Roughly a year ago I compiled a lengthy list of my favourite films of 2006; I’m back at that point again, but it still feels like a first. See, January 2007 saw a significant change for me. It’s then when I gained media accreditation, meaning I finally had access to press screenings of upcoming movies.

Press screenings differ from “normal” film showings in many different ways. For one, you get to view a movie up to a month before it even starts playing in cinemas for the “normal” audience. This is of course simply to give film journalists time to pen their reviews to coincide with the start of the movie’s theatrical run.

But more beneficial to me, as banal as it sounds, is the fact that you don’t pay admission fees to press screenings. Attending a screening is considered part of your job; in turn what you write later raises the film’s awareness among potential movie-goers. So it’s a win-win situation for both the theater managers and us movie writers.

What this boils down to is that for the first time in my life, my meagre student’s budget wasn’t a determinating factor in which movies I went to see. For the first time, being strapped for money didn’t force me to forgo films that held some interest for me but weren’t my top priority.

So while previously - having been a cinéphile for as long as I can think back - I made a point of seeing about fourty releases a year (including films I caught up with on DVD at year’s end), between January 1st and December 31st 2007 I made my way inside the cinema exactly one-hundred-and-four times. After which I caught up with about twenty more movies on DVD.

So this now is the first time that I’m really confident about compiling such a best-of-the-year list, because I feel that I have a fair overview of the bulk that played in our moviehouses in 2007. There are still a few films that I regret to have missed and was thus not able to consider for this list, but that number is infinitely smaller compared to last year and before.

Like last year though, I had to hold back compiling this top-twenty chart until late January. Most of the major film studios feel the need to release their best films as late in the year as possible (to maximize their awareness come award season) - but to to judge how these potentially most important works of the year really measure up to the rest of the year, I felt I needed to view them from a critical distance that simply isn’t there yet mere days after watching a film.

Now before I get to the meat, here are a few movies (in alphabetical order) that I really enjoyed (in parts or in full) but wasn’t able to include in the list below because they weren’t quite as extraordinary as those entries: 2 Days in Paris, 3:10 to Yuma, Beowulf, The Darjeeling Limited, Death at a Funeral, Enchanted, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Hors de Prix, INLAND EMPIRE, Hot Fuzz, The Kite Runner, La stelle che non c’e, Lions for Lambs, Michael Clayton, The Namesake, Ping Pong, Sicko, Spider-Man 3, Stardust, Sunshine, and Zodiac.

Finally, I must say that I had a difficult time determining my number one film for the list. Last year was different, because Pan’s Labyrinth to me stood head and tails above anything else released in 2006 and so was an easy pick. While I didn’t see anything this year that knocked me off my feet as much as Pan’s Labyrinth did, the ratio of great movie to good movie was much higher.

I considered all films in my top five as my potential number one; five masterpieces that I will hold dear and watch over and over again. In the end it wasn’t more than a couple of minuscule details that made the difference between ranks five, four, three, two and one.

So without further ado, here are the twenty movies I consider to be the cream of the crop of 2007:

Diesen Beitrag weiterlesen »

This year’s contenders for the most prestigious prize in film business were announced yesterday, and here follows my take on their choices.

I’m a person with a nagging urge to often legitimize my actions, so I’m going to precede this by briefly explaining two things: why I believe the Academy Award nominations are up for discussion, and why the Oscars are important at all.

Accolades are controversial by nature, especially in the entertainment industry where the prize-givings often unfold within ceremonies. The problem in these cases is that actually awarding someone often takes the backseat to producing a spectacular show.

The lavish Oscar ceremony, an annual congregation for Hollywood’s A-listers and an extension of Paris’ finest catwalks, continually faces the prejudice of being an entirely self-applauding act, a backslapping feast for people from the film industry with no real merit for the public.

While I can’t deny the narcissistic aspect of the yearly show in and around the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, it is simply not true that the Oscars are of no siginificant consequence. The thirteen-and-a half inches tall golden statuette is the most recognized film award in the world; winning films visibly list their Oscar success(es) to promote their sales on video and DVD, and trailers for upcoming films that feature Academy Award-winning actors make a point to remind us of it.

The bottom line is that the Oscar (ideally) distinguishes movies on the basis of quality and thus helps form a canon in the rich landscape of English-language film. Today’s greatest achievements in motion picture need to be preserved for future generations to remember. A canon ensures just that.

But this leaves the voting body, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Scieneces (AMPAS), with a considerable responsibility. It’s not easy to nail down the year’s best work into a definitive list of five or three; but it’s a necessary filtering process.

The job of narrowing down candidates for (ultimately) the canon falls to the peers of the motion picture industry who constitute the Academy. The job of keeping the Academy in check by discussing whether or not they made good, sensible choices falls to film journalists and critics - such as myself.

Which brings me back to my original intention for this commentary piece: to address this year’s list of Academy Award nominees - to applaud AMPAS for bold choices, to bemoan them for blatant oversights, and to once again bring back to memory 2007’s cinematic highlights.

Diesen Beitrag weiterlesen »