News Rick on 02 Jan 2008 11:49 pm
Movie City News has an Über List
Movie City News is keeping track of the year-end goings on; they’ve got a Big-Ass Chart (don’t blame me, that’s what they call it) with upwards of 175 critics’ top-ten lists tabulated. By their reckoning, the film with the most cred on critic’s year-end lists is No Country for Old Men, by a long shot (as if that’s any big surprise).
NCFOM has 897 points, outstripping its nearest competitors There Will Be Blood (492.5) and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (453.5). Fourth after Diving Bell is Zodiac at 439 points and, in a surprising turn, the micro-budgeted Irish indie Once at 345. I just saw Once and was very impressed; I am glad something so far off of anyone’s corporate radar screen did so well.
Rounding out MCN’s über top-ten are Juno, Atonement, Into the Wild, Ratatouille, and Michael Clayton, in that order. Sweeney Todd finished 12th, I’m Not There 14th and The Lives of Others—2006’s Best Foreign Language Film—finished 19th.
One thing that stands out is the absolute dominance of No Country for Old Men, which has—at this writing—almost twice the score of closest competitor There Will Be Blood. That’s the biggest difference since Movie City News began compiling these things five years ago (the next closest was Sideways over Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in 2004). Of course, these scores only reflect how the critics feel at the end of the year; it’s well-known that movies released in the final months of any given year have a better shot come awards season. Both No Country and There Will Be Blood were released in the last months of 2007, but the former was released wide in November, whereas the latter is still in limited release. In addition, No Country for Old Men made a huge splash at Cannes (though it got shut out of the awards there), creating a tremendous buzz.
It will be interesting to see if this critical acclaim translates into Oscar gold . . . the Academy is deeply conservative (artistically, at any rate) and No Country for Old Men is deeply strange. And the brothers Coen haven’t exactly raked in the Oscars in the past . . . even their first masterpiece, Fargo, only managed a Best Actress win. But No Country’s sheer, overwhelming acclaim may finally overcome the Coens’ academy inertia. Time will tell.
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