As a public service for readers seeking out excellent films --
specifically, for those readers who put more trust in the Skandies than
in the aggregate results compiled by Metacritic or Rotten Tomatoes -- I'm
going to start keeping a tally of the top ten films released so far this
year as judged by members of the Movie Nerd Discussion Group
you may have seen mentioned here now and again. Basically, we stole and
slightly modified Variety's "crix pix" survey, with its
pro/mixed/con structure; the only difference is that voters can
strengthen their votes at either end with an all-caps PRO or CON. This
project began as a labor-intensive deal whereby everyone e-mailed their
votes to poor Scott Tobias; eventually, Greg Dunlap created an automated
version that also maintains stats, updated weekly. Since the Movie Nerd
Discussion Group has 100+ members, and the Skandies only about 40, the
results aren't precisely congruent, but they're pretty close; of the
Skandies top 20 for 2007, for example, 14 were in the crix pix top 20.
(The six that weren't: Exiled (#27), Into the Wild (#32),
Grindhouse (#34), Once (#38), Atonement (#46), and
Joshua (#51).)
Films without at least ten votes aren't counted, and folks don't always
send in their votes (or even see the films) the week they're released, so
don't conclude that a given title wasn't well-received simply because it
doesn't show up on the list right away.
Numbers in parentheses represent the previous week's placement. Links are
to trailers.
01. The Hurt
Locker (Kathryn Bigelow) (1)
02. Julia
(Erick Zonca) (2)
03. Up
(Pete Docter) (3)
04. Inglourious
Basterds (Quentin Tarantino) (4)
05. Coraline
(Henry Selick) (5)
06. Still
Walking (Hirokazu Kore-eda) (6)
07. Summer
Hours (Olivier Assayas) (7)
08. Hunger
(Steve McQueen) (8)
09. Duplicity
(Tony Gilroy) (9)
10. Two
Lovers (James Gray) (10)
And just for fun, the ten worst-rated films -- though, again, bear in
mind that films receiving fewer than ten votes (which would likely
include most of the truly terrible ones) aren't tallied.
(Total number of films ranked: 127)
127. Gigantic (Matt Aselton)
126. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (Michael Bay)
125. Friday the 13th (Marcus Nispel)
124. The Informers (Gregor Jordan)
123. Fanboys (Kyle Newman)
122. G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (Stephen Sommers)
121. X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Gavin Hood)
120. The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (Tony Scott)
119. He's Just Not That Into You (Ken Kwapis)
118. Fast & Furious (Justin Lin)