NCTATNY. 07 in Review.

As usual, it's splenderifically designed.

Matt Bailey: "The only movies that really surprised me this year were Breakfast for Two, an uncelebrated 1937 Barbara Stanwyck screwball comedy (which I only discovered because I have an Eric Blore wishlist on my TiVo), and Cria cuervos, Carlos Saura's spooky 1976 film about they way they fuck you up, your mum and dad (which I only discovered because I still have a compulsion to watch every film released by the Criterion Collection)."

"[A]ny year I get to see some of my favorite actors and actresses in some of their best roles is an undeniably great twelve months," writes Adam Balz. And he opens with well-justified praise for John Carroll Lynch's performance in Zodiac, the film at the top of his list.

Among the events that have run through David Carter's mind this year: "The Rise and Fall of the Boutique DVD Label" and "The Death of 'Cult' Film Magazines."

"I thought I'd take this space to mention a few things that I saw this year that you, in all likelihood, didn't," decides Leo Goldsmith. "Given that you probably saw all the same good and bad films that I saw this year – and more – I thought this might be a better use of both your time and mine." What follows is primarily derived from viewing work by Harun Farocki and Adam Curtis.

After remarking on all the swollen bellies this year had to offer, Chiranjit Goswami writes: "While it might be more acceptable to choose something obscure, exotic, or classic as the pinnacle of this year's achievements, in my mind, no film in 2007 examines, exhibits, and exemplifies the concept of exhaustive determination better than David Fincher's Zodiac." Lists and "Memorable Moments" follow.

"2007 was a year of revelations: a year of discovering previously-overlooked films, actors, even whole genres that I had ignored or written off, and a year of learning about myself, through film," writes Eva Holland. An example: "Revelation #3: I do like thrillers."

Tom Huddleston goes for the "Heroes & Villains" approach: "It may not have the authoritative stamp of a 10 Best countdown, but it's a lot more fun to write." Among the heroes: Harmony Korine. Among the villains: "Critics and Awards Judges - For me, 2007 will forever be remembered as the Year of the Bizarrely Overrated."

Jenny Jediny presents a list "alphabetized by title, and highlighted with designated 'award' categories of sorts (some serious, but mostly for amusement)." Example: "Most Lovable Dysfunctional Family: Love Streams."

"What was the stand-out moment for film in 2007?" asks Ian Johnston. "In one sense for me it was the almost simultaneous deaths of Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni, a symbolic passing of two giants from another age of cinema. It's not that there aren't great directors at work today but they're working in a wider film culture that's been transformed, above all in two respects. Firstly, in Bergman and Antonioni's day there existed in the general culture an awareness of and an interest in the directors of foreign subtitled films that simply does not exist nowadays. And secondly, it's impossible to imagine any arthouse director today being given the opportunity as Bergman was of developing his craft through ten years of experimentation involving as many outright failures as successes." Further down, a list follows, topped by Aleksandr Sokurov's Alexandra.

"I laughed and whooped through Edgar Wright's comedy-actioner Hot Fuzz (more than once); I tried not to breathe too loudly at a screening of Philip Gröning's meditative documentary Into Great Silence," writes Victoria Large. "I have no desire to sum up twelve months of moviegoing with a list that I will inevitably grow to regret. So in lieu of that, I'll zero in on one genre - the musical - and the welcome growth I saw in it this year."

"By nature I am a nostalgist in regard to film, and this marks the third consecutive year that I've refrained from listing my contemporary favorites in any form, and this year I find it especially daunting and uninspiring. Great cinema is often, and perhaps implicitly, something that is to be sought, and we live in an age in which the availability of film has taken precedence over the opportunity to discover it." That's how Rumsey Taylor wraps a lovely remembrance of a man he never met, Dennis J Arruda, owner of Video Oasis, a store in East Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Posted by dwhudson at December 30, 2007 11:43 AM