Best of 2007: Christopher Long

---

Tools:
Send to a friend »

---

Top Ten Theatrical Releases of 2007:

1.. Helvetica (Hustwit)
2. Offside (Panahi)
3. Syndromes and a Century (Weerasethakul)
4. 12:08 East of Bucharest (Porumboui)
5. Into Great Silence (Groning)
6. Ten Canoes (de Heer)
7. No End in Sight (Ferguson)
8. Once (Carney)
9. Private Fears in Public Places (Resnais)
10. The Boss of it All (Trier)

Honorable Mentions: I'm Not There (Haynes), Michael Clayton (Gilroy), My Kid Could Paint That (Bar-Lev), Black Book (Verhoeven), Eastern Promises (Cronenberg), Hairspray (Shankman), The Savages (Jenkins), Sicko (Moore), Angel-A (Besson), Atonement (Wright)

The best film of 2007* is… a documentary about a type face. Who knew that so many people could be so passionate about a type face, or that it could provide an ideological battleground for capitalists and socialists, modernists and post-modernists? "Helvetica" proves that there is a story everywhere, simply waiting for the right person to come along and tell it well. Panahi's "Offside" is a modern masterpiece that excels on so many levels, I hardly know where to start: how about the incredible use of compressed space as well as off-screen space? The final shot of "Syndromes and a Century" is my favorite scene of the year: just when you think the film has been seeled up tight, it opens right back up again.

"Ten Canoes" appears to be off of everybody's radar, but placed back-to-back with "The Tracker" (2002), it argues for Rolf de Heer to be taken very seriously as one of today's great directors. "No End in Sight" doesn't do much but summarize the series of disasters currently known as the Iraq War, but damned if that isn't exactly what we need right now. Lars von Trier has embraced "controversy" his entire career, but now indulges in his greatest attack on critical sensibility by making an office comedy. Huh? Now try to stuff him back into his auteur box.

Worst Film of the Year is a tie between Brian De Palma's stupid and offensive "Redacted," and Gavin Hood's offensively stupid "Rendition."

*"Colossal Youth" (Costa) would have been my #1 film, but I put it on my 2006 list, not expecting it to get a (very limited) 2007 U.S. release.

Top Ten SD-DVD Releases of 2007:

1. Killer of Sheep: The Charles Burnett Collection (Milestone)
2. The Films of Kenneth Anger, Vol. 1 and 2 (Fantoma)
3. Edvard Munch: 2-Disc Special Edition (New Yorker)
4. Stranger than Paradise (Criterion)
5. Stanley Kubrick Boxed Set: Sepcial Edition (Warner Bros.)
6. La Jetee/Sans Soleil (Criterion)
7. Berlin Alexanderplatz (Criterion)
8. Two-Lane Blacktop (Criterion)
9. The Three Stooges Collection: Volume One, 1934-1936 (Sony)
10. Breathless (Criterion)

Many critics are voting "Killer of Sheep" as one of the best theatrical releases of 2007 because it took the 1977 film by Charles Burnett 30 years to get its day on the big screen. Regardless of whether you consider it a 2007 film or not, the film's release in theaters and on DVD is one of the most important events of the year for world cinema. The Ken Anger releases are superb, the "Edvard Munch" re-release in a longer director's cut is a must-own, and, of course, Criterion had another phenomenal year: it was difficult to leave off films like "Sansho the Bailiff" and "A Woman Ascends the Stairs."

Please Note - More details:
Be sure to check out the full details under related releases.

---

---