Earlier this week, I along with 20 other San Francisco film critics assembled at an undisclosed location -- okay, it was a café -- to vote on the best films, best performances and best other stuff of 2007. It's an interesting experience. I spent a few weeks combing through the year's releases, coming up with my own choices. Then I second-guessed some of them, deciding whether I should eliminate certain choices. If I was absolutely certain that someone would make the final ballot, then I would cast a vote for someone more obscure, someone I really liked. After doing that, I scrapped the whole thing and went back to my favorites in each category, regardless of where they placed.
For Best Supporting Actress, I selected Amy Ryan in Gone Baby Gone (301 screens) as my #1 choice, comfortable in my certainty that she was a dark horse and that no one else would pick her. She was far from being the focus of that film, but she knocked a home run in her few scenes as a horrible, drug-ridden mother who has lost her baby girl. As a bonus, she was also in Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (321 screens), a film that also made a decent showing on my personal ballot. (She lost a few points by being in the wretched Dan in Real Life, but gained them back again by being on TV's "The Wire.") In any case, Ryan not only made our final ballot, but she actually won. Congratulations, Amy! My other picks, Taraji P. Henson in Talk to Me, Kristen Thomson in Away from Her, and Maggie Smith in Becoming Jane, didn't make it so far. As for my fifth pick, Cate Blanchett in I'm Not There (148 screens), you've not heard that last of her.
The same happened for Best Picture. I was certain that nobody on the planet loved The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (35 screens) as much as I did, so I placed it at #1, over more obvious choices like No Country for Old Men and Eastern Promises, both of which everybody seems to like. Much to my happy surprise, Jesse James actually won. I was astonished, especially after watching inferior pictures win that award two years in a row (Brokeback Mountain and Little Children). For Best Director, I ranked Andrew Dominik lower, and the Coen Brothers at #1, since Dominik has only made two films, and I'd like to see more from him to make sure Jesse James was no fluke. Once again, I was pleased to see that my #1 choice won!
I didn't fare so well in the documentary and foreign film categories. With such a large group of critics, one can't expect everyone to see every obscure little film, so the films that get the most votes are the ones that come out at the end of the year, and the ones that arrive on Academy DVD screeners on the voters' doorsteps. My favorites were Jafar Panahi's Offside, Alain Resnais' Private Fears in Public Places, Bong Joon-ho's The Host, Corneliu Porumboiu's 12:08 East of Bucharest and Johnny To's Exiled -- all of which are gone from theaters. The Host arrived in screener form, and it did fairly well, but our winner was The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, which I liked a great deal. But I don't think it should have counted, given that the director is American.
As for documentaries, I was flabbergasted to see that my favorite, Into Great Silence -- one of the greatest documentaries I've ever seen -- wasn't considered. I tend to judge documentaries harshly and I look for artistic qualities as well as journalistic ones, so I have a hard time compiling five (even though I saw twenty or more). My #5 choice, which I watched just a couple of weeks ago, was the intelligent and captivating Iraq documentary No End in Sight. I have to admit that, though I put off seeing it, it may be the best Iraq documentary yet and the final word on the subject. It won our award, by the biggest landslide in any category.
1. Any possibility that you might offer some added insight as to how the Chronicle's Peter Hartlaub of the San Francisco Chronicle voted in your meeting?
Hartlaub trashed the Jesse James movie, appearing in his reviews as if he hadn't even seen what he was reviewing. Hartlaub then publicly was taken to task by a professor of cinema from SF State University. Further berating of Hartlaub came from The James Preservation Trust and the family of Jesse James, who stated this Jesse James movie is the best success out 43 previous failed attempts to bring the outlaw to the screen. After the San Francisco critics made their announcement, Peter Hartlaub then stated the film was not his favorite, but he was proud being part of a group that championed overlooked films, trying this time to appear as if the movie was his number one choice.
It would be nice to have some vetting on where Peter Hartlaub really stands regarding the Jesse James movie. Did he dislike it as he wrote in his review? Or, did he think it was number one as the rest of San Francisco critics say?
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Posted at 4:50PM on Dec 15th 2007 by Moonfire