Welcome to part two of the Andy Movie Awards, filled with the major awards that people care about, and the lesser ones they sneak in between while the stars are off doing interviews and such. Don’t think of this as an overly long post stuffed with filler, think of it as 18 year end lists for the price of one!
To see part one, go here.
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It’s that time, once again, where your’s truly breaks down who would be nominated for and win film awards if I were the only voter. As the title suggests, this is the fourth year in a row I’ve done this, with each year growing a bit bigger and more obsessive. This year, there were 39 different feature-length movies to receive Academy Award nominations, not including the Best Foreign Language category (which was made up exclusively of films that have yet to be released in North America). Of those 39, I saw 31 of them, which roughly equals 80%. The ones I missed include Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience, Taxi to the Dark Side, and War Dance in the documentary category, as they haven’t come to my neck of the woods yet, Enchanted and August Rush in the Best Original Song category (because I don’t accept it as a legitimate category), Best Original Score nominee The Kite Runner (the only film I missed that I might have seen if I had a bit more time), Best Makeup nominee Norbit (because, well, come on), and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, nominated for Best Makeup and Visual Effects (since I haven’t seen any of the Pirates movies). In all, I’ve seen 73 feature length films that were released in North America in 2007 (see the full list here, which probably makes me a more informed voter than most of the Academy.
To make this a little easier on readers (and thus, hopefully, create some readers and maybe even commenters), I’m breaking this year’s awards up into two posts. So take in part one now, then come back for the finale, which will include the winner for Best Picture. For now, let’s get all the seat-fillers in place, and start the show…
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Here it is, my long awaited Top 10 Movies of 2007 list (and by “long awaited”, I’m referring to myself, as I’m not sure anyone else has been waiting for this). This is later then I usually prefer to post this list (on the principle that the later you get into the year, the less people care about the previous year), but since I added a movie to this list over the weekend, I’m glad I waited. As of right now, I’ve seen 65 different 2007 movies (for the complete list, click here), including pretty much everything I think would contend for this list. Notable movies I haven’t seen yet that could’ve contended for the list include Persepolis, Lust, Caution, and The Darjeeling Limited, but I’m really happy with the way my list looks right now, as it’s been an extremely good year for movies. As it is, I had to push some really good movies off my honourable mentions list, so I better post this before more might have to go. To give you an idea of how I felt about this year, everything on list, including honourable mentions, rated 4 stars out of 5 or higher. So if you feel like you haven’t seen a lot of good movies this year, you should give some these a try.
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Do you remember last year when The Onion A.V. Club posted a paragraph from my top five list in their Second Annual Film Club Poll? (It’s cool if you don’t remember, I understand).
Anyway, they did the same poll this year, asking for reader submissions of lists and comments, and this year… they posted two of my comments! Three paragraphs in two years! Is that enough to start calling myself an AV Club contributor? Hmmm… maybe when I get three next year.
To see the post, go here: http://www.avclub.com/content/feature/the_third_annual_a_v_club_film
My first paragraph on The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is on the second page, and my comment on The Bourne Ultimatum is on the third page. Now I better get on with posting my full list sometime.
I wasn’t going to do this list this year, feeling so good overall about the year in movies. Then this happened, and I figured I might as well. I’ll be force-feeding myself some more 2007 movies in the coming weeks, so there’s a good chance that something else I’ll see would have contended for this list, but I figure at some point you have to accept that you’re either not going to see everything, or you’re never going to make a list (I choose A. On that note, expect my best movies of the year list soon).
More than any other list I write, I must stress that this is the Top 5 Worst Movies of 2007 That I Saw. Some of these are plenty bad, but I’m absolutely certain that I haven’t seen most of the worst movies of the year, as I generally make an effort to avoid bad movies (whereas I am pretty confident that I’ve seen the majority of great movies, so I like that list more). Still, it’s always fun to make fun of stuff, so here we go.
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Last year, I struggled to come up with more than 10 albums I was passionate enough about to write about, so I decided to stick to ten. No such problem this year, which was a rebound year for art in pop culture in general (as long as you kept paying attention after the summer), bringing me back to a top 20 list. As always, this is a list of how I feel right now, not an attempt to make a list for the ages, which is pointless. I’ve no doubt that this list would change over time were I to revisit it, and in fact hope there’s some great albums out there that I’ve missed, because that would mean there’s more great music for me to hear. I will say that I pretty much ignored any album released in December, so if there was a great album released then that I missed, that’s why.
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Year-end TV lists are difficult things, as network TV follows a different schedule than January-December. Some writers go ahead and try to cram TV in the January-December calendar, judging two half seasons put together, but that’s just silly. Instead, this list judges seasons that ended in 2007, including portions that began in 2006. If a season began in 2007, but is slated to return in 2008 (whenever that may be), then it is not under consideration for this list. Make sense?
Acclaimed shows that I don’t watch, and thus won’t be appearing on this list include The Sopranos, Battlestar Galactica, The Shield, Ugly Betty, Rescue Me, Brothers & Sisters, Mad Men, Flight of the Conchords, and House. On with the list…
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Once again, it’s year end list time, and once again, I’m kicking things off with a list that no one can quibble with but me and my wife (who goes to all the same concerts I go to). We made it to 11 concerts this year, a personal best, and not bad considering that most bands I listen to don’t come to Calgary, choosing to view the Canadian portion of their tours as two or three cities (Toronto, Montreal, and maybe Vancouver). If I lived in those cities, I think I’d being going to shows every other week, as live music is probably the best thing there is in the world (other than puppies).
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