Amy Ryan in Gone Baby Gone and Tilda Swinton in Michael Clayton (these being two of the most admired and high profile performances by a woman of the year) qualify as supporting actresses, but then who are the main actresses in those movies? There are no actresses in either of them that seem more primary. Swinton and Ryan are both key players in those films. I don't have as much of a problem with your Best Actress and Best Screenplay choices; I might not agree 100% but they fit the category. I'm glad you didn't pick Before the Devil Knows You're Dead for a Best Screenplay candidate. If anything pulls down that now overrated movie, it' certainly s the screenplay.

I'm pretty down with your Best Director choices, except as you know I'm not an admirer of Atonement so I could think of a number of directors who could hold down Joe Wright's spot more convincingly.

I've reposted my lists with some alterations and the directors' names added, above.

Hope to see more lists as time goes on.

Where does the time go? I have wanted to reply to this for some time but was unable to until now. Anyway, no more waiting ...

Let's start with INTO THE WILD. I did find it cringe-worthy on the whole. My stomach actually turned when the audience at TIFF stood to applaud Penn at the end of the premiere. People were leaving throughout the screening and the vibe was not a positive one during but because he was there, people felt the need to gush. With some time behind me, I'm sure now that there probably were a lot of people in that theatre who loved the movie as I have come across many people who didn't just like it but LOVED it. I just felt it was pretentious and overwrought with Penn's ego in it's entire construction. Still, there were elements that I enjoyed and identified with. I thought Emile Hirsch was very promising. I thoroughly enjoyed Catherine Keener and Hal Holbrook. I also felt Eddie Vedder's music leveled the film's skewed perspective. So, while I didn't like the film on the whole, it is still possible to highlight certain elements that are fantastic.

The same can be said for THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES ... Here's a film that I felt dragged but was so gorgeous, thanks to Roger Deakins. There were times where I couldn't believe how rich the texture of the film was. Now, as to why Casey Affleck finds himself in a supporting category, well that's just placating to Hollywood convention. Affleck was being recognized by most other critic groups as a supporting player so I decided to go along with that. That said, I do feel he is supporting regardless as the film plays like an ensemble more than anything else. Even Brad Pitt does not stand out. Mind you, I think the film would have been better if they allowed Affleck to take the lead and drive the story forward.

The Little Movie That Could category is always hard for me. I do believe that I'M NOT THERE deserves to be among titles like LARS AND THE REAL GIRL and ONCE simply because the effort I'm rewarding is ambition and intention. Essentially, I felt that I'M NOT THERE embodied a true spirit of independence, as I believe all the others do as well. I wanted to include THE DARJEELING LIMITED in this category but it simply cost too much too make to really compare.

Unlike you, I have no problems with the Worst Movie category because I call it The Worst Movie I Saw All Year. I can only see so many movies and those are certainly the worst I saw. I think that's fair.

You do certainly have a point about over-categorization. I've always been a BIG Oscar geek so I'm following suit with a lot of standards. Supporting Actor categories are fairly standard. P.S. Hoffman may walk away with CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR but his character is still supporting in terms of the story. After all, it isn't Gust Avrakotos' War. You are also correct about Tilda Swinton and Amy Ryan in MICHAEL CLAYTON and GONE, BABY, GONE (respectively). There are no more prominent actresses in those flms but ultimately, their characters are secondary and therefore find themselves in the supporting categories. Perhaps it is the division of acting performance by sex that is more problematic than anything else. As if performance is dictated by gender - but then Hollywood wouldn't be able to honour so many each year and build so many new careers and bankable futures.

Thanks for the debate ... I hope I didn't forget anything. If anyone wants to see my full list of year end kudos, you can go to:

http://blacksheepreviews.blogspot.co...s-best-of.html

I wish you could put a short summary form of your lists here so we don't have go go back and forth to your website, lovely though it is.

I don't see much disagreement here except for the fact that I simply cannot understand what made you "cringe" at Into the Wild. Once again I would point to the book. Though the movie embroiders and adds to the book in iimportant ways, this is fundamentally a factual account and the film seeks to follow the facts in important details too. I guess you think somehow Sean Penn made the filming of the non-fiction book too operatic, but I like the movie. Emile Hirsch is more than promising. He has always been promising in various films including The Mudge Boy (a daring offbeat role) The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys, Lords of Dogtown, and several significant others. The fact that he is enthusiastic but somewhat jejune in some ways helps because the movie isn't meant to be hagiography and the young man was unformed and mistaken despite his idealism and we didn't need too impressive an actor or too powerful a personality..

It seems far-fetched to call I'm NOt There a "little movie that could," because as I've said it's wildly ambitious. That doesn't make a little movie. Agreed Darjeeling would not fit either. It's kind of a silly category, too cutesy. If you mean a small budget movie that either became very successful or achieved greatness, then you need a different title.

But we pretty much agree on the supporting actor/actress issues.

The Oscars are not my obsession really. All I can ever say is that sometimes with luck some of the good things get NOMINATED. IT is too much to hope for them to be given the actual OSCAR. It's hard to get over the fact that Crash beat Brokeback, especially when we now know Heath Ledger will never get an Oscar.

It's kind of like the democratic presidential candidates. One by one the best are dropping out, leaving only the most popular or the most well-connected, who are not the best.

The Crash win over Brokeback was a classic example of what a travesty the Oscars can be. But all the fussing over the celebrities and the clothes, however essential to Hollywood's profits, is irrelevant to movies or films or cinema, but the advantage is that at least even if for the wrong reasons, the Academy Awards make people get excited about movies and think they ought to go out and see some. Lots of people at least try to see the Best Picture nominated films in theaters before the awards. If there are any. And that sense of urgency to see films simply because they're supposed to be good regardless of who's in them or what they're about it s the best moment of the Academy Awards.

As per your request ... from Black Sheep Reviews:

This time last year I was trudging through garbage in search of a half-eaten cheese sandwich I could dust off and pass off as one of the better films of the year. 2006 was certainly no country for an old man like myself. I’m happy to say though that this year, I was able to keep my hands clean as 2007 was the year even the rats were allowed in the kitchen to make themselves a real snack before settling in for a flick. 2007, you can rest easy for you have sufficiently atoned for the sins of 2006. I assure you there will be no blood shed here, just some love and recognition in the form of an award or two. No, Canada, this ain’t the Juno’s – it’s the 2007 BLACK SHEEP REVIEWS’ MOUTON D’OR AWARDS!

Before December and the onslaught of critic’s list announcements, 2007’s award race was wide open. It was exhilarating to know that any number of films could become the front-runner for the Best Picture crown. All too often, the hype machine has already solidified certain titles as sure bets but this year, all the bets were off. While this made the wide variety of possibility exciting in my MOUTON D’OR nominations, whittling the selections down to five in each category was almost exhausting … even after I added new categories to honour as many films as possible. Joining the regular categories from last year are three more technical categories – Cinematography, Editing and Original Music. Also, another year means another change for an award title that I just can’t get right … It is meant to embody the spirit of independent film but the idea of what is independent is so blurred that the best I could come up with as an award title is Best Little Movie That Could: An award for genuine intention, artistry and heart. Let’s not waste another moment … Here are the nominations for Black Sheep Reviews’ 2007 Mouton d’Or Awards:


BEST POPCORN FLICK

THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM
THE DARJEELING LIMITED
DEATH PROOF
I AM LEGEND
RATATOUILLE


BEST LITTLE MOVIE THAT COULD:
An award for genuine intention, artistry and heart

I’M NOT THERE
JUNO
LARS AND THE REAL GIRL
ONCE
WAITRESS


THE WORST MOVIE I SAW ALL YEAR

ACROSS THE UNIVERSE
ALPHA DOG
BLACK SNAKE MOAN
L’AGE DES TENEBRES (DAYS OF DARKNESS)
TRANSFORMERS


THE TREVOR ADAMS ANIMATED FEATURE AWARD

PERSEPOLIS
RATATOUILLE
THE SIMPSONS MOVIE


BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD (Roger Deakins, cinematographer)
ATONEMENT (Seamus McGarvey)
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (Roger Deakins)
LE SCAPHANDRE ET LE PAPILLON (Janusz Kaminski)
THERE WILL BE BLOOD (Roger Elswit)


BEST ORIGINAL MUSIC

ATONEMENT (Dario Marianelli, composer)
INTO THE WILD (Eddie Vedder)
ONCE (Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova)
RATATOUILLE (Michael Giacchino)
THERE WILL BE BLOOD (Jonny Greenwood)


BEST EDITING

ATONEMENT (Paul Tothill, film editor)
THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM, Christopher Rouse)
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (Roderick Jaynes)
LE SCAPHANDRE ET LE PAPILLON (Juliette Welfling)
ZODIAC (Angus Wall)


BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

CASEY AFFLECK
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
JAVIER BARDEM
No Country for Old Men
PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN
Charlie Wilson’s War
HAL HOLBROOK
Into the Wild
TOM WILKINSON
Michael Clayton


BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

CATE BLANCHETT
I’m Not There
JENNIFER JASON LEIGH
Margot at the Wedding
SAOIRSE RONAN
Atonement
AMY RYAN
Gone Baby Gone
TILDA SWINTON
Michael Clayton


BEST ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE

JOSH BROLIN
No Country for Old Men
DANIEL DAY-LEWIS
There Will Be Blood
RYAN GOSLING
Lars and the Real Girl
TOMMY LEE JONES
In the Valley of Elah
VIGGO MORTENSEN
Eastern Promises

BEST ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE

JULIE CHRISTIE
Away From Her
MARION COTILLARD
La Vie en Rose
ANGELINA JOLIE
A Mighty Heart
NICOLE KIDMAN
Margot at the Wedding
ELLEN PAGE
Juno


BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

EASTERN PROMISES (Steven Knight, screenwriter)
JUNO (Diablo Cody)
LARS AND THE REAL GIRL (Nancy Oliver)
RATATOUILLE (Brad Bird)
THE SAVAGES (Tamara Jenkins)


BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

ATONEMENT (Christopher Hampton, screenwriter)
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (Joel and Ethan Coen)
LE SCAPHANDRE ET LE PAPILLON (Ronald Harwood)
THERE WILL BE BLOOD (Paul Thomas Anderson)
ZODIAC (James Vanderbilt)


BEST DIRECTOR

PAUL THOMAS ANDERSON
There Will Be Blood
JOEL AND ETHAN COEN
No Country for Old Men
TODD HAYNES
I’m Not There
JULIAN SCHNABEL
Le Scaphandre et le Papillon
JOE WRIGHT
Atonement


BEST PICTURE

ATONEMENT
JUNO
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
RATATOUILLE
THERE WILL BE BLOOD

Thank you. I hope to see more lists in the weeks to come from other members.

All the films listed are spoken in a language other than English and all of them received distribution in the US. Increasingly what that means is: brief commercial run in a couple of big city theaters in preparation for dvd release (where the distributors make their money). So even those curious about cinema from around the world might not have heard of most of these titles. However, most already are and all will eventually be available on region 1 dvd. My hope in sharing these year-end lists is that the reader will research the titles and watch the ones that seem interesting and potentially enjoyable. Name of director and country of production provided to facilitate process. Movies in Runners-up and Honorable Mention categories are also listed roughly in order of personal preference but order should be of little consequence to the reader, whose taste is likely to differ from mine. English-language, Documentary and Undistributed lists coming soon.

TOP 10

1. OFFSIDE (Jafar Panahi/Iran)
2. I DON'T WANT TO SLEEP ALONE (Tsai Ming-liang/Malaysia-Taiwan)
** LOS MUERTOS (Lisandro Alonso/Arg)
4. THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY (Julian Schnabel/Fra-US)
** MADEINUSA (Claudia Llosa/Peru)
6. BELLE TOJOURS (Manoel de Oliveira/Port-Fra)
** GLUE: ADOLESCENT STORY IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE (Dos Santos/ Argentina)
** LADY CHATTERLEY (Pascale Ferran/Fra)
** PRIVATE FEARS IN PUBLIC PLACES (Alain Resnais/Fra)
** REGULAR LOVERS (Philippe Garrel/Fra)

RUNNERS-UP

LUST, CAUTION (Ang Lee/US-China)
PERSEPOLIS (Paronnaud-Satrapi/Fra)
SYNDROMES AND A CENTURY (Weerasethakul/Thailand)
HONOR DE CAVALLERIA (Serra/Spain)
PAPRIKA (Kon/Japan)
EXILED (To/Hong Kong)
THE LIVES OF OTHERS (von Donnersmark/Germany)
THE VIOLIN (Vargas/Mexico)
LIVE-IN MAID (Gaggero/Arg)
THE EXTERMINATING ANGELS (Brisseau/Fra)
KLIMT (Ruiz/Aus-Fra-Ger)

HONORABLE MENTION
Grbavica (Serb), After the Wedding (Den), Blame it on Fidel (Fra), In Between Days (Can-Korea), Dreams of Dust (Burkina Faso), Black Book (Neth-Ger-Fra), 12:08 East of Bucharest (Rom), DarkBlueAlmostBlack (Spa), The Taste of Tea (Jap), Mother of Mine (Finland).

Not Seen Yet:Time (S. Korea.)

I'm reading the latest issue of Film Comment and I'm pondering the lists from that great magazine.

I haven't seen enough films this year...

I listed "Los Muertos" as one of the "best unreleased" that I'd seen for 2005. Then I didn't know or probably just forgot that it was released somewhere in the US last year (just on DVD?). We have discussed it at some length on this sight and it is a splendid film.

I've seen a lot but not all of your choices. Of those I've seen that you list I think most are excellent. There are only one or two that I wouldn't put in this kind of list, and some I rate very highly as you can see by cross-referencing your lists with mine.

Of the ones you think you should have seen before making this list, maybe "Dans Paris" is more my kind of thing than yours, we'll see. "Bamako" I think you would rate highly and so do I.

I'm looking at all my annual lists that I have on the hard drive of my computer. Eleven years' worth, 1997 through 2007. I want to put them all in a compact unified format so I can post them I may actually have some lists in a notebook from earlier too. I kind of like the first list of 1997, which has only 11 films. I would stand by most of the choices and don't need more. The trouble is that now I see so many more than I did then, that it seems like I have to list more. Maybe I just need to be more selective. It's so hard.

Here is the 1997 list. The good old days when life was simpler. You probably won't remember "Kiss or Kill." An Australian neo-noir. I like those--neo-noirs I mean.

Quote:

---

C H R I S... K N I P P

TEN BEST OF 1997 ( U. S. )
BOOGIE NIGHTS (P.T. ANDERSON)
THE ICE STORM (ANG LEE)
LOST HIGHWAY (DAVID LYNCH)
L.A. CONFIDENTIAL (CURTIS HANSON)
TITANIC (JAMES CAMERON)


TEN BEST FOREIGN
HAPPY TOGETHER (WONG KAR-WAI)
LA PROMESSE (DARDENNE BROTHERS)
A SELF-MADE HERO (UN HERO TRÈS DISCRET, JACQUES AUDIARD)
KISS OR KILL (BILL BENNETT)
LES VOLEURS (ANDRÉ TÉCHINÉ)


BEST DOCUMENTARY
WHEN WE WERE KINGS (LEON GAST)

---

Johann--Don't forget the VILLAGE VOICE/LA WEEKLY poll list, which is very extensive. The FILM COMMENT lists tend to favor heavily films shown at Lincoln Center series such as the NYFF etc.

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
I listed "Los Muertos" as one of the "best unreleased" that I'd seen for 2005. Then I didn't know or probably just forgot that it was released somewhere in the US last year (just on DVD?).
I opened a thread to celebrate the theatrical distribution of Los Muertos. I included a quote from your review. It is now available on dvd, three years after we watched it.

There are only one or two that I wouldn't put in this kind of list, and some I rate very highly as you can see by cross-referencing your lists with mine.
I noticed. I expect something similar to happen with our documentary lists. It's the English-language fiction films where we had our marked differences in 2007.

Of the ones you think you should have seen before making this list, maybe "Dans Paris" is more my kind of thing than yours, we'll see.
Maybe so. But I still wish I had seen it when it played here. Especially after learning that the dvd release date would be moved from January to March.

"Bamako", I think you would rate highly and so do I.
African films are barely shown in theaters. Bamako didn't play/hasn't played here, as far as I know. And I don't get to see Moolade until tonight, as it finally came out on dvd this week.

I kind of like the first list of 1997, which has only 11 films. I would stand by most of the choices and don't need more. The trouble is that now I see so many more than I did then, that it seems like I have to list more.
There are more films made available because of the outrageous popularity of the dvd format (and how easy it is for distributors to make a profit via dvd). Films that would be appropiately labeled "festival films" a decade ago now become "dvd films" (often after the briefest, most limited type of theatrical release). There are simply more good-to-great films available. It's just very hard to catch them all in theaters, even if you live in NYC. But there has to be a limit. Mine is at 30, 10 per category. Still, I do "feel bad" not to have room to list these quite enjoyable 2007 foreign-language films: La Vie en Rose, The Namesake, The Method, The Golden Door, The Most Beautiful And My Very Best Years, and The Host.

Here is the 1997 list. The good old days when life was simpler. You probably won't remember "Kiss or Kill." An Australian neo-noir. I like those--neo-noirs I mean.

I remember enjoying Kiss or Kill but couldn't tell you what it's about or who's in it.
Here's my 1997 list. Scroll down to find the foreign-language counterpart. I'm sure you've seen more of those 1997 films in subsequent years. Did you mentioned liking Ming-liang's The River, for instance?