Just the bare lists for now (plus honorable mentions, i.e., other good movies from that year), with commentary, arguments, apologiae, etc. to follow as interest warrants.
1) The Fountain
2) United 93
4) Volver
5) The Prestige
6) Half Nelson
8) The Departed
Honorable mentions: Beerfest, Brick, Casino Royale, Children of Men, Clerks II, Crank, Hard Candy, Harsh Times, The History Boys, An Inconvenient Truth, The Last King of Scotland, Little Children, Neil Young: Heart of Gold, A Prairie Home Companion, The Proposition, The Queen, Right at Your Door, Rocky Balboa, A Scanner Darkly, The Science of Sleep, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, Thank You for Smoking, Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story, V for Vendetta
Top 11 of 2007*
5) Ratatouille
7) Superbad
8) Knocked Up
10 Hot Fuzz
11) Zodiac
Honorable mentions: 300, Across the Universe, American Gangster, Breach, Charlie Wilson's War, The Darjeeling Limited, The Good Shepherd, Grindhouse, The Host, I Am Legend, Juno, Lars and the Real Girl, The Lookout, The Namesake, Once, Rescue Dawn, Rocket Science, Seraphim Falls, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, The Wind That Shakes the Barley
* When I originally composed my Top 10 of 2007, I excluded There Will Be Blood from consideration because it had been release in Washington in January of 2008. Upon further consideration, however, I have included it among the films of 2007; that year was cinematically the year of No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood, so to exclude the latter from consideration for the reason I did seems mistaken in retrospect. However, all other films released in Washington in 2008 are considered for 2008. I've added an eleventh slot so that There Will Be Blood's addition wouldn't knock Zodiac from the ranked films.
Top 11 of 2008 (through January 2009)**
1) The Fall
3) The Class
4) Man on Wire
6) The Wrestler
10) Che
Honorable mentions: Appaloosa, The Bank Job, Changeling, Doubt, Encounters at the End of the World, The Foot Fist Way, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Frost/Nixon, Funny Games, Hamlet 2, In Bruges, Iron Man, Milk, Mongol, The Orphanage, Persepolis, Pineapple Express, Punisher: War Zone, Quantum of Solace, Rambo, Revolutionary Road, The Strangers, Snow Angels, Timecrimes, Tropic Thunder, Valkyrie, The Visitor, The Wackness, Waltz with Bashir, Wendy and Lucy
** Prior to 2008, I've always considered films only for the year when they were release where I was living at the time, but I'm strongly reconsidering that rule. On the one hand, a bright-line rule like this provides certainty as to the year for which a film should be considered. For example, The Fall was originally released in 2006 but only in Canada, so it makes no sense for me, who have never even been to Canada, to consider it for that year instead of for 2008, the year that it was release in the United States. On the other hand, this rule effectively cuts the "award season" films in two, relegating those receiving general release to one year and those receiving only limited release to the following year (that is, until either I move to New York or Los Angeles or films start getting limited release in Portland, Washington, or wherever else I might live in the future), when those films appear on the same best-films lists elsewhere and compete for the same awards. So many films worthy of consideration—The Wrestler, Che, The Class, and others—were released in Washington in January of 2009, so this list will include films from that month as well as those from 2008. Since my 2008 now has thirteen months, I've added an additional slot in the ranked films.
I think that the only way to solve your problem without any overlap is to adopt the Academy Awards rule and make it strictly about the calendar year in which the film was given a limited commercial release. The actual Academy Award rule says that the film has to be released in LA, but usually limited released include LA. There are many advantages to following this path, regardless of when you actually view the movie. Some movies are hard to separate from their competition (usually OSCAR competition) as you noted in the asterisk to TWBB. Also, regarding The Fall, it was commercially released in the US for the first time in 2008, so it would end up in your 2008 list anyway. I hope that you choose to adopt this time frame in the future and edit your lists accordingly.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I probably will end up doing that. It always annoyed me though that a movie would be considered to be released in a particular year because LA got it that year. I don't live in LA, I never have, so why should I go by LA's release schedule? If they can't get around to releasing "There Will Be Blood" in DC until 2008, then why should I consider it for any year other than 2008? The answer, I guess, is the reasons I gave in the post. Sigh. I concede defeat. You win this round, Los Angeles.
ReplyDeleteYes! Not that I want to be lumped in with LA but I have been arguing that point since, well, probably when the 2006 list first came out. Owen, I am surprised you gave in? What happened to that old curmudgeon I know?
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