Match-cut's top 20 films of 2007 (and more!)

[Watashi]

I really want to see The Taste of Tea. Looks like a live-action Miyazaki film.

[Spinal]

Next time I say I'm gonna do something stupid you're supposed to wave me off.

I figure that anyone going into a Michael Bay film willingly is already beyond my powers to influence.

[Rowland]

and suddenly we've got the damn dog pissing on a Transformer. Or worse, a Transformer pissing on John Turturro. I hope Romance & Cigarettes was worth it...

[Watashi]

The Mountain Dew transformer is the best thing about the film. They should do a spin-off featuring that robot.

[Sycophant]

How my top ten stacks up against the collective:

1. No Country for Old Men (#1)
2. The Taste of Tea (#14)
3. Paprika (#8)
4. Triad Election (Election 2) (#44)
5. The Host (#13)
6. The Darjeeling Limited (#10)
7. Hot Fuzz (#17)
8. Offside (#39)
9. Quiet City (#48)
10. Gone Baby Gone (#12)

[Kurosawa Fan]

Awesome job Boner.

I've seen 17 of the top 20, and only 3 of the bottom 10. Nice.

[Watashi]

The list above gives me a great selection of what to fill my Netflix queue with to catch up on 2007 releases.

[Watashi]

Wait, who voted for In the Land of Women? HAHA!

It must have been eternity.

[dreamdead]

I figure that anyone going into a Michael Bay film willingly is already beyond my powers to influence.

Sometimes I feel that my film ratings get too positive. At that point, I must ingest something to guarantee that I'm not being too polite in ratings. This film was the cure.

Favorite moment would either have to be the asinine moment that Rowland pinpointed or the disappearing act that the evil transformer fighter-jet does in the narrative once Megatron is killed. All the actors are conversing cheerfully and I'm sitting there going, "Guys... there should still be an evil tranformer-thingy flying over your heads trying to kill you. Oh, wait. Are we just nixing that whole narrative. Okey doke." :rolleyes:

(I still want to see The Island, though). Masochism isn't for everybody, but I'm game. Hence my queueing up Alpha Dog, Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem, and 300. But I'll get to Lady Chatterley and Offside first. :)

[ledfloyd]

my top five are all in the top 6. nice.

1. I'm Not There (#4)
2. Zodiac (#3)
3. No Country for Old Men (#1)
4. Once (#6)
5. The Assassination of Jesse James (#5!)

[Rowland]

I still want to see The Island, though.The Island sucks too, but I still think it's more palatable than Transformers. A much better recent example of trashy high-tech sci-fi is Vincenzo Natali's Cypher.

[Bosco B Thug]

Wow, epic thread. Bravo! Your characterizations of Armond and Ben were so vivid I literally feel this much closer to them and am scrub washing myself clean right now.

1. No Country for Old Men - 8/10
2. There Will Be Blood - 6.5/10
3. Zodiac - 9/10
4. I'm Not There - 7.5/10
5. The Assassination of Jesse James… - 8/10
6. Once - 6/10
7. Ratatouille - 8.5/10
8. Paprika - n/a
9. The Lives of Others - 7.5/10
10. The Darjeeling Limited - 7.5/10
11. Syndromes and a Century - n/a
12. Gone Baby Gone - 9/10
13. The Host - 8/10
=14. Into the Wild - n/a
=14. The Taste of Tea - 7.5/10
16. Black Book - 8/10
17. Hot Fuzz - 7/10
18. Juno - 6.5/10
19. Atonement - 6/10
20. The Wayward Cloud - n/a

TOP TEN:
1. Death Proof (#23)
2. Zodiac (#3)
3. Gone Baby Gone (#12)
4. Sweeney Todd (#28)
5. This Is England (#25)
6. The Host (#13)
7. Ratatouille (#7)
8. Black Book (#16)
9. The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford (#5)
10. The Mist (#31)

Yo, who voted for Joshua? *unsure about how any of this was tabulated*


Meantime, why didn't anything tell me I'd leave the Transformers angry? Next time I say I'm gonna do something stupid you're supposed to wave me off. This film juggles so many tones and never knows which one it wants to settle down with. It'll utilize a serious streak, and suddenly we've got the damn dog pissing on a Transformer. Totally. It's the worst thing about these big blockbusters, their aim to please everyone through easy tonal manipulation, e.g. from asking us to give a hoot about the chick having a daddy with a bad rap, then giving us a Transformer pissing on "the Man"; from an "earnest" portrayal of soldiers to cheap left-wing political gag. Man, just thinking about the film!

[NickGlass]

My favorites were pretty evenly distributed among the list.

1. No Country for Old Men (279.5)
4. I'm Not There (112.5)
20. The Wayward Cloud (41.5)
26. 12:08 East of Bucharest (34.5)
29. I Don't Want to Sleep Alone (29.5)
29. King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (29.5)
32. Persepolis (27.5)
74. Dans Paris (5.5)
74. My Kid Could Paint That (5.5)
74. Day Night/Day Night (5.5)

#74 is the place to be.

[Raiders]

Match Cut vs Me:

1. There Will Be Blood (2)
2. The King of Kong (29)
3. This Is England (25)
4. Persepolis (32)
5. The Host (13)
6. No Country for Old Men (1)
7. Ratatouille (7)
8. 28 Weeks Later (59)
9. The Last Winter (88) I'm probably only one of two to have seen this
10. I'm Not There (4)

[Qrazy]

Still haven't seen Into the Wild, Lives of Others or Atonement. There's also about 25 others in the top 100 I'd like to see still. I have trouble believing Hairspray is actually a good film. I can't bring myself to queue it up.

[transmogrifier]

Into the Wild (#14)
Zodiac (#3)
Darjeeling Limited, The (#10)
Death Proof (#23)
Gone Baby Gone (#12)
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (#48)
There Will Be Blood (#2)
Girl, Thirteen (strangely, not present. Was my list counted?)
Eastern Promises (#27)
Sunshine (#21)
Once (#6)

[Ivan Drago]

Blame Ivan Drago.

Blame the masculine in me. To me, 300 was complete and utter awesome fun.

[Sycophant]

Blame the masculine in me. To me, 300 was complete and utter awesome fun.
I refuse to believe that there's something inherent in my geneder identity that would compel me to like that film.

[Rowland]

I refuse to believe that there's something inherent in my geneder identity that would compel me to like that film.Stop being a pussy.

[Boner M]

Girl, Thirteen (strangely, not present. Was my list counted?)
I got rid of all the films on folks' lists that weren't US 2007 releases. Also, I couldn't find that film on IMDb. I presume it's Korean?

[Ivan Drago]

1. Grindhouse (Planet Terror 48, Death Proof 23)
2. Superbad (34)
3. There Will Be Blood (2)
4. No Country For Old Men (1)
5. Atonement (19)
6. Once (6)
7. Hot Fuzz (17)
8. The Assassination of Jesse James (5)
9. Ratatouille (7)
10. 300 (94)

[eternity]

My top ten against the real list either shows that I have horrible taste, or just really obscured ones.

1. Juno (18)
2. Control (38)
3. The TV Set (59)
4. The Tracey Fragments (65)
5. Wristcutters: A Love Story (69)
6. SiCKO (44)
7. Across the Universe (69)
8. The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (29)
9. Superbad (34)
10. Eagle vs. Shark (not on here, I think Boner counted the list I made before the final, because In the Land of Women was on the big list and I had to be the only one who found that even remotely passable)

[Stay Puft]

1. Syndromes and a Century (11)
2. Paprika (8)
3. Red Road (41)
4. Lust, Caution (65)
5. No Country for Old Men (1)
6. The Host (13)
7. Sunshine (21)
8. ATHFCMFFT (82)
9. After the Wedding (88)
10. Hot Fuzz (17)

[Boner M]

1. Syndromes and a Century (11)
2. There Will Be Blood (2)
3. I Don't Want to Sleep Alone (29)
4. Zodiac (3)
5. No Country For Old Men (1)
6. The Wayward Cloud (20)
7. Lady Chatterley (59)
8. Regular Lovers (82)
9. Into the Wild (14)
10. Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten (94)

[Boner M]

I have gained well over 1/4 of my rep count from this thread. :)

[lovejuice]

The Island sucks too, but I still think it's more palatable than Transformers. A much better recent example of trashy high-tech sci-fi is Vincenzo Natali's Cypher.

it's my favorite bay.

[Qrazy]

it's my favorite bay.

Ehh The Rock is better, that garners a slightly positive score. The Island is still in the negatives.

[lovejuice]

Ehh The Rock is better, that garners a slightly positive score. The Island is still in the negatives.

aaahhhh....that might be true, but i hate hate hate ed harris's character. a funny thing is djimon hounsou plays essentially the same character as harris does. somehow i'm now more warmed up to bay's aesthetic/morality.

[Eleven]

I think the lowest ranked member of my top ten was #39 - Offside, with six in the overall top ten albeit in a different order. I'm fairly representative then, I guess.

[monolith94]

1. Khadak (52)
2. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (22)
3. I'm Not There (4)
4. No Country For Old Men (1)
5. Paprika (8)
6. The Darjeeling Limited (10)
7. Once (6)
8. Gone Baby Gone (12)
9. Black Book (16)
10. Hot Fuzz (17)


Well, Khadak, I did what I could...

[Melville]

4. I'm Not There (Todd Haynes)
CUT: This was unbearable. A deeply off-putting mixture of idolatry, self-importance and pseudo-artistic nonsense. Haynes' premise is an eye-roller, that Dylan is so enigmatic and complex that we need six different persona to approach a definition of the man. Spare me. Scene after scene fails to resonate and the end result is a Dylan that is more irritating than elusive, more tiresome than mysterious. - Spinal
Curses. I was really hoping to get that spot. Anyway, awesome job by Boner and Winston.

[Stay Puft]

Well, Khadak, I did what I could...

Your pimping hasn't gone unnoticed. I have it queued up.

[lovejuice]

Your pimping hasn't gone unnoticed. I have it queued up.

change the world one netflix queue at a time...

[transmogrifier]

I got rid of all the films on folks' lists that weren't US 2007 releases. Also, I couldn't find that film on IMDb. I presume it's Korean?

Yep.

[Ezee E]

It's a solid top ten.

The Lives of Others was on my list for 2006. I'm hoping the same will happen for Four Months, Three Weeks, and Two Days.

[Boner M]

Curses. I was really hoping to get that spot. Anyway, awesome job by Boner and Winston.
Yeah, I was kinda hoping to include a blurb from you here, since your Syndromes and Taste of Tea 'cuts' didn't exactly do justice to your writing skills. But Spinal's diss countered Duncan's praise more efficiently.

[Melville]

Yeah, I was kinda hoping to include a blurb from you here, since your Syndromes and Taste of Tea 'cuts' didn't exactly do justice to your writing skills. But Spinal's diss countered Duncan's praise more efficiently.
I guess I'll have to make my negativity more efficient for next year.

[Qrazy]

Yeah, I was kinda hoping to include a blurb from you here, since your Syndromes and Taste of Tea 'cuts' didn't exactly do justice to your writing skills. But Spinal's diss countered Duncan's praise more efficiently.

I think there should be a hyphen category for those that tread a film's middle ground.

[origami_mustache]

My top ten vs. Matchcut

1. No Country for Old Men (279.5)
2. There Will Be Blood (221)
4. I'm Not There (112.5)
11. Syndromes and a Century (64)
20. The Wayward Cloud (41.5)
22. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (39)
=56. The Wind That Shakes The Barley (9)
=59. Brand Upon the Brain (8)

NA Secret Sunshine
NA The Flight of the Red Balloon

[Yum-Yum]

Funny thread. Though I thought it could have used a little more Dominque Swain.

Oh, and whoever came up with Paprika caption is a cool person.

[Duncan]

1. The Man From London - n/a
2. There Will Be Blood - 2
3. I'm Not There - 4
4. Killer of Sheep - n/a
5. The Assassination of Jesse James etc. - 5
6. The Darjeeling Limited - 10
7. Persepolis - 32
8. Into Great Silence - 78
9. The Wind that Shakes the Barley - 56
10. Into the Wild - 14

[Duncan]

I think I kind of agree with Duncan's 'cut', which is the nagging thing that keeps me from embracing the film wholeheartedly.
You might be the only one.

[transmogrifier]

You might be the only one.

*raises hand*

[Rowland]

You might be the only one.Yeah, I sort of do too... and despite the general consensus in the critical/cinephile community that anyone who doesn't roll with the third act is some sort of philistine, I'm not sure the narrative shift completely works either.

[Qrazy]

You might be the only one.

I agree too and I don't see the central conceit of Chigurh representing 'the evil in the world' as especially deep or even all that interesting. I also reject the Chigurh as fate idea because I don't think it works thematically, but even if it did, I would have the same problems with it as the former representation. Just like Forrest Gump, the film works best on it's narrative/thrill level rather than as allegory or metaphor.

[Watashi]

Let it be known, that if someone says "I might be the only one" when regarding an opinion, it's pretty safe to bet you aren't.

I think you are all a bunch of crazies.

[Qrazy]

Yeah, I sort of do too... and despite the general consensus in the critical/cinephile community that anyone who doesn't roll with the third act is some sort of philistine, I'm not sure the narrative shift completely works either.

It's basically fanboyism on a mass scale, setting up an unfalsifiable belief and then daring someone to attempt to criticize it. It's certainly not a bad ending. It undermines audience expectation and plays deftly with the genre, but is it the best ending for the film? I don't particularly think so.

[Sven]

I agree too and I don't see the central conceit of Chigurh representing 'the evil in the world' as especially deep or even all that interesting. I also reject the Chigurh as fate idea because I don't think it works thematically, but even if it did, I would have the same problems with it as the former representation. Just like Forrest Gump, the film works best on it's narrative/thrill level rather than as allegory or metaphor.

I think stripping Chigurh's humanity away is a problematic reading. The only thing he represents is a man capable of actions we find inexplicable or evil. He is not death or fate. He is a dude.

[Qrazy]

I think stripping Chigurh's humanity away is a problematic reading. The only thing he represents is a man capable of actions we find inexplicable or evil. He is not death or fate. He is a dude.

Ok fine, perhaps I wrote too hastily. Replace evil with amorality and/or apathy. But I don't think he's just a dude. If he was it wouldn't have had that ending nor would it have needed to. It could have been more satisfyingly conclusive. No, I think he represents the amoral individual in general, not a singular instance. This is not a solvable problem/case the detective finds himself faced with, it is the essential indifference of the universe and the potential ramifications of that indifference.

[Duncan]

Even if he is just a dude, almost every positive review I've read of the film describes him as something at least semi-supernatural. I find that problematic.

[Sven]

Even if he is just a dude, almost every positive review I've read of the film describes him as something at least semi-supernatural. I find that problematic.

I do too.

[Rowland]

If nothing else, he's a viking at hiding behind motel room doors.

[eternity]

I don't buy Chigurh being a supernatural figment of anyone's imagination, unless if the entire shebang was all in Tommy Lee Jones' head.

I see him as a man who thinks he is the deliverer of fate, and for most of the film and what precedes the film, he is. People always have the exact same reaction, they ask "Why are you doing this?" and usually all fit under the same mold. Until the end when it all gets thrown out of whack, not only does he kill someone for not succumbing to their fate, which goes against his entire M.O., but then pays his way out of his own fate. Above all else, he's a guy who wants to be larger than life, until the the real omnipresent being of fate kicks him swift in the ass with a boot of irony.

[Derek]

Oh good, a debate about No Country's ending and what Chigurh represents.

*backs away slowly*

[Spinal]

Oh good, a debate about No Country's ending and what Chigurh represents.

American intervention in Korea! No wait, that can't be right.

[Derek]

American intervention in Korea! No wait, that can't be right.

Heh. It's not like I don't love No Country (it was in my top 5), but my god, do we really need yet another debate about whether or not the ending to that film fits or whether or not Chigurh is just a dude or the dude or whatever when there are like 19 other films that could be discussed? I'm not saying it shouldn't be talked about obviously, but it seemed like people were starting to simply restate the same positions we've already covered.

[Ezee E]

Heh. It's not like I don't love No Country (it was in my top 5), but my god, do we really need yet another debate about whether or not the ending to that film fits or whether or not Chigurh is just a dude or the dude or whatever when there are like 19 other films that could be discussed? I'm not saying it shouldn't be talked about obviously, but it seemed like people were starting to simply restate the same positions we've already covered.
So Anton is a reincarnation of "The DUde" Lebowski?

Huh... AWESOME

[Raiders]

So Anton is a reincarnation of "The DUde" Lebowski?

Huh... AWESOME

Actually, I'd say he's a more malevolent version of Sam Elliott's spiritual drifter.

[NickGlass]

I don't buy Chigurh being a supernatural figment of anyone's imagination, unless if the entire shebang was all in Tommy Lee Jones' head.


Surely, you must be joking.

[eternity]

Surely, you must be joking.

No, I'm serious. And don't call me Shirley.

[ledfloyd]

Not to beat a beaten dead horse, but I think Chigurh's "do you see me?" line implies that if he's not Death or the Grim Reaper, he certainly thinks of himself as such.