indieWIRE Poll 2007

Via indieWIRE — "The Critics Speak: Best, Worst, the Auteurs and the Underrated." Below are a couple of sample quotes:

"More people in our world will see Juno than 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. More will see 300 than Offside. More will see Saw IV than There Will Be Blood [above]. Yet we fight on, championing those films that really mean something to us. I find this rage against an always dying light both disconcerting and empowering, and I am thankful for filmmakers like Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Paul Thomas Anderson, Jafar Panahi, Sarah Polley, Pedro Costa, Tsai Ming-liang, the Coens, Todd Haynes, and all of the others who consistently reminded me of why I do what I do and why I love film above all other art forms — especially after suffering through so much artless, formless film chaff (I'm looking at you, Eli Roth)." — Michael Koresky

"Two impeccably crafted movies about two outrageously evil men duke it out for year-end glory. But while 'friendo' haunts my nightmares (and Jonny Greenwood's score haunts my iPod), neither No Country for Old Men nor There Will Be Blood have much of a hold on my psyche. Hear all the grunting? That's the sound of critical heavy lifting as folks attempt to add significance to films that are strikingly devoid of catharsis or reckoning. Both movies ultimately say that violence is part of the American character, always has been. Pardon me if that's a little too John Wayne for my taste." — Joshua Rothkopf

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Additionally, indieWIRE has posted the critics' top 20 choices for the year 2007 in a variety of categories. Curiously, among the top-ten films of 2007 is Killer of Sheep — a 1977 production released earlier this year.

Considering that indieWIRE polled 106 critics from North America (I'm assuming that means U.S and Canada only; no Mexico), it's no surprise that English-language films and performers — mostly American — dominate the critics' top choices. What I did find surprising is that No Country for Old Men was placed in the #3 slot even though it has been the top pick of nearly every single critics' group in the United States, in addition to the Toronto critics.

Also, Cate Blanchett, whose Bob Dylan in I'm Not There has been losing out to Amy Ryan's Bad Mom in Gone Baby Gone as the U.S. critics' choice for best supporting actress of the year, ended up at the top of indieWIRE's list of best supporting performances — male or female. Blanchett was followed by two much-admired murderers, Javier Bardem's psychopath in No Country for Old Men and Casey Affleck's coward in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. (Here indieWIRE explains how the scoring was tabulated.)

Finally, I'm embarrassed to say that to date I haven't watched a single one of the top-ten films listed above. Of the top-ten performances I've only seen two: Julie Christie in Away from Her and Mathieu Amalric in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.