IndieWIRE crix poll: American blood, blood, blood
IndieWIRE has announced the results of its annual critics' poll, and Paul Thomas Anderson's "There Will Be Blood" dominates (picture, director, screenplay, cinematography, lead performance), followed by David Fincher's "Zodiac" and Joel & Ethan Coen's No Country for Old Men.
For most American viewers, this is going to be a Netflix list: Two of the top ten movies never barely opened theatrically outside of New York ("Syndromes and a Century," "Colossal Youth"); two never played in more than 20 theaters at once ("Offside," "Killer of Sheep" -- the restoration of Charles Burnett's 1977 film); two haven't opened yet, and won't in most places until 2008 ("There Will Be Blood," "4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days"); and, in these days when wide releases typically launch on 2,000 - 4,000 theaters, two never made it to more than 400 at any given time ("I'm Not There" [149], "The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford" [301]). Only two others ever spread beyond 1,000 screens: "No Country for Old Men" and "Zodiac." Three of the ten best selections -- "Killer of Sheep," "Offside" and "Zodiac" -- are currently available on DVD.
Poll administrator Dennis Lim noted that, compared to 2006 when "the relative dearth of truly exciting films" was lamented by many critics, this year's 106 participants were more enthusiastic about their choices. One eyebrow-raising development was cited in the indieWIRE introduction, though:
If there is a strking hole to be found in this year's [poll results]... it is the utter lack of American indie films. While last year's survey celebrated outside-the-system films such as David Lynch's "Inland Empire," Kelly Reichart's "Old Joy," Ryan Fleck's "Half Nelson" and Andrew Bujalski's "Mutual Appreciation," the acclaimed new films from American filmmakers this year came from directly within the Hollywood and Indiewood system, starring name actors.Other poll-toppers: Best First Film (Sarah Polley, "Away From Her"), Best Documentary ("No End in Sight," Charles Ferguson), Supporting Performance (Cate Blanchett, "I'm Not There"), The complete results in all the categories can be scrutinized here. And the individual critics' ballots (including mine) are here.
Comments
"Syndromes and a Century" actually played theatrically in my current city of residence, Austin, TX, but only for one week. I planned on seeing it, but I missed out because of a busy week.
Posted by: Josh | December 20, 2007 3:42 PM
Oh, you gotta see "Syndromes." It's one of those handful of movies that has replayed in my head many times since I've seen in,probably distorting it all out of whack too, but it's my mind-movie and I can make it what I want to be.
By the way, does anyone know why The Assassination of Jesse James got such a miserable release? I was expecting that one to be a wide-release on the scale of 1,500-2,000 theaters. It seems like a genre movie with stars would "play in Peoria." It barely even opened here in Philly.
You gotta admit the showing by Colossal Youth is impressive when you consider that plenty of the critics polled (maybe even half? whadda you think?) never got to see it. It really is a singular film.
Interesting comment about the American indie films in 2007. I can go 20 deep on my favorite list for the year and still not come up with one. Either this means the indie has finally been completely subsumed by Hollywood, or it means nothing and just happened to be an off year.
Posted by: Christopher Long | December 20, 2007 7:55 PM
I'm hoping to read more of your thoughts on "There Will Be Blood" in the near future. This seems to be one of those films that manages to divide people in an intellectually edifying manner; it's all too easy to pick out the lazy naysayers (i.e. "I couldn't relate to the characters..."), and so those who have something legitimately critical to say are going to have more constructive and revealing thoughts to share. My own favorite review of the piece so far is from Ed Gonzalez (okay, I'm biased a bit, but I'm aware), and I'm in almost total disagreement with him. This is the one I'm most eager to follow over the next few months.
On a slightly more off topic note: I'd absolutely love to see a temporary line of McDonald's "Plainview" milkshakes. How sick would that be?
Posted by: rob | December 20, 2007 10:13 PM
I was afraid "Zodiac" would go completely unrecognized on year-end lists, as I haven't seen it on one before. Since it didn't do well at the box office and came out so long ago, I guess it's been overshadowed by all the Oscar-season prestige pictures. It's my favorite movie of the year, so I'm glad it got some love on this list.
Posted by: DVC | December 20, 2007 10:54 PM
This just depresses me to no end ... living in the hinterland (Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where the Tusks are, of course, loosa), I haven't gotten to see "I'm Not There" or "The Assassination (etc.)" yet, much less "Killer of Sheep." It's always a Netflix moment for me.
Posted by: Rick OIson | December 21, 2007 3:37 PM
Jim: More interesting to me was the list of "orphan" films. I am hoping to see a complete list of all of the films, not just just the top vote getters. For myself, there are a couple of films I'm glad I saw in Thailand or I would never have known about them.
Posted by: Peter Nellhaus | December 22, 2007 6:20 AM
Hey Jim: I found the list with all of the nominated "orphan" films. I have three of them on DVD which I will write about when I get a new working DVD player.
Posted by: Peter Nellhaus | December 23, 2007 6:20 AM