Part of being a movie-lover—or more generally, someone who cares far more about any one thing than the average person—is learning to live with marginalization. Sometimes that isn't easy, especially when you come to the stinging realization that more people have seen, say, Alvin And The Chipmunks, than all of the films on your Top 10 list combined. That's part of why putting together the A.V. Club Film Poll is such a pleasure: It's one thing to champion great films with quixotic fervor year after year, but another to learn that your readers are right there with you, waist-deep in chaff, seeking out the best cinema has to offer. This is moviegoing in an alternate universe—or, as reader Chuck Taylor dubs it, "the crazy-nutso-super-Oscars." We tallied a total of 216 ballots, most of which were annotated with thoughtful commentary, and here are the results:
- No Country For Old Men (607 pts., 150 ballots)
- There Will Be Blood (405 pts. 114 ballots)
- Zodiac (246 pts., 87 ballots)
- Once (159 pts., 55 ballots)
- The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford (155 pts., 42 ballots)
- Ratatouille (132 pts., 52 ballots)
- Hot Fuzz (127.5 pts., 43 ballots)
- Juno (107 pts, 41 ballots)
- The Darjeeling Limited (93 pts., 30 ballots)
- Gone Baby Gone (63.5 pts., 22 ballots)
Significant others: Atonement (62.5), Sweeney Todd (60), Superbad (60), Grindhouse (59), The Bourne Ultimatum (54), Into The Wild (51), Eastern Promises (46), Knocked Up (36)
Last year's poll ended in a nail-biter between eventual winner The Departed and scrappy underdog Children Of Men, but there was no such suspense this year. Many of you agreed with our assertion that 2007 was a particularly strong year for movies, but even given that, the Coen brothers' No Country For Old Men dominated the field, appearing on nearly 70 percent of the ballots. It's possible that There Will Be Blood might have presented a stiffer challenge if more voters had a chance to see it before deadline, just as Pan's Labyrinth would have fared better had it not rolled out just as slowly last year. But even that seems unlikely when you consider that No Country scored a whopping four points per ballot, which means it averaged a second-place finish.
Still, No Country's triumph was predictable (even if the margin of victory wasn't), since the film more or less swept the critics' guild awards, and leads this year's Oscar race, with eight nominations. So what was unexpected? For me, the big surprise was Hot Fuzz, which didn't appear on any A.V. Club Top 10s—not that we didn't love it, mind—but which leapfrogged all the way to #4 until late-breaking ballots knocked it down to a respectable #7. Based on the comments, many found it the most purely entertaining film of 2007—or, as reader Ed Robertson put it, the movie he'd most likely steal from his roommate's DVD collection. Other surprises: A Ben Affleck-directed film sneaking into the Top 10 (thus confusing many who thought they had him pegged), The Darjeeling Limited defying the lukewarm critical consensus to land at #9, and Superbad soundly thumping the more heralded Knocked Up for Judd Apatow comedy supremacy.
But that's enough from me, since this poll is all about you. A few more notes before I go: First and foremost, thanks greatly to everyone who participated, especially those who took the time and effort to share their thoughts on the year in film. The number of ballots increased sharply over last year's total, which tested the limits of what I can compile on my own (future interns: prepare for action!), but also offered an embarrassment of riches. As a result, some very good comments were left on the cutting-room floor, so don't despair if yours didn't make the final edit. Thousands of finely crafted words were slashed from this already-unwieldy piece, and it was painful work getting it done.
And finally, we promised prizes for our three favorite contributors, so congratulations to Stephen Parkhurst, Greg Burland, and Jordan Miller. We'll be in touch soon about sending the A.V. Club T-shirts and other assorted miscellany you so richly deserve.
ON THE WINNERS
No Country For Old Men
[It] is even better than you think. While no one would dispute the mastery of the Brothers Coen, never have they presented a film so radically and effectively destructive. The people who were angry about the film's ending were likely the same ones who balked at the series finale of The Sopranos. It doesn't make sense only if you haven't been paying attention. The Coens take the familiar, comfy three-act structure that every single studio film (and 99 percent of indie fare) is built upon and rough it up real good. No Country lulls you into thinking it's just another crime thriller with a decent protagonist (he goes back with the agua!) and an evil antagonist (he flips a coin for your life!), and then cold-cocks you with the startling realization: neither Good nor Evil stands a chance against a chaotic and nonpartisan universe. Genius. —Stephen Parkhurst, Portland, Maine
The Coen brothers' masterpiece is both an affirmation and a rebuttal to aging conservatives who declare that the world is going straight to hell, a complaint that crops up every generation. The film's message seems to be "Yes, the world is a terrible place, but it's always been that way," and yet there can be no denying that Anton Chigurh represents a new kind of evil, all the uglier for the methodical dispassion with which he casually blows away half of Texas. Part of me wonders if Javier Bardem should be so lauded for a performance where his main task was to keep his face neutral as his weapons did the talking, but no other character has burrowed into my head the same way as Chigurh. The fate of Sheriff Bell lets us know that if we want to weather the storm of history, it's best to keep our heads down and avoid confronting a force so powerful. —Justin Muschong, New York, New York
I saw this on Christmas Eve with my folks. We all loved it. The following day, we all prepared to leave for my grandmother's house, and my mother asked what time we were leaving. I said, "We're leaving now." She responded with "Now is not a time," in her best Chigurh. Happy Christmas. —Douglas, Chicago, IL
There Will Be Blood
With "epic" being thrown at it left and right, it's only natural to ponder what makes Paul Thomas Anderson's bleak period drama so enthralling. At least half of that acclaim can be attributed to the epic scope and cinematic daring with which the tale of Daniel Plainview is told. Jonny Greenwood's revolutionary score and Anderson's bold direction make There Will Be Blood epic by sheer will of ambition. The remainder of the praise, rightly so, belongs to the story itself. The saga of Plainview's rise to greedy opulence is a specifically, but not uniquely, American one. Daniel Day Lewis gives Plainview such a menacing grandeur that the character threatens to overrun the story. It doesn't, and across the span of 30 years, Anderson and Day Lewis show Plainview bully and plunder his way toward his twisted idea of success. Plainview is a man so singularly committed to winning at any cost that he discards any chance of humanity and turns his soul to ash. It's impressive that Anderson is able to juggle so many daunting themes (the fragility of familial bonds, the hideousness of retribution, the fraudulence of religion) while in service to such an imposing character. Plainview isn't just a misanthrope; he's only content when basking in the defeat of others, and with his final, chilling words he announces that he's made good on his intentions, as well as the ghastly promise of the film's title. —Greg Burland, Houston, Texas
This picture deserves to stand alongside Citizen Kane as a portrait of a man whose ego and ambition are his making and his unmaking. Weirdly, though, it was not Kane I thought of during TWWB but rather Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. I think the wordless opening sequence reminded me of the "Dawn of Man" section of the Kubrick film, and in a broader sense, TWWB helps fill in the blank between the ape throwing the bone in the air and the space station orbiting the Earth. What happened in between those two events? Well, guys like Daniel Plainview came along: ruthless, driven, and totally willing to make Mother Nature their bitch. That's the story of human evolution and human civilization right there. —Joe Blevins, Arlington Heights, Illinois
This film more or less proves that Paul Thomas Anderson is capable of damn near anything as a filmmaker. Seriously, what's next? Bollywood? In a year of dark films, none was more unsparing than this one, which also gave us Daniel Day Lewis' best performance to date. His Daniel Plainview is a Horatio Alger archetype gone terribly wrong, a man defined solely by his ambition and his tendency to "only see the worst in people." Plainview is one of the darkest and most riveting protagonists ever to grace the silver screen, a force of nature who consumes the world of the film and swallows all that is good and hopeful, leaving only an oil-black heart. "DRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAINAGE!," indeed. —Paul Clark, Columbus, Ohio
Is Daniel Day Lewis systematically retelling the entirety of U.S. history? His work in The Crucible, Last of the Mohicans, Gangs Of New York, and The Age Of Innocence paints a fascinating, incomplete portrait of a land throughout history. As Daniel Plainview, he inches into the 20th century in Paul Thomas Anderson' There Will Be Blood, a mesmerizing one-man epic about oil or, if you will, obsession, fathers, sons, capitalism, religious fundraising, the American dream, and the usefulness of milkshakes in illustrating economic metaphors. You get the feeling Anderson exercises so much stylistic control—he still loves the long takes, but they don't come on as fast or as showy as they did in Boogie Nights or Magnolia—in order to make the film's growing, menacing, glorious strangeness all the more stark and unavoidable. As for Day Lewis: I can't wait to see his intense Method take on the roaring '20s. —Jesse Hassenger, Brooklyn, New York
Zodiac
Unlike so many other procedurals that rely on quick crime-solving and tidy confessions to give an audience a sense of resolution, Zodiac focuses instead on the relentless and deadening efforts of those tasked with solving the series of brutal murders that occurred in the San Francisco area during the late 1960s and early 1970s. It isn't a film driven by suspense, but by obsession: obsession with details, obsession with geographical places, obsession with chronology and time. It is also merciless in showing how even the most experienced police officers and reporters can become so overwhelmed with details—murder scenes, aisles of evidence boxes piled on top of each other, eyewitness accounts, innumerable phone tips, handwriting samples, the killer's own coded messages—that even with thousands of individual points of data, assembling those pieces into a coherent whole becomes nearly impossible. David Fincher's best film reminds the viewer that tidy closure is something oft found only in the movies. —Nate Rethorn, Findlay, Ohio
Critics invoked Manny Farber's term "termite art" when reviewing Zodiac (to quote Farber, the kind of film "goes always forward eating its own boundaries, and, like as not, leaves nothing in its path other than the signs of eager, industrious, unkempt activity"), a choice that seems apt given Fincher's take on the serial-killer genre here. It's a film that's obsessive in the best kind of way, unsettling all of your expectations as the probability of ever catching the real killer diminishes. —Alison Wielgus, Brooklyn, New York
Ratatouille
Pixar at its peak and the most intelligent statement on the artistic process I've seen in years. Usually films about artists (and make no mistake, Remy is an artist) struggle to express the driving force behind their protagonist, so they have to stick with blowing up his or her passion. And while Remy's passion is of course evident, the joy he takes in his creative process is infectious. Finally, an artist who's not miserable (and not starving). I wonder who Brad Bird sees himself as: Remy the passionate, oppressed creator with animalistic drive, or Linguini, the scared kid trying to make good. Maybe both. Who knows, in 20 years we could be saying Ratatouille is Brad Bird's 8 1/2. —Robert Anton, Cleveland, Ohio
This is more than the best movie of the year, and more than another fine addition to the pristine Pixar canon, although it is certainly both of those things. Ratatouille is, simply put, the best Disney movie ever made. (And this is coming from someone whose love of The Sword In The Stone and Fantasia is bone-deep.) Where to begin on what makes this movie so transcendent? The script, which would need only the tiniest of tweaks to become a live-action, indie comedy about a young, up-and-coming chef trying to overcome the stereotypes and castes in the Parisian restaurant scene? The animation, which makes the skyline of Paris come to life more vividly and romantically than 99 percent of live-action movies that have been filmed there? Brad Bird's immaculate direction, which, along with The Incredibles and The Iron Giant shows him to be the finest animation director since Chuck Jones? A deep, soulful love of food and cuisine as an art form the likes of which hasn't been seen since Big Night? The impeccable performances, with special credit going to Peter O'Toole, whose climactic monologue about the value of criticism in the art world is the finest work he's done since Lawrence Of Arabia? All those things, plus great chase sequences, father-son conflicts that seem to stem from real-life experiences and not trite Disney clichés, and the addition of characters who seem to understand, for once, just how fucking insane the plot they're involved in has become, make this the best thing going this year when it comes to movies. —Greg Popil (a.k.a SouthOfHeaven), Scranton, Pennsylvania
Hot Fuzz
I forced my fiancé to see Springsteen in concert late last year. Despite not being a terribly huge fan of his, she really enjoyed it, remarking, "It was just great to see that there seemed to be nowhere else he'd rather be than performing for all those who came to see him." Though I couldn't verbalize it at the time, this is exactly how I felt watching Hot Fuzz: Those involved with making the film, just like with Shaun Of The Dead, seemed to be having the time oF their lives, and it shows through in their work. This was the most fun I had at the movies all year. —Nick Foster, Albany, New York
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