Lists, 1/1.

"Those of you who dislike personal blogs (probably the same folks who dislike pasta in their Italian cuisine) can tune out now," announces Tim Lucas in his latest entry. "Another year is ending and I feel inclined to take stock." He has, of course, had one helluva year. Besides the completion of his monumental Mario Bava All the Colors of the Dark (and again, see DK Holm's excellent profile/review), he's also written a monograph on Jefferson Airplane's 1968 album Crown of Creation, "which I analyzed in terms of being, in part, a science-fiction concept album inspired in part by the writings of British author John Wyndham - the flower children of 1967 mutating into the Midwich Cuckoos, so to speak," and Videodrome, a study of David Cronenberg's film. He's also collaborated on screenplays, written reviews for Sight & Sound, among other publications, and recorded audio commentaries for a slew of DVDs, all while editing eight new issues of Video Watchdog and, yes, blogging.

"I saw more than thirty films that I would call very-good-to-great in 2007 but none that impressed me as much as my favorites from last year, Syndromes and a Century, Still Life / Dong and Colossal Youth," writes Darren Hughes, introducing an alphabetical list of ten favorites, plus ten "Favorite Film Discoveries of 2007" and a note of "Special Recognition" to The Wire.

"Once again, Film Threat gathers the best of this under-appreciated cinematic sector with the annual list of the Top 10 Unseen Films," announces Phil Hall. "For 2007, the list spans the genres of animation, documentary, narrative features and musical celebrations. Features and shorts exist side-by-side here, with settings ranging from a two-dimensional universe inhabited by geometrical beings to the American heartland to a Caribbean marijuana farm to a bodybuilder community decimated by a cannibalistic serial killer."

Karina Longworth goes for Silent Light and links to her SpoutBlog reviews for each film that made her top ten, plus runners-up, a couple of underrateds, an overrated and the "First Annual Boxing Helena Award, For A Flash of Brilliance That I Wish I Could Amputate From The Fatally Flawed Film Surrounding It (three-way tie)."

"Even in its relative infancy when compared to other artistic mediums and near obsolescence when compared to vulgar popularity of other lesser motion picture formats, the feature film is uniquely positioned to transmit aestheticized ideological codes to large groups of people, but as Errol Morris has discussed on his blog and in a terrific series of New York Times pieces this year, the ideology of the viewer almost always defeats that of the film," writes Brandon Harris. "When the pair of ideologies that confront one another when even the most layman viewer watches a film can shape and change each other, inform the broader world view of the audience member or perfect the flawed representational framework of a film, this is when you've come across a film (or critic) worth talking about. Enough - here are my favorites of last year."

"2007 was a year of trends aplenty, both overwrought and unspoken." Rob Humanick maps several and puts "the no-holds-barred surrealist firebomb that was Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters" at the top of his list.

Scott Weinberg: "2007: The Year in Horror. All of It. Seriously." Also at Cinematical, Patrick Walsh writes up a top ten and James Rocchi lists the worsts of 07.

Jim Tudor blurbs "An American Film Geek's Top 3 for 2007" - and a "Bottom 3," too - at Twitch, where Mack, too, looks back over the year just done.

At the top of celinejulie's list: JG Biggs's Cry in Silence.

Pat Graham, blogging at the Chicago Reader, lists "favorite individual scenes/motiffs" of the year.

No Country for Old Men tops Matthew's ten at the Enzian Theater.

Lists at Arthur: Michael Simmons, John Coulthart, Steve Krakow, Cory Loren, Kevin Doria and Alan Bishop.

Stop Smiling picks out a few highlights from the pieces it ran in 2007.

Posted by dwhudson at January 1, 2008 10:46 AM