2007 Village Voice/LA Weekly Film Poll.

"Hey, we're back," announces J Hoberman. The Voice skipped last year's poll "(lotta changes going on around here; maybe you heard)" and let the LA Weekly take over; now, after a year of running reviews in each other's pages anyway, "we've joined forces and polled 102 critics." The results show There Will Be Blood as the way-out-front winner in the "Best Film" category, followed by No Country for Old Men and Zodiac. As in indieWIRE's critics' poll, those two are this close to tying for second place.

Updated through 1/3.

"What do these three movies have in common?" asks Hoberman. "All were made by highly self-motivated mavericks operating somewhere on the frontier between indie and studio filmmaking. And all three are kind of scary.... Why shouldn't we be preoccupied with homicidal sociopaths? America's been at war for the past four and a half years - with, to cite the top-polling documentary, No End in Sight (#29). War makes you wonder what exactly defines murder and who is enabled to commit it."

Scoring the #1 spot on Hoberman's own Top 10 is I'm Not There, which is as it should be. After all, he's written the best piece on Todd Haynes's film yet. All in all: "It was a good year - a very good American year, at least as far as movies go. I don't think I've ever compiled a list with as few as three foreign films, one of them by our neighbor to the north, David Cronenberg."

"Any year with a Zodiac, Grindhouse, I'm Not There, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, There Will Be Blood or Southland Tales would be memorable; the lot of them in one marks the finest stretch of homegrown cinema in my lifetime," writes Nathan Lee. And yes, he's including Southland Tales. In fact, it's his #1 film of the year, "for wit, poignancy, honesty, and outrage, for the precise, inspired casting and the marvelous ensemble acting, but, above all, for committing to a resolutely contemporary address. Southland Tales looks and feels more like life in 2007 than Juno, In the Valley of Elah and Michael Clayton combined."

Updates: Hey, there's more. Dreading 2008 already should the writers' strike carry on, Jim Ridley looks back to the best screenplays of 2007: "Only one screenwriter... gave a mostly female cast the kind of talky latitude that Apatow, the Coens and Paul Thomas Anderson in There Will Be Blood allowed their male protagonists - and that feminist's name was Quentin Tarantino." Also: "From minor hits to complete obscurities, these 10 films from 2007 - and others - deserved more attention than they got."

"Like the dynamo [John] Hughes of the mid-80s, Apatow must sense that he's as synched-up with his demographic as he'll ever be, and he's piling on the work while his ordained moment lasts," suggests Nick Pinkerton. "The 40-Year-Old Virgin certified Steve Carell after journeyman years on The Daily Show; Knocked Up cleared a range for [Seth] Rogen's everystoner persona to roam; and Superbad was the perfect coming-out for Michael Cera, a murderously finessed line reader. All of the above are great showpieces - but great film comedies?"

ST VanAirsdale has five suggestions for improving film culture in New York/

"Tracing any sort of best-of for the multitudinous varieties of experimental film and video is a fool's errand," admits Ed Halter; "here, instead, are 10 notable works that I wasn't otherwise able to review this year. Consider it a to-do list for your next time-machine excursion."

Updates, 1/3: "The best supporting actors have said there’s little more satisfying than working in concert with a well-oiled ensemble," writes Ella Taylor. "And little more fun to watch, which is why a package deal and a duet top my list of the best supporting actors of 2007."

It was not a great year at the box office for horror, notes Luke Y Thompson.

Posted by dwhudson at January 2, 2008 11:23 AM